Simon Jenner
Wednesday, 5 August 2020
Pitching it to investors can be a truly terrifying. Here are six steps to think, feel, and be more comfortable pitching to investors.
Posted in:
Startups
However confident you are about your business idea, pitching it to investors can be a truly terrifying concept.
Will they like your idea? Will they like you? Will they choose to fund you?
Funding is a critical component of a scalable startup, so learning to pitch perfectly in front of those people who can offer you both money and expertise is a skill well worth honing.
If you’re not starting up through an incubator with pitching training, it is best to work through these steps to give yourself a fighting chance of getting that funding your business needs.
Step 1: The Elevator Pitch
It’s a classic. You need to succinctly describe what your business does in 30 seconds or less. Make sure you include the service or product you offer, the problem you solve and why you’re different to everyone else. The purpose of the elevator pitch is to pique the interest of the investors, and encourage them to want to learn more.
Step 2: Know Your Audience
Always make sure you’ve done your homework and researched the investors you’re presenting to thoroughly. Find out their background, the type of companies they tend to invest in, how involved they like to be and the business features that excite them. Appealing to their personal tastes will make sure you get their attention.
Step 3: Use Solid Numbers
If you mention a statistic, give the source and make sure it’s credible, relevant and recent.
When it comes to valuations and projections, ensure you use tried and tested methods. If you give specific figures, make sure that you show exactly how you arrived at that number, explaining your method and rationale clearly.
Use as many real, not estimated numbers when pitching to investors as you can get hold of to get more believable results.
Step 4: Tell your story
We all know that when it comes to marketing, storytelling sells. The same goes for your perfect pitch.
Start by giving some background and explain how you came to your business idea. A mix of professional and personal information is great; remember the investors are investing in you, not just your company. Take the story chapter by chapter, demonstrating growth and how you dealt with the challenges you faced.
Step 5: Dress to impress
You may go to work in a t-shirt and jeans (or maybe you’re at home and you’re more of a pyjama person), but chances are, your investors won’t.
Imagine you’re dressing for an important interview. If in doubt, err more on the side of formal. By all means, add your own personal flourishes to show character, but make sure the bulk of your outfit shows your serious, slick professional side.
Step 6: Think beyond the traditional business plan
Go one step further to make yourself stand out and add a successor strategy to your business plan.
If something happened to you, or you decided to leave, who would take over the business? How would their now-vacant role be filled? How long would the transition period be?
When pitching to investors, a successor plan demonstrates your ability to forward-plan, and demonstrates real commitment to the success of the company, even beyond your reign.
You’ll get to pitch in front of real investors, with real money at our Million Labs No-Code Bootcamp. Join today.
Will they like your idea? Will they like you? Will they choose to fund you?
Funding is a critical component of a scalable startup, so learning to pitch perfectly in front of those people who can offer you both money and expertise is a skill well worth honing.
If you’re not starting up through an incubator with pitching training, it is best to work through these steps to give yourself a fighting chance of getting that funding your business needs.
Step 1: The Elevator Pitch
It’s a classic. You need to succinctly describe what your business does in 30 seconds or less. Make sure you include the service or product you offer, the problem you solve and why you’re different to everyone else. The purpose of the elevator pitch is to pique the interest of the investors, and encourage them to want to learn more.
Step 2: Know Your Audience
Always make sure you’ve done your homework and researched the investors you’re presenting to thoroughly. Find out their background, the type of companies they tend to invest in, how involved they like to be and the business features that excite them. Appealing to their personal tastes will make sure you get their attention.
Step 3: Use Solid Numbers
If you mention a statistic, give the source and make sure it’s credible, relevant and recent.
When it comes to valuations and projections, ensure you use tried and tested methods. If you give specific figures, make sure that you show exactly how you arrived at that number, explaining your method and rationale clearly.
Use as many real, not estimated numbers when pitching to investors as you can get hold of to get more believable results.
Step 4: Tell your story
We all know that when it comes to marketing, storytelling sells. The same goes for your perfect pitch.
Start by giving some background and explain how you came to your business idea. A mix of professional and personal information is great; remember the investors are investing in you, not just your company. Take the story chapter by chapter, demonstrating growth and how you dealt with the challenges you faced.
Step 5: Dress to impress
You may go to work in a t-shirt and jeans (or maybe you’re at home and you’re more of a pyjama person), but chances are, your investors won’t.
Imagine you’re dressing for an important interview. If in doubt, err more on the side of formal. By all means, add your own personal flourishes to show character, but make sure the bulk of your outfit shows your serious, slick professional side.
Step 6: Think beyond the traditional business plan
Go one step further to make yourself stand out and add a successor strategy to your business plan.
If something happened to you, or you decided to leave, who would take over the business? How would their now-vacant role be filled? How long would the transition period be?
When pitching to investors, a successor plan demonstrates your ability to forward-plan, and demonstrates real commitment to the success of the company, even beyond your reign.
You’ll get to pitch in front of real investors, with real money at our Million Labs No-Code Bootcamp. Join today.
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