Perfect Your Pitch

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Transcript of Perfect Your Pitch

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Purpose of a five minute pitch

• Incubators, angel groups, and VC’s see hundreds of pitch decks. On average, VC’s spend less than four minutes looking at them. Entrepreneurs need to perfect a five minute pitch that they can use to provoke interest and get that all important first meeting. Here are some tips we followed to build our own five minute pitch deck.

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But first: Know the venture capital power law• One company in

every VC portfolio will return the whole fund in profit.

• Know what your audience is looking for and tailor your pitch accordingly.

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Your goal

Give investors a compelling reason to want in

Pique interest; Don’t tell

them everything

Ultimately the pitch is about you—

not your business.

Sell yourself

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What people tell you to say• What you do• Why it’s better• Problem being solved• Competitor analysis• SWOT analysis• Barriers to entry • IP• Market size• Team • Track record• Challenges you face• Traction

• Marketing plan• Go to market plan• Exit plan • Industry comparisons• Business model• Past financials• Projections• Deal you’re offering to

investors• How will you spend the money

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What you need to say• What you do• Why it’s better• Problem being solved• Competitor analysis• SWOT analysis• Barriers to entry • IP• Market size• Team • Track record• Challenges you face• Traction

• Marketing plan• Go to market plan• Exit plan • Industry comparisons• Business model• Past financials• Projections• Deal you’re offering to

investors• How will you spend the money

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Keep your elevator pitch..

• Informative– Paint a picture of what you do– Give your audience a point of reference

• Succinct– 10-20 seconds then elaborate based on reaction from the audience. If

they know your industry they may need/want more. • Captivating

– Be deliberate in your word choice. Make it interesting and strive to mitigate confusion.

• Practical – Memorize it, recite it with ease, and make sure it flows.

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• How big is the problem you are solving? • Who does it affect? • How big of an impact does this problem have on

your prospective customers?

Make your audience feel your customer’s pains!

The problem

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The solution

• What are you going to do to solve this problem? – This is your value proposition

• Why is now the time to provide your solution?– Touch on evolution and history of your industry

• Why is it better than what’s already on the market?– Include info about your competitors here

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Market: Make one or take one

• What is your total addressable market?– Quantify your market size in a way that allows investors

to visualize their ROI. • What are the key characteristics of your target

consumer? Are you selling to small businesses? Enterprise? Or B2C?

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Business model

• How does your business make money? Are you charging a recurring fee or a flat rate and why did you choose that model?

• What are your key channels and revenue streams?• Do your math on revenue and conversation rates. • Talk about your customer acquisition costs and LTV.

Then stop!

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Strategy

• Provide a high-level overview of your go-to-market strategy and show that you’ve thought about it, but make sure you don’t forget to talk about your exit strategy. Investors (particularly angel investors) want to know that you plan to exit and aren’t going to be in this business for 10+ years.

• If possible, include multiple paths to exit so investors can see you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

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Team

• Investors want to know that you have an awesome team, but don’t spend too much time going over each of their backgrounds and numerous qualifications. Include a slide with matching headshots and talk about why you love working together then move on.

• Have full bios available in your executive summary that investors can reference later.

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Traction

• Demonstrate that there is interest in your product and you’re not going anywhere.

• Talk about the KPIs you’ve hit. • Showcase any strategic business partnerships

you have made that will help you when it’s time to scale.

• Highlight growth you’ve achieved with bootstrapped funds.

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As for the rest…

• Know it and be able to speak to it, but don’t make the mistake of trying to cram 15 minutes worth of pitch into five minutes. Your audience won’t be able to process it and you risk cutting down on your valuable Q&A time. Keep the remainder of your slides at the back of your deck so you can flip to in-depth visuals if necessary. You only have five minutes so use them wisely!

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Best practices • Shoot for 8-12 slides• Less text but not no text• Animations and videos are tricky and can sometimes take focus away from

the entrepreneur• Hire a designer to refine your slides • Use short sentences when you speak and keep ideas simple • Strong close: give them three reasons to talk to you and encourage

questions • It’s okay to gloss over a slide; sometimes it’s enough to show that you’ve

thought about certain topics without going into too much detail• Prepare sample questions, i.e. “a lot of people ask me…” just in case it

takes your audience awhile to process your pitch before jumping into Q&A• Practice a lot. To anyone who will listen

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