Send your pitch in a PDF or you run the risk of having the design and formatting ruined upon transferring computers. Page 4. 4. Sample Pitch Deck with
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1 Pitching Investors: The Ultimate Pitch Bible Introduction The goal of this document is to provide a real – world best practices approach to creating an investor pitch. Most of the example slides displayed throughout this document will be the actual pitch deck used by a company called Beegit. You can watch the full 13 – minute presentation on YouTube here. Before we delve into the pitch structure materials, here are some helpful tips to keep in mind as you are going through the process of creating and deliveri ng your pitch. Helpful Tips Preparation: Investors are busy people risk losing them for the entire pitch. The best way to avoid this is to QUICKLY get to the problem you are solving. Do h omework on your audience/investors . Why? Because the more you are able to relate your company to what they do or care about, the more likely you are to spark their interest. Find out what kind of companies they fund. It never hurts to attempt to contact a company that was successfully funded by the investors you are going to pitch to and see if the company will give you some guidance on what to expect and best practices. Understand one size does not fit all . Based on your market, business model and technol ogy, you may choose to introduce the product before you introduce the market, or the other way around, for example. You will need to gauge your approach based on your audience and the novelty of the technology. The underlying rule is that the presentation should flow smoothly, while taking the audience through your story. Ensure every slide has a purpose. telling the story and an extra slide can confuse your audience. Any confusion can undermine your credibility. Understand that less is more. No investor wants to or will read a wal l of text on a slide. Use images and key words that the audience can connect to while listening along. C ite your facts. Reference every statistic and claim that you are using to validate your claim is credible. Sell the investor on your business. The pitch deck is the most important SALES pitch you into your business. If it lacks
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2 Stress the ROI. For an investor to invest in your business, you have to make it very clear how they will generate returns on their investment, not how great you think your product really is. You have a great opportunity for the investor if he/she believes that they will make significant returns on their investment, otherwise why would you expect someone to invest? A savvy investor will always be focused on how much funding you will need to raise to be successful, how many different funding rounds you should expect to have over the life of your company and how much dilution their investment will b e subject to. Convey adaptability. Investors are looking for entrepreneurs who are willing to pivot as time goes on. Convey that you are ready to make necessary changes down the road if urate. For example, industry changes or regulations often cannot be predicted and are events that a founder industry. Investors are looking for a reason, any reason, not to invest. If there is anything in your message or slides that gives them pause, then they give them a reason. Inves tors are looking for low risk, high reward. – time – interaction. After the presentation, if you are not funded, take done differently and w hat they would want to see you improve on if you were going to – time – interaction with no second chance. In some cases, companies have pitched to the same investor several times before getting funded. Prepare in advance for funding. This Harvard Business School video titled Foundations of Financing and Capital Raising for Startups provides a straightforward overview of topics such as: preparing your company for the financing process, the different sources of capital, and legal and regulatory considerations. Learn from the experts. For expert tips on the pitch process, School video on Getting Behind Your Pitch and Best Pitch Decks: How to Review examples. Here are resources that provide pitch deck examples: o Pitch Deck Coach sample pitch deck with comments o LinkedIn’s Pitch o Startup Pitch Decks website that shares many pitch examples Pitching: Tell a story that flows. Putting fa cts on slides is important, but it will not get your message across as well as having slides that consecutively build on the next. A good sanity check is to go through your deck and assign one key sentence for what each slide is trying to say and see if th e concepts connect. Pitch by analogy. compare yourself to other, similar companies. Let the best presenter present. There is no shame in letting someone else from your team present if presentation skills are not your personal strength. There is no hard rule that
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3 but not absolutely required. The CEO needs to convey leadership; so one way of demonstrating that you can leverage the capabilities of your team is to empower them to present. Be prepared to take criticism without getting defensive, even if you think th may simply be trying to find holes in your story to see how you handle the situation. Their mentality may be that they are also trying to figure out if they will be able to w ork with you adversity is just going to bring up conflict. Would you hire someone like that for your company? Avoid investment ambiguity. In order to ensure the investor is even interested in your company and that you meet the criteria necessary to receive their funding, do advance research or ask them upfront to clarify their preferences for investment. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is not understanding r ight up front what an investor is looking for in an investment. Sharing Content: Format your pitch for sharing. Create your deck so it can easily be printed or understood in a PDF , which has no animation graphics. If your message requires build slides and other animations, create a separate deck that will be able to stand on its own when printed. Also Send your pitch in a PDF or you run th e risk of having the design and formatting ruined upon transferring computers.
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4 Sample Pitch Deck with Supplemental Advice And Resources This is the suggested flow (order) of slides for your presentation. As mentioned previously, feel free to modify the order of your specific pitch deck if an alternative structure makes it flow better. Investor Pitch Deck Structure 1. Company Purpose / Introduction .. .. .. 5 2. Problem .. .. .. .. 6 3. Solution / Product / Service .. .. .. . 8 4. Traction .. .. .. .. . 10 5. Market Size/Opportunity .. .. .. 12 6. Competition .. .. .. .. .. 13 7. Go to Market Strategy .. .. .. .. 15 8. Financials .. .. .. .. 17 9. Team .. .. .. .. .. 19 10. Summary Slide .. .. .. .. .. 20 11. Appendix .. .. .. .. 21
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5 1. Company Purpose / Introduction Define the company in a single declarative sentence. See examples of introduction slides at Pitch Envy . OR give your 30 second elevator pitch. Your Story. Make sure that you clearly understand and can articulate your value proposition. s School video on Value Proposition. Why should I listen to you? What to Do: This is your chance to begin to orient your audience with who you are, what you do, and The opening slide should be clean and simple. name, logo, and a single declarative statement with a more – or – less blank background. Others would say that along image that helps describe what your company does. For example, if you are in the hotel include an image of a clean hotel room. Prepare a one – page tear – sheet to handout if helpful to support the presentation. Include your contact info on the opening slide.
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6 What Not to Do: Do not sell your product, but instead sell your company. Investors are not buying your product, they are buying into your company/business. Do not cram too much information onto the slide. Simplicity a nd clarity are key. Avoid comparing yourself to market dominators like Amazon and Facebook. Those companies are extremely unique through a combination of tech, smarts, funding and luck. Select companies that are closer to your business model, market and re levance. 2. Problem Imagine that you are trying to convince someone that there is a real issue with something of great concern. You would build your argument by first making sure he/she understood the subject matter you are talking about and that they can did you know that 90% of the country only lik es to drink their coffee or tea when it is hot (according to a really reputable source)? you would want to convey the pain hot beverage drinkers like yourself experience because you want your coffee hot. For example, you might disclose X amount of money and X amount time is wasted nationwide on constantly buying new hot coffee or making tons of trips to the microwave to heat up coffee that has gone cold more facts and figures and even tell a story a who added up his monthly trips to Starbucks because of this problem and found out that with the money he spent he could replace a car payment your own product/sol ution. Describe THE PROBLEM OR PAIN POINT your product or service will solve for without talking about your product. Someone has got to buy into the problem before they hear about solving it (that will come next section, Solution/Product/Service). Define THE NEED (nice to have or need to have) in the case of Beegit, companies need to work more efficiently as a team to create digital content (i.e. time savings & cost savings). Define THE PAIN in the case of Beegit, it is difficult to manage team – produce d digital content due to communication and productivity gaps. Define THE STATUS QUO – how does the customer currently addresses the problem and the extent to which the current solutions solve the problem. Customer discovery is a method used to pain points, please click here for a guide on Customer Discovery .
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8 What to Do: Consider situations that will help you connect with the investors (assuming that is your audience), which may involve doing a little research into their background. Assume that might be unclear. It is your job to not only make them understand, bu t also to make them excited about it. Display market data supportive of the size, extent, or number of people affected by the problem. You need numbers. Who? How much? How often? Make sure to establish how serious the problem is in the market. o Is the probl em Unworkable? Unavoidable? Urgent? Underserved? Click here for an article by entrepreneur/investor Michael Skok that includes sections o n Have a story to illustrate the problem. There is no better way to bring it down to a personal level for an audience that might have no knowledge of your market. Tell the audience how it If the problem is complex, make sure to use visuals. Explain if there was a change or evolution in the in dustry that has led to the need for your What Not to Do: Do not list too many problems. It can be tempting to list all the problems your product solves, but instead you should list the most apparent problems that will directly tie with – adding features Do not list a problem that your product does not solve. The investor will be expecting you Do not fail to cr aft your pitch as a story. 3. Solution / Product / Service What is your solution? o WHAT o WHO: clarify , specifically, who will benefit from your solution. You will have an opportunity to dive deeper into the in the proceeding Market Size slide. o HOW and value proposition). What is the VALUE of your solution? o You can talk about satisfaction and efficiency but you will get the best result
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9 through quantifying the value. Value Proposition o all on one slide Provide use cases. Once again, you should be telling a relat able story. Business School video on Telling Your Story. What to Do: explain how your solution solves a problem in a single sentence, then you run the risk of confusing your audience. Try to have one sentence for every value you believe your product delivers. each solution ties back to a this as you present. ights how it was before the solution and how it is after the example of a before vs afte r from a past LinkedIn pitch . Quantify the value, in a chart if appropriate.
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10 You can choose to follow up with an additional slide on how your early customers have benefited. If there is intellectual property considerations for your product, articulate the underlying claims. What Not to Do: Try not to use big words or acronyms. Do not recite an essay on your product. The audience simply wants to know that it works as described. They will sc hedule a technical deep dive if interested. No need to get too technical. Your explanation should be an inch deep and a mile wide. Be wary of a demo, unless it helps to better sell your company, not your product. Do not spend all of your time listing features versus the benefits tied to the value proposition. Focus on effectively conveying the main value proposition important to the team that complements each other. 4. Traction Growth metrics are key for an early stage star tup. Show growing demand for your solution due to time/money saved or attention gained
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