Welcome to Part 1 of the pitch series, where we explore the art of conveying your full story to the audience in a concise and impactful 5 to 10-minute presentation.
Why is Learning to Pitch Important? A random Pitch once led to a whole article in Entrepreneur Magazine featuring me and my businesses
Whether you’re seeking investors, engaging potential clients, or sharing your vision at a networking event, crafting an effective pitch is essential for any entrepreneur and these opportunities can happen anywhere whether you have a pitch deck ready or not. In this guide, I break down the key elements of a compelling pitch and offer tips on tailoring your message to your specific audience.
Preparing for Pitch
When focused on attracting the attention of investors crafting a compelling pitch that effectively communicates your value proposition, showcases your potential for success, and ignites investor interest is essential. Before creating the perfect pitch make sure you have 3 things:
- Data and Content
- Story
- Flow
Data and Content and Flow we will talk about in the form of slides and how they link together, but for a moment let us first focus on the Story.
Story
While you are working on creating the slides with flow as mentioned below it’s crucial for you to NOT constantly be looking at the slides when presenting. Doing that conveys you have to read about your own startup and have no idea what to actually say about it in your own words. When investors or any audience see you do that, they will get the feeling that the idea is not fully formed, or that you have no idea what you are actually talking about.
While the slides are up on the screen, everyone can read them so what are you exactly adding to it? Why should people be focused on what you are saying when they can read it on the screen themselves which is much faster because there will be no filler words that people tend to use during conversation such as “like”, “um,…”?
So focus on making sure that you are not reading from the slides and a good way to do this is by creating the story first. For each slide mentioned, write a paragraph in the notes below your slides in a normal conversational tone as if you are telling your story to a friend. Once the paragraphs are written use the highlights from it to create the slides and THEN add the data and content in the forms of pictures, charts, and tables where possible so there is less text to read and more of a pictorial representation of what you are saying.
This full pitch will likely be something you need to present to investors when you are invited to your first 1-on-1 meeting in their office. But is also the starting point for the 2-3 min and elevator pitch as it helps you narrow down the story when you go from 5mins to 2mins to 10secs.
Flow
Once the story and data are ready, go back to the notes and rewrite the flow of the story to the slides.
Make sure that the animations and graphics you have added appear in the same sequence that you are talking about them.
Make sure the transitions of the slide to the next does not mean that you take a long pause in what you are saying.
For example, imagine what would happen if the person controlling the slideshow loses track and doesn’t change the slides in time with what you are saying, will you wait for them to change the slide and lose precious time that you have to deliver the pitch? or if there is a power failure or other technical difficulty before the next slide can be opened, will this totally stop you from saying what you were saying? The story and flow come not from what’s on the slides but rather from the paragraphs you write down in the notes.
By creating a smooth flow of the story from one slide to the next, you are more likely to remember it without ever having to look at the slides.
Sometimes it is okay to look at the slides for a prompt of what comes next in your story but a transcript of everything you say during your pitch will read exactly as a normal storybook, not headings and bullet points.
You’ve got to promote your product, but it’s important to do it in a way that’s straightforward and makes sense. The simplest approach is to first pinpoint a problem. As the American inventor Charles Kettering wisely put it, “A well-stated problem is halfway to being solved.”
One of your initial moves should involve presenting the issue to the investor, rather than jumping straight to the solution especially if your startup does not have a lot of direct competitors. Get specific about the problem, aiming to get the investor on board with acknowledging its existence. Avoid trying to tackle too many problems all at once. Clearly explain the problem’s scale, why it matters, and who will benefit from its resolution.
Once the problem is clearly outlined, you can then introduce your solution.
Looking at the pitch through these basic principles will help you break down your business proposal to its core, allowing you to present your idea to an audience in a coherent and comprehensible manner.
Tailoring Your Pitch
Remember, your pitch must adapt to your audience. While the slides may remain constant, tailor your speech to suit the specific needs and interests of your listeners. This is also why you will never have to change your slides every time you have a different audience. What you are saying and how much you are focusing on it will change instead.
For instance, if you’re not pitching to investors, spend less time discussing financial details. If you are pitching to investors and have less than 5mins to do it, make sure you highlight the financials (revenue, costs, how you make money) early on in the conversation.
Keep your pitch concise, avoiding unnecessary details, and industry jargon that no one outside of your industry will understand. Craft a compelling narrative that engages people emotionally, and intellectually, and can be understood by your grandparents.
Now that you have the basics down, let’s discuss each slide and what are some questions you can ask yourself when trying to write the story for each slide.
Slide 1: Introduction – Your Business Name and Tagline
Introduce your business and share your tagline, which succinctly captures your mission and value proposition. A powerful tagline can leave a lasting impression on your audience, so choose your words wisely. Start with a captivating hook to draw them in and maintain their interest throughout. This tagline is the VISION of your business.
Slide 2: Pain & Gain – Identifying the Problem and Market
Here’s where you delve into the heart of your pitch. Clearly outline the problem your business aims to solve and emphasize its impact on people. Quantify the global scale of the problem to highlight its significance.
Investors want to know that there is a substantial market for your product or service. Clearly present the market research, demonstrating the size, growth potential, and trends of your target market. Investors need to see a significant market opportunity and your ability to capture a share of it.
If you are in the very early stages of your business it’s not a great idea to show the TAM, SAM, SOM in Billions of Dollars that investors do not care about unless you have a plan to show how exactly you get money from that opportunity.
So how do you show the size of a market without the big dollar amounts? You show the number of people it affects (locally or globally)! “affects 10 million people globally”, “10000 people in the small town of XYZ have this problem and it’s even more aggravated in bigger cities”, “30% people globally suffer from …”. If the problem is affecting hundreds or thousands or millions of people, and you have the right solution to solving the problem, the money will come.
This is why doing thorough market research is important and it prevents you from adding unrealistic forecasts. Investors dislike baseless multi-million projections. Evidence-based numbers matter. Consider market risks and competition for accurate projections. Justifying any number you mention in the pitch or business model with proof is vital.
Questions to ask: What problem are you solving? What are the effects of that problem on people? How many people does this problem currently affect globally? What would solving that problem do for those people? Is the market big and growing?
How type of business affects showcasing market size:
Startups Seeking Venture Capital: Show Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), or Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) so investors know that your startup is in a multi-Billion dollar market growing at a steady rate which is important to VCs. If you are early stage, only mention TAM and the number or percentage of people the problem affects.
SMBs: If you have a small or medium-sized business your market size does not have to be billions of dollars but you can still focus on the number of people you will serve. “8,000 people in a 5-mile radius of our shop have no other way to get this product”.
If you do not have a product that serves multi-billion markets, venture capital might not be the best funding option for you. So let’s talk and figure out which option will serve your purposes best.
Slide 3 and 4: Solution – Demonstrating Your Product
To make your pitch more engaging, demonstrate your solution in action. If you have a tangible product, provide a live demo. If it’s still in the early development phase, use mock designs to help the audience visualize your offering. This step can help create a sense of excitement and anticipation for your solution.
After introducing the solution to the problem, introduce the demo. Solution is NOT your product, solution is what your product does or will do once it reaches its final form.
For example, solution to the problem of limited cabs for transportation is an app that lets you call a car right to your doorstep, and then your demo could be Uber, Lyft, Ola, or whatever your product looks like to serve that solution.
Questions to ask: How are you solving the problem (What is the solution)? How does the solution work? How does it make things better (faster/ stronger/ happier/ efficient/ safer…) for the people?
How stage of startup affects demo:
At early Pre-Seed you may not have a fully built version of the product so you can show demo mockup graphics of what it would look like once built. If you do have a functioning prototype / MVP of the product and if its already been launched in the market, add pictures or videos of it in action to the slides.
Slide 5: USP – Unveiling Your Unique Selling Proposition
What sets your solution apart from existing alternatives? Identify your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and explain why it’s better, innovative, or different from the competition. Highlight how customers will benefit from choosing your solution over others, and make a compelling case for why your approach is the way forward.
If you are showcasing a differentiation between yourself and competitors by showing features that your product has that the competing product does not, pick only the features that actually matter to customers, not the features where you are better than your competitor.
For example, if you built a shoe that lets people jump high and lights up the path ahead in the dark, and your competitor’s shoe does not, you want to showcase WHY jumping high matters to the customers you are targeting. If your target customer is 70 to 90-year-old adults, jumping high is not their top priority. So even though your product has a great feature, it does not provide the benefit to the customer in any way and is not a differentiating factor from your competition’s shoe. If your ideal customers are high school athletes the lights in the shoes are not needed for playing sports in a brightly lit gymnasium.
Questions to ask: What is your unique selling proposition? What makes your new solution better/ innovative/ different than the ones that currently exist? How are your customers impacted by this new approach compared to the old one?
Slide 6: Traction – Demonstrating Progress and Success
Showcase the impact your solution has had on customers so far. Provide concrete evidence of your achievements, such as facts, data, customer testimonials, partnerships, PR coverage, and grants received. Demonstrating traction helps build credibility and instills confidence in potential investors or clients.
Questions to ask: Show off the impact on customers who tried your solution. Show your successes so far using FACTS and DATA on progress made, partnerships done, PR coverage, grants received, etc.
How stage of startup affects traction:
In the early stages, you may not have a lot of traction, so showcase a timeline of milestones you have achieved and will achieve in the near future that you have planned for, and how you to hope to achieve it. No matter how small the traction is still mention it. If you’ve been in business for a month and have 3 well-paying customers, that is still impressive, but showcase how you got them, how much they love your product, and their written feedback if any.
Slide 7: Business Model – Presenting Your Financial Plan
Explain how your business generates revenue and illustrate the opportunities for growth in the coming years. Share your plans for scaling in terms of locations, product lines, industries, customer segments, and technology. Tailor this section to your audience; for investors, emphasize financial projections, while for other stakeholders, focus on the broader impact and potential for expansion. Use your Business Model Canvas to give a high-level picture and fill in the blanks on this slide regarding your business.
Questions to ask: How are you getting paid (show numbers)? What are the opportunities for growth and how do you plan to scale (locations, product-line, industries, customer segments, technology) in the next 3-5 years (in an ideal scenario)?
How stage of startup affects financials:
Pre-Seed / Friend & Family: At this stage you likely haven’t had a chance to figure out the best pricing that works for your customers so show a plan of how you intend to figure it out, and the ranges of prices your customers are willing to pay.
Seed / Angel: Show unit economics and the pricing that is working for your startup or that you are testing for each type of customer
Series-A: Show unit economics (CAC, LTV), pricing, all major costs, all major revenue numbers, and overall profit margins
Slide 8: Team – Showcasing Your Dream Team
Highlight the strengths of your team that make them the best fit for executing this solution. Present the individual skills of the founding members and explain how their combination enhances the solution’s development. Share your passion for the project and why it’s crucial for you to bring this idea to life.
Demonstrating a strong and cohesive team with relevant experience in the industry you are solving the problem in, inspires confidence and reassures investors that you have what it takes to execute your vision.
You can move this slide right after the solution slide as well or keep it as the last slide.
Questions to ask: What makes your team the best group to carry out this solution (so the investor will be motivated to give you the capital)? What are the individual skills of the founding members and how does a combination of their skills benefit the solution being built? Why are YOU passionate about building this solution or why is it important FOR YOU to build it?
Slide 9: Investment – Seeking Funding and Support
If you’re seeking investment, be transparent about the capital invested in your company thus far and major sources. Outline how much additional funding you’re looking to raise and precisely how it will be utilized. Provide an estimated timeline for when you expect to raise again. Express what additional value you’re seeking from investors, such as industry knowledge or connections.
Questions to ask: How much capital has been invested in the company so far and where did it come from? How much of if was your own? How much are you planning to raise now? What will it be used for? How long will it last till you raise again? What will this investment help accomplish and in how much time? What else would you like from your ideal investor (industry knowledge or connections)?
ONLY ask for the money you need. Do not say a number that makes no sense and is not backed by proper financials. Don’t ask for money for marketing now if you are 2 years away from actually launching the product. Fundraising will happen in stages every 6-12-18 months, you are not raising a big amount to last you 5 years, so focus on the top 3 or 4 priorities you have for the next 12 months and only ask money for that. Also, calculate your monthly expenses and the revenue coming in, this will give you an idea of what you need to raise.
Investment = The money you need per month x 18 months to keep the operations running for about the next 1.5 years.
For example, if your burn rate is $100 per month you need $1800 in investment.
Investors are usually of the belief that if you cannot survive (with slow and steady growth) the next 5 years WITHOUT any outside investment then your startup is not worth investing in. Investors are not there to offer the company a bailout or give charity.
Slide 10: Call to Action – Encouraging Engagement
End your pitch with a strong call to action. If seeking investment, urge potential investors to support your team and solution, explaining the returns they can expect. If this is a pitch deck you are sending over email and not presenting in person, you can combine the Call to Action to the investment slide depending on how much space you have.
Alternatively, if it’s not an investment pitch, guide your audience on their next steps or offer to answer any questions they may have if there is time set aside for a Q&A at the end.
Additional Tips:
Sometimes you will need 2 slides to explain a concept, for example, your traction or business model might not fit on a single slide depending on your design. It is okay to expand that over multiple slides but does not mean you should add any long paragraphs simply because you have space to fill. Keep the maximum number of slides to 15 so you can cover it in about 7-10 minutes leaving time for Q&A.
If you are presenting in person or on video calls its okay to have slides with animation. But if you are sending the pitch deck on email or in PDF form, you will not need any graphics.
In Part 2 we’ll discuss which slides to focus on for a pitch that lasts only 2-3 minutes at a pitch event and where you still have to show the presentation on screen. You can use this shorter version to create a video pitch to be shared with investors if you are sending them a cold email.