What is one technique you have used to perfect and win over investors to receive funds for your startup?
To help you perfect your pitch and win over investors for your startup, we asked startup founders and business owners this question for their best techniques. From showing how unique and groundbreaking your product is to focusing on your value creation story, there are several techniques that are most effective for getting your pitch right and winning investor funding for your startup.
Here are eight techniques these startup leaders employed in perfecting their pitch and winning over investors:
- Show How Unique and Groundbreaking Your Product or Service is
- Develop a Strong Business Plan
- Support Your Pitch With Visual Aids
- Never Send a Deck Before Your Face-to-face Pitch
- Hire a Professional to Help You With Your Pitch Deck
- Get Professional References to Speak on Your Behalf
- Simplify and Summarize Your Data
- Focus on Your Value Creation Story
Show How Unique and Groundbreaking Your Product or Service is
You can have all the increasing sales and impressive numbers in the world, but investors also want to see you’re creating a successful bigger picture. For instance, a common mistake is focusing too much on the numbers side of your startup and not enough on how unique and groundbreaking your product or service is. Investors want to be part of something full of ingenuity and innovation. More than just numbers, show investors how they’ll become part of a company that will be disrupting an industry in a big way.
Trey Ferro, Spot Pet Insurance
Develop a Strong Business Plan
Having a business plan to present to investors is one of the best ways to receive funding for your startup. When investors see that you have a thought-out business plan in place, it helps them feel more confident that they will see a worthy return on their investment. Developing a strong business plan will help you win over investors so that you can receive the funding you need to level up your startup business.
Bill Lyons, Griffin Funding
Support Your Pitch With Visual Aids
Any time you can provide succinct visual aids, like a demo video, prototype, or beta test results, the quicker people understand the problem and your vision of how to uniquely solve it. While slide decks and pitch presentations are important, quickly gaining the interest and agreement of your audience will allow you to demonstrate other key elements of your start-up plan. If investors don’t agree there is a problem to solve early on or that you are equipped to solve it, explaining the market forecast, cost of goods and branding will be lost on them. Show and tell in all fundraising efforts so your idea can shift spectators into investors.
Tommy Chang, Homelister
Never Send a Deck Before Your Face-to-Face Pitch
Many investors will ask you to send your pitch deck before meeting. This is a terrible idea. The deck will be void of the most important element of all—you. They won’t see your passion for your project or the nuances in your presentation compared to what’s on the slides.
Instead of the deck, send them a one-pager that outlines some of the key benefits of your project. Then, go the extra mile and send them a two-minute video where you passionately describe the benefits of your project.
The note that accompanies these items should briefly explain that you wanted to fulfill their request and send some highlights to see if it’s worth a conversation. Promise them that you can send the full deck after meeting face-to-face either in person or virtually. Then, ask for a meeting. Any materials you send by email have one purpose: to get the meeting. So, include just enough details to get them excited, and tease them with access to even more juicy information if they do the meeting.
Dennis Consorte, Snackable Solutions
Hire a Professional to Help You With Your Pitch Deck
Hire a marketing expert to help write and organize your pitch deck. All startup founders have an understanding of marketing – but an extra set of eyes and expertise gave us the edge we needed to stand out to investors. Startups need to save money where they can, but investing in marketing materials ultimately will help win investors over. It’s a no-brainer.
Breanne Millette, BISOULOVELY
Get Professional References to Speak on Your Behalf
Having professional references is one often overlooked way to win over investors and receive funding for your startup. If you are at a point in your career where you want to become an entrepreneur, chances are you have worked for some people in the past. Reach out to previous bosses, or even professional colleagues, and see if they will speak on your behalf. Once your potential investors have a better understanding of your character and professional experience, you will be more likely to receive funding from them.
Gerald Lombardo, The Word Counter
Simplify and Summarize Your Data
Investors like data. It diminishes the need to make assumptions or move on a hunch. But data is useless if no one understands it. You can’t expect every investor to be able to understand the stats you bring to them in the same way. Becoming proficient at translating data into layman’s terminology can make a huge difference in how investors think about proposals.
The easier it is for potential investors to understand what they’re looking to invest into the less time and effort it will take for them to make an informed decision.
This can help speed up the process of gathering funds for a venture, and make sure that those investing have a thorough understanding of what sort of venture they are placing their money into.
Caleb Ulffers, Haven Athletic
Focus on Your Value Creation Story
Focus your pitch around your value creation story and how you attract and win customers. Vision-casting is a great way to articulate how you plan on creating value for your customers, your employees, and your investors. Your long-term vision may not always include a specific exit strategy – “We have 3 potential acquirers in the next 3-5 years…”.
By over-architecting who you might be exciting to, you may miss early value-creation strategies by focusing too much on what that potential acquirer may be looking for. Focus on creating value. By focusing on and creating value, your potential investors and their monies will see exit opportunities.
Roman Villard, Full Send Finance
