Making a winning pitch
You are a startup. An early-stage venture capital fund has invited you to make the pitch for funding. Congratulations! Now prepare for the pitch.
The investors expect you to summarize the entire startup in less than five minutes. The stress builds up. Venture capital managers are known less for offering a calming effect.
How do you calm down, sharpen your message, and impress professional investors on pitch day? Many factors come into play. I am describing a few common ones here:
CTA (Call to Action)
Like watching a movie, the audience will remember only one or two things about your pitch. I remember Tom Cruise climbing Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Rest is a blur.
Tell the audience what you want. An investor? A customer? A strategic partner? Construct the entire pitch around that Call-to-Action.
Don’t end your pitch with “Let’s talk more later.” Challenge the audience to do something now. Offer an incentive or a concession that is easy for you to give but is of value to the audience. Make your offer time-bound to add urgency.
Make your pitch memorable and actionable.
Simple and Intuitive Design
The audience may have never heard of you or your product. Investors will use your presentation to judge your product quality. Construct a simple and intuitive design — minimum text, simple background, and one message per slide. Avoid using video clips. They distract.
Invite interactivity
The first few times you present, you will not be at your best. That’s because there’s so much more to public speaking than words and slides. You may sound like a robot reading a message to a confused audience. You must interact with the investors and feed off their energy.
Run trial presentations of your material in low-pressure situations. I have presented to groups of strangers willing to listen at Panera Bread, Starbucks, and the Princeton Library conference room. Practice. You’ll be much more ready to pitch to real investors or customers.
Practice making mistakes
Something always goes wrong in the actual pitch. Duplicate slides show up. The PowerPoint presentation needs notes on the proper slides. The audience needs help understanding one or more of your jokes.
Practice something going wrong – anything to throw you off your plan. Practice making the pitch with and without slides.
Most audience members won’t notice if you get stuck for a second. They won’t know if you missed making a not-so-important point. Relax and get back into the rhythm.
Create the mood
Get to the event location comfortably early. Keep the whole day free of distractions. Test the audio-visual equipment, and get comfortable with the environment. Skim through your pitch once or twice.
You’ve practiced numerous times for this moment. You are ready.
Make a killer pitch
Often entrepreneurs stress about the pitch day for weeks or months. They make mistakes at every pitch practice session. And then, they get in front of the investors and make the best pitch ever.
Relax. Stay calm. Be yourself, and you will make a killer pitch.
Close the deal
Ask to close the deal right after making the pitch. To use the cliche, strike while the iron is hot. Tell the investor or a potential customer to sign that agreement. Offer closing concessions contingent on their agreeing and signing the deal right now.
Win over that prominent investor or customer.
I would love to hear about your experiences! Please share your stories at satishmehtausa@gmail.com. Please forward this knowledge letter to those who could benefit from it. They can subscribe to it here or by clicking on the link below.
Thank you,
