Movie-trailer pitch decks and speaking VC - the dark art of the startup pitch
Here’s some advice from founders who know a thing or two about pitching.
IT IS DIFFICULT to define what exactly makes or breaks a startup, but sometimes it can come down to one pitching session.
Botching a chance to impress investors can mean your startup will have no capital, and without capital a startup can’t survive.
And in Ireland the process can be particularly cruel, with the relatively small pool of funding to go around making the scrap for investment that bit tougher.
ClearPreso founder Ed Fidgeon-Kavanagh is crafting a living out of helping startups fine tune their pitches and he tells Fora there is one trap most startups fall into when selling their idea.
“An alarmingly high amount of pitchers never articulate how they’re actually going to bring their product or service to market,” he says.
“They forget that it’s not about the idea it’s about how you’re going to make a business out of it. People want to invest in businesses, not startups.”
Facebook's 2004 pitchdeck
Speaking investors’ language
Learning how to think and speak like an investor is one definitive way to improve your pitching technique, according to InTouch co-founder Tim Arits.
He recently raised a seed round worth €150,000 from the National Digital Research Centre for his company, a cloud-based address-book app that updates your contacts’ information so you don’t have to.
When pitching, he says it is important to consider the investors’ mindset.
“There are two different fears that drive decisions for investors … the fear of missing out on a big opportunity and the fear they will invest in a company that will flop.
“In your presentation you should try to show the opportunity so that they will see that this is a big chance that’s going to change the world.
“On the other hand you try to lower the risk and give them as much information as possible to show that people will start using the product.”
Spending power
Deposify founder and chief executive Jon Bayle has just finished raising a successful €1.1 million round for his company, which specialises in handling deposits between landlords and tenants.
Bayle says too many startups get hung up on raising the gold standard €1 million and forget to break down what they intend to spend this funding on.
“It’s very rare investors get a credible explanation there and then about where the money is going to go,” he says.
“You have to ask what am I raising this for and what milestone do I want to hit.”
The original pitchdeck Airbnb used to entice investors
Movie trailer pitch deck
Since each investor surveys their options in different ways, Fidgeon-Kavanagh says it is also important to have a pitch deck for nearly every occasion.
“For a first time meeting you really have to have a movie trailer version of your pitch, quality investors are busy people and typically are always pretty tight on time.
“If people want to find out more you can have the full presentation, which should still be more short film and less Lawrence of Arabia epic.
“You’ll also need a version of your pitch you can send to people by email for those situations where you can’t meet face to face. This is the book the movie was based on.”
