Did you know most successful venture capital firms regularly receive hundreds of business plans each month, and among these, it is not unusual for a VC firm to actually fund only 0.25–0.5%. It might look like a narrow margin but don’t let that ruin your chances for investment. If you’ve got a solid brand, or at least the initial idea to start one, you can use that to your advantage to make a unique pitch that stands out from the crowd.
50inTech spoke with Avital Bayer and Yarin Weltsman from HiPitched to hear their lean methodology of how best to brand your pitch including insights on how to brand, how to collect relevant data, and how to tell the right story. HiPitched is a female-founded business design and strategy agency, based in Jerusalem & Tel Aviv, focusing on compelling branding, strategy, design and scaling.
In case you missed the workshop, watch it remotely here!
Avital Bayer: CEO of HiPitched and previously a Venture Scout in Israel for Founders Factory (UK), and Head of Business Development for Venture Capital fund 83North. Avital is a thought leader when it comes to branding.
Yarin Weltsman: Originally from Johannesburg, Yarin is Chief Design Officer at HiPitched with previous consulting experience for local startups and global clients such as Barclays Bank, Tech Stars and Google’s Leadership Institute, she is a fountain of brand creativity.
To help you brand your pitch to convince investors we’ve put together some of the best pieces of advice from the workshop. As well as a list of the most interesting and useful resources we’ve found. We hope you enjoy these readings as well!
You can also connect with Avital Bayer and Yarin Weltsman on 50inTech. Both women are part of the 50inTech community, so if you’ve got any questions or collaborations in mind, get in touch!
What is a strong brand?
To begin, Avital and Yarin stated that a strong brand is created from inception. This includes the basics of being factual and emotional, but as a whole, your brand is a representation of your product or service. It becomes the bridge between you and your customer. So, if you can get this right, then you can spread the brand across your pitch seamlessly.
HomeThings is a great example of a brand with a personality and a strong focus on social presence. Producing cleaning tabs in reusable glass bottles is their solution to single-use plastic, and it’s the fun, colourful and simple brand that stands out on all their platforms.
“A brand is the personality of a business. It’s the first thing you think of or how you feel when you see a logo or hear its name.” — Avital Bayer
However, if you’re struggling for inspiration to fuel your brand, especially for those who are bootstrapping a brand together, always remember there are a number of great online sources.
To name a few; Pinterest, Behance, Dribbble, and Instagram. If you begin by searching for ‘brand inspiration’ or ‘design inspiration’, the possibilities are endless! Start creating mood boards of your favourite ideas and from there you can start to make your own design decisions.
How do you brand your brand to investors?
The women from HiPitched suggested that if you are going to invest some money, this is where you should do it. If you can sell your brand to an investor, then your initial investment will pay off tenfold. To help us better understand their methodology, Avital and Yarin divided the investors pitch into 4 digestible stages.
Data — Design — Clarity — Traction
Data
Firstly, you need to make sure you know your market. Most industries in 2020 are heavily data-driven which actually makes this stage of the pitch more manageable. Relevant data can be found in industry reports, newspaper articles, and instagram hashtags, all of which should be freely available online. Some reports may require some digging but most of what you need will be accessible. Some of the questions you can answer using this data include:
- Who are your competitors?
- What is your market evaluation?
- Which ideas within the market have been funded?
- What is the projected growth of the market?
Design
This is where your inspiration comes into play. Visual consistency is key, especially if your business already has a website or social channel with a strong brand and personality. Your mission is to replicate this feeling throughout the pitch deck. As a good example from the workshop, Yarin suggested Gynica, a creator of cannabis-based pharmacology for the female body. Their pastel green and pink colour palette combined with strong use of white space are consistent throughout the website, socials and pitch deck. A simple yet clear style such as Gynica’s provides natural professionalism to all aspects of the brand.
“Visual consistency is key to make the brand come through in every slide” — Yarin Weltsman
Clarity
Painting the picture of your brand in your investors’ mind is like telling a story. They need to understand who you are and what you are trying to achieve or what issue you are trying to solve. And to tell a story with clarity it’s best to split it into sections.
- About — a brief intro explaining your business and product/service
- Problem — what issue are you trying to solve?
- Solution — how does your product/service solve this issue?
Each of these slides may benefit from images, graphs, and figures, but make sure that your brand personality is consistent throughout.
“Use storytelling to paint the picture in your investors’ minds” — Avital Bayer
Traction
It can be quite common for investors to say “get back to us when you have some traction”, but this is mainly in response to businesses that haven’t made much impact on their market. An investor wants evidence that people want your solution.
So, if you have a number of happy customers, or an active Partner, or some impressive PR examples, then this is the time to show off. You could even create an annual summary to show where your brand is succeeding and failing to gain traction. By sharing the good and the bad, it helps to paint your brand as an honest one, which most investors will appreciate.
Thank you
A big thank you to Avital Bayer and Yarin Weltsman for running the workshop and sharing their methodology to brand your investors’ pitch. And thank you to everyone that joined the Zoom call and contributed to the Q&A. If you still haven’t had the chance to listen, the workshop link is at the top of this article.
Whether you’re at the beginning of a new brand or redesigning your current business, hopefully, we can all take something away from this to benefit our next investors’ pitch. If you have any questions or ideas after reading this, comment below and share them with the community!
We’ve included some interesting resources below to add to the article, but feel free to suggest any other useful resources. We’re always looking to learn more.
Thanks for reading!
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