How to Nail Your First Meeting with an Investor: A Four Step Process

As early-stage investors, we get asked quite frequently what makes a startup stand out in their first meeting with an investor. While the actual meeting (or pitch) is clearly important, my answer to this question extends to what happens before and after the meeting, which are equally important as the pitch itself. It is in this continuum that founders have a clear opportunity to shine and differentiate and set a strong foundation for an investment and ongoing relationship.

At Bread & Butter Ventures, we see more than 2,000 deals a year and hear 1:1 pitches from around 750 of those companies. So what makes those great startups standout in that first meeting? I’ll walk you through the best practices to make the most of your investor pitch. This process not only by what we see as investors but also what we’ve learned through our own process of pitching institutional investors when raising our Bread & Butter funds.

Step 1: Landing the Meeting

We believe wholeheartedly in an open-door policy and welcome cold inbound pitches to Bread & Butter (here’s a best practice guide to the cold email) That said, a lot of deal flow to investors comes through referrals from co-investors limited partners, and existing networks of founders and organizations. If you’re looking to talk with a specific firm, do your research and try to identify the exact investor at the firm who is most relevant to your work. Do your best to get an introduction from someone you know in common, or try to find founders they have invested in already who might be willing to provide an intro. (Note: if you can’t find one, definitely still reach out through cold inbound).

Make it as easy as possible for this contact to introduce you by putting together a forwardable email asking for an introduction. This email should be a half-page that clearly and succinctly includes:

a) a clear explanation of what your company does and a line about why you are the best founders to build it

b) a few bullets on momentum and traction on the business

c) why you’re specifically looking to connect with that firm/investor

d) context on why you’re reaching out — that this is in connection with your fundraise of X amount at Y stage.

This “forwardable” makes it easy for the person you’re asking to help to do so and shows the firm you’re looking to connect with that you’ve done your research and are thoughtful in why they might be a good fit. For example, I love getting forwardable notes that show a company has researched and sees we love investing in digital health and have been active in investing in behavioral health and references an investment we have made in the relevant space. This tailored approach is much better than the accidental mail merge of “Hello, Bread. I have an opportunity for you…” which happens more often than you might think!

Investors like us get excited about meeting startups when they fall within our thesis (both sector and stage), are building in a specific area that we get excited about and can quickly articulate why they’re differentiated competitive advantage (founder, product, traction etc).

Step 2: Before the Meeting

Once you have a meeting set, you’re off to the races. When you’re first setting up the meeting, you’ll want to send additional background info and materials (a brief overview deck or executive summary) right away.

Very important: a couple of days before the meeting, send a confirmation email for your meeting. In this note, reattach the background info that you’ve previously sent so it’s at the top of the investor’s inbox, and include a bullet or two of any progress or momentum you’ve made since you first set the meeting. These pitches are often set weeks in advance, so don’t assume the investor you’re meeting with has the context and background at the forefront of their mind. Bumping to the top of their inbox in advance is a best practice that helps ensure the investors can prep and have a productive conversation.

I hear some founders prefer not to send a deck in advance of a meeting. I don’t love that, specifically because I like to prep for the meeting to make the most of the time we have together. This practice respects founders’ time and it avoids me spending the first 12 minutes of a 30-minute meeting trying to understand in realtime what the company does.

Step 3: The Meeting

An intro investor call is often a brief 30 minutes, so it is critical to manage time well (all the more essential to have sent background information in step #2 in advance). In this call, you’ll want to introduce yourself, tell your founder story and the origin story for the business, get through the highlights of the pitch, and touch upon the fundraise essentials — raise amount, use of proceeds, timeline and where you are in the process. Make sure to make time to hear the investor’s intro of their firm and to understand if they are actively deploying capital at the moment. It’s also completely appropriate to ask what their timeline and diligence process typically looks like. We also recommend that you leave time for an investor to ask questions because the types of questions they ask will also help you understand their potential fit as a partner for you.

Try to close on a tangible next step in the meeting (for example, you’ll send the data room and set up a second meeting, or you’ll do a product demo next). One thing to look out for here is — you may have a 25-page pitch deck. Do not try to present it slide by slide, as you’ll find the 30 minutes is up quickly and you haven’t been able to cover the above; the inability to manage time well is a red flag for investors. Practice and make your pitch as clear and concise as possible.

Time management is a superpower here.

Step 4: The follow-up

This is the spot where many founders miss an opportunity to positively stand out. A best practice is to follow up the evening of your meeting or the next morning with an immediate thank you email and a recap of next steps and/or follow up materials that were discussed. Even if it will take you more time to pull together the follow-up information you agreed upon, send this initial note right away and let the investor know you are working on it. You would be very surprised at how rare this is, and it really differentiates founders who have exceptional communication and follow-through, which almost always correlates with strong leadership and company performance.

From here, while you’re in active discussions with an investor, my advice is to check in every 10–14 days during this process if you haven’t had communication. The best check-in is a brief email update with a few bullet points of momentum and progress — could be a milestone achieved on the business side, a nugget of user feedback, update on a new funding commitment, etc — something that shows forward progress and is an opportunity to touch base and keep the process moving forward.

These are some simple but hopefully meaningful tips on how to make sure you hit that first meeting with an investor out of the park. By following these steps or tailoring to meet your style, you can differentiate and keep rising to the top of the inbox and pipeline.