How to go beyond general startup presentation: 4 tips inside

Introduction

A successful pitch is what any startup founder is dreaming of. And here by success we mean an investor’s intent to actually fund your project.

How can you achieve this?

There are already tons of materials on how to make a killer pitch deck. And while all these guides and how-to’s do contain a lots of useful tips and tricks that entrepreneurs willingly apply, it often happens that many pitches look the same and are not much different from one other.

So, what can you undertake to stand out with your product pitch and to get YES from an investor?

Let’s take a look at how presentations to investors are held and what makes a good pitch actually. In this article we will focus mainly on startups that have just come up with a primary business plan and / or have started developing MVP already.

General overview of startup presentation

Everybody knows that a startup needs to have an idea, to prepare a speech and a pitch deck to approach investors.

And it’s true. But what else should be added here? The approach used to demonstrate an idea, write a speech, and format a pitch deck will depend on the type of an investor, a contact with an investor and a funding round.

We won’t go deep into details of funding rounds because this is a broad topic and it will distract our attention from the main subject. What should be mentioned here is that we are talking about early stages which are pre-seed and seed. You can find a detailed information about the funding rounds in the Medium article or in this startup guide.

What types of investors fund early stages startups?

Usually these are accelerators partners, angel investors and seed firms. You can find and reach almost all investors via LinkedIn. However, investors, like most other people, want attention and like recommendations. Get to know them before contacting and use introductions to reach them. Be interested in investors as individuals and remember that the relationship are not built overnight.

Investors want to invest when there is somebody else who also wants to invest.

Show investors that there is competition.

Are you already thinking “where should I take first investors” right now?

These should be your friends, relatives and good peers of your friends, relatives etc. The main mistake here is that founders don’t bother a lot about the presentation when they are going to meet somebody they or their friends know. You shouldn’t make this mistake and prepare properly.

What should you necessarily have to meet investors?

• Founder’s speech. This is a must-have because you can’t keep silence. You will use this artefact at each type of the meeting.
• MVP. It can be functional or just a clickable prototype/demo. You’d better decide what type to use to demonstrate your idea.

Paul Graham, YCombinator Founder: “If you have to choose between spending time on the demo or the business plan, spend most on the demo. Software is not only more convincing, but a better way to explore ideas.”

• Pitch deck. A pitch deck can be of two types: a short and a full versions. Usually a short version is used for meeting in the conference room and a full version for sending the pitch deck over email after the meeting.

What are the key content points you should include into the presentation?

All accelerators and seed firms say that the best structure for a pitch deck is to be built according to the following scheme: problem-decision-product value.

The new structure will not attract attention, but only push the investor’s attention away from understanding the essence of the project.

Again we won’t go into detail here, because you can find a good picture of what should be included here.

However, we will focus on what a strong description of your startup is:

This is a one-sentence (or better a short phrase) describing your idea

+a sentence about what problem your product solves and how (solution+product)

+a sentence about growth (current or potential) with evidence, if possible

+a sentence about why you are the best startup for this idea

+a sentence about why this investor is the best for your idea

+a sentence showing you have interest from other investors (if any)

By including this into you speech, pitch deck, emails etc. you will ensure a clear communication of your startup and its growth.

What can be done to exceed investors’ expectations?

Tip 1 Grab investor attention with Videos

Do you know the price of a first impression? The power of the first impression is to -influence the decision to support your startup idea or not. That’s why you need to do something inspirational for the investors. In our experience, video presentations have proven to be effective.

With the help of video, you can show your upcoming products and/ore their functionality way before the production starts. That is where you can even save money on a prototype development and get investment to bring your idea to life . These ways can be even more effective than a business plan. Investors get a visual representation of your products and benefits from funding a startup because they will see how they work.

For example there are several types of successful video presentations from Slon Media. Each of them gets money for growth:

Describing the ideas.

The video for Wanna Kicks shows how to try-on different models and colors of sneakers quickly through augmented reality. It demonstrates the whole functionality of the app before production. It also gets investment into idea verification. So, they saved 1 billion $ for the development and got money for the growth of the app.

Showing the problem and the way your product solves it.

The best example here is a video for OneSoil — the first interactive map with detected fields and crops in the US and Europe. The video clarifies how to check plant health levels and shows how to identify vegetation zone. So, this video helped farmers to understand opportunities for search of fields and assisted owners to attract investment for growth.

Letting people know how your ideas can help.

The product video for a fitness tracker and app Rocketbody helped to raise funds on the Kickstarter platform and get investments from venture funds. The video demonstrates how this fitness app can help people to get healthier. It also assisted the owner to convey the idea of how to collect money from the target audience for future growth. And, the most important thing, they identified the demand opportunities for a fitness app and understood the ways for growth.

The startup video presentation is a good idea to describe products before production. In certain cases it can be much more illustrative than business plans and make a great first impression by illustrating all the killer features that a product has. That is why it is more effective for attracting investments.

Tip 2 Show interest from early users or customers

Early users are one of the evidence of your future product sales growth. Nor that it’s the most strong one, however, investors like it because

• it shows founder’s and his team’s strength. Building a multi-billion dollar company is nearly impossibly hard. When investors invest they can’t believe just in the idea, they need assurance that YOU as a founder will be able to build this company. And attracting early users and customers without a fully functioning product is one of the showcasing evidences of your strength. Sure thing you’d better have an MVP and a video (see tip 1) to start attracting early users.
• it’s one of the facts showing you product has a potential in the market (there is a demand for your product). Indeed, demonstrating users and customers interest and intent is really a much stronger fact than just analytical figures in your pitch deck.

You can capture this intent in a number of ways. In a formal way, you can create a Letter of Intent which would be the equivalent of a sales contract but without the actual sale. If that sounds too formal, getting some recorded testimonials in print, audio, or video would help as well.

When you attracted first users — stay in touch with them. For example, if there is a landing page with a description of your idea, then add a form to subscribe for updates from your startup. And regularly send news about the progress to your subscribed followers.

By the way don’t use Google ads to attract new users. At least, do it for a lesser part of your user base. Investors don’t like it if this is the only way of acquiring users. You want to find acquisition paths that don’t cost money. Word of mouth is the best way to grow.

One of the great options to spread information about your startup is to use online platforms to grow your audience. See the next tip for details.

Tip 3 Build online presence

Presence on social media and online platforms also contributes to your success. Why is that?

Today this is one of the major means of communication, and potential investors actively use it. That is, from online platforms and your activity there others can get to know you better and thus build an initial level of trust. And it works the other way around: having checked investors’ social profiles, you get some insights about his personality, what interests and motivates him. Take your chance to apply these insights to personalize and customize your approach to investors and further pitch!

Apart from that, online platforms give you an opportunity to meet like-minded people, who can become your early adopters if they feel like your products resonates with their needs. And if you already have an online community around your upcoming product — that’s even better, you have certain people with a sense of loyalty and belonging to your product. If you don’t have one yet — it’s definitely time to go to Reddit, Product Hunt, Kickstarter, or Indiegogo. And, as mentioned above, having a certain group of early adopters is an important factor in making investors believe in your product.

There are bright examples when a strong community has contributed a lot to quick scaling of a product. Duolingo case is one of them. With the great help of community volunteers, the company released the Incubator platform aimed to give life to new language learning courses. Without community. Duolingo wasn’t able to offer such a wide range of courses because their team size was actually limited.

Shapeways, a 3D printing solutions provider, rely on their community to ensure that they have built something valuable, as well as to define the variants for improvement. They actively involve community members who seem to care the most about their solutions to products discussion sessions.

Tip 4 Immerse investors into your story

While estimates and figures are all important for a business person to make a decision, don’t over perform with them. Don’t forget — investors are also humans, and would love to know the story behind a startup.

Be sure to tell what inspired you on such a product creation, and which pain points that kept you awake at night are you trying to address. Don’t be shy to tell about success and failures while testing your hypotheses. Like: “I’ve tried this — doesn’t work, I’ve tried that — no success either. But I knew there was a way to achieve that. So, I came up with a different and a bit crazy approach… and that worked!”. That would sound truly engaging.

Along this story to your personal background — how this idea resonates with you and how it would change your life. Next, align it to your audience’s background — why you believe hundreds of people would thank you for this. And, if you can, show that your project can make the lives of your potential investors way much easier too, once your it goes live.

An engaging story about your product will definitely increase your chances to conquer the hearts of investors and gather sufficient funding.

Summary

To summarize, let’s say: compiling a pitch deck and building MVP based on generally accepted principles and recommendations won’t be sufficient for impressing investors and getting the desired funding. You should definitely make a difference. Be yourself. Be engaging.

What do you think of it? Do you have any personal tips or tricks on how to pitch your idea successfully? Please share your thoughts in the comments.