HOW TO MAKE AN EFFECTIVE INVESTOR PITCH?

An Investor Pitch can be defined as a systemic hierarchical presentation of an idea or product or service made by an entrepreneur with the intention to attain funding or business advice from potential investors.

An Investor Pitch should be persuasive and should be delivered effectively for igniting interest from potential investors even before the investor has met the entrepreneur. The motive of this presentation is to successfully convince the investors by highlighting the key facts and figures about the future of their investment. Since knowing the future of an idea or enterprise is practically impossible, the preconception will be based on emotional factors like trust, confidence, hope, ambition, and desire.

An effective step by step approach to pitching is:

• Craft your pitch with diligence;
• Recite and Revamp
• Portrait your idea for the audience;
• Make them curious enough to land on questions and answers.

Here the pitcher should have the excellence of a storyteller, subsequently creating an emotional attachment and engagement with the audience by personalizing the message, depicting the real benefits of investing in the idea, and anticipating potential questions and answers.

Investor Pitch Deck experts

An Investor Pitch Deck is a PowerPoint presentation that contains 15-20 slides. This presentation helps potential investors to learn more about your idea/ business. The presentation should be intriguing and engaging at the same time.

What should be included in a Pitch deck?

There are different opinions regarding what a pitch deck should contain, but it should most certainly be exciting to the investors. When we analyzed some successful start-up pitch decks published, we noticed 9 key slides included in most of the presentations, which are as follows:

1. The Introduction

Grab the ears and draw the eyes to a powerful introduction slide that provides the outline of the business. The right opening will hold the potential investors long enough to sit through your presentation. However, keep it simple and elegant.

2. The Problem

In this slide, narrate about the problem that your potential customer/clients are facing currently. The problem should be a realistic one which can be supported by associating an incident of relevance. A common mistake pitchers make in the ‘problem slide’ is that they fail to mention how deeply the customers are affected and how actively they are looking for a solution. The use of polls and statistics to support the problem will add value to your presentation.

3.The Solution

Ideally, this slide has to prove to the investors how your product or service will solve the above mentioned problem. The entire future of this presentation lies in the effective rendering of the solution slide. So, it should focus on showcasing how to tackle the problem and an additional one or two problems that it might resolve. If you have a prototype or demo of the product in hand, it can be an added advantage to your presentation.

4. The Marketing

The Marketing slide should begin with an overview of the present market and also provide the future market potential of the product or service. It should lay out the plans for long term customer acquisition strategy. The slide should depict the target market and the percentage of the market share you propose to secure. Support your presentation with data from reliable third party research reports.

5. The Business Model

The curiosity of the investor about how you intend to run your business and make money out of it is unveiled in this slide. This slide should summarize the entire business model proposed and should be presented in a way that is easy to understand. Ensure to furnish the investor with solid numbers that depict user engagement and the growth in customer acquisition, making them realize the depth of your business vision.

6. The Team

Give a brief description of the people who can make this concept a grand success. This should include the credentials of the team members and their contributions. This can help in convincing the investor about your team’s capability in executing the idea, product, or service

7. Competition

Describe how your idea fits into the competitive landscape and the way you are unique as compared to your competitors. The competition slide also allows the investors to understand how you are positioning yourself within the market and your awareness of where you fit amongst your competition.

8. The Numbers

The investor would prefer to understand your current financial position and the future projections. If you have already raised funds earlier, an explanation on the utilization of the funds and the achievement so far with the funding would be preferred along with details of who the previous investors were. If you are pitching for raising capital, it is necessary to furnish a forecast with a minimum of 3-5 year financial projections, burn rate and your fund utilization strategy.

9. The Q&A

The above topics are critical when pitching an investment community but be prepared to answer the questions from your audience. Once you reach this slide, you have to address the queries that your audience may throw on you which includes more details on your fund requirements, utilization, exit strategy, timelines, ROI, etc.

Understanding your audience and their passion points beforehand will greatly elevate the success of your pitch deck presentation. Here are three key points to keep your investor engaged and interested:

• Include any media coverage you have received on a backup slide.
• Highlight any large barriers of entry in the field of your business. This will indicate that you have limited competition and that your concept has a ‘first-to-market’ exclusivity, at least for some time.
• Investors are always brooding about the exit, so have a plan in place and be ready to mention it.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of the pitch deck is to sell your idea or service. The presentation should have a simple and straightforward approach to the business model and market potential. With a talented team of business analysts having multiple industry exposure, the content can be transformed into an impressive presentation.

In short, your Pitch Deck slides:

• should be well positioned and formatted.
• should be graphically designed with pictures, infographics, and vectors.
• should be customized with unique fonts and styles.
• should have a well summarized content.
• should focus on real analytical data.