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    Pitching Your Startup

    March 17, 2022

    2 min read Pitching your startup is one of the most important aspects of landing new investors. Emphasizing your story, growth, and competitive advantage helps you to make a strong first impression. In this article, we dive deeper into these three components of your pitch. Use this information to help write or revise your investor pitch. Tell Your Story When pitching your business plan, use the story format for greater impact. Start with the problem you faced in the industry. Show how you couldn’t find a solution.  Show how you created your own solution. After you address the issue of not finding a solution, be sure to show others are now coming to you for that solution. Along the way you can talk about how you built the team and chose a go-to-market strategy.  Highlight the challenges you overcame. Show the current business status and your upcoming plans. Each element of the story should highlight one aspect of the business plan. A story format keeps your audience engaged throughout the pitch because it flows smoothly and moves the audience along from point A to point B in a logical manner.  Show Your Growth Most investors look for a growth story. They look for an operational revenue model in the business with increasing numbers on:  sales  team  product fundraise   Many startup entrepreneurs avoid talking about their current revenues because they think the investor wants to hear big numbers. This simply isn’t the case. If your company is pre-revenue, you can show how the business model is successful based on the unit economics level. Show you can generate leads, qualify them, and finally close them for revenue that exceeds the cost of acquiring and fulfilling the customer.  Demonstrate Your Competitive Advantage It’s not enough to say your product is better or your team will execute faster. You must identify your core competitive advantage and show how it gives you at least a 30% cost reduction or a 30% revenue increase over the traditional methods. This could be through:  network effects  virality  channel access monetization If you are concerned about protecting your business idea, then focus on the benefits of your competitive advantage such as:  “Our software reduces cost by 30% through better algorithms.” You don’t have to go into the details; in due diligence, investors can sign NDAs to see the detailed workings of the business.   Read more on the TEN Capital Network eGuide: The Art of Pitching Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    How to Answer the Investor’s Questions

    March 24, 2021

    1 min read In raising funding, the startup will meet with many investors, so how should they answer the investor’s questions? First, listen to the investor’s questions carefully. Answer each one directly and to the point. If a question requires a number, give that number. For example, if the investor asks how much revenue do you have, answer with: “We have $200K of revenue so far this year” or, “We have $10K of monthly recurring revenue”. Be careful not to answer every question with a story. Long-winded answers waste the investor’s valuable time and often miss vital information. If the investor wants to hear the back story for a particular question, they will ask. For example, “That sounds interesting. Tell me how you arrived at that model”. The investor often has a list of questions to go through and a limited amount of time. Not responding with direct and to-the-point answers only serves to lengthen the pitch process. Also, some investors may interpret the long and winding response as avoiding the answer, which raises a red flag. It’s best to be straight up. Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: https://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/the-art-of-pitching/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Five Things Investors Love to Hear in a Pitch

    March 17, 2021

    1 min read What are some things Investors love to hear in a pitch? Investors hear pitches continually throughout the year. There are so many that it can be hard to truly hear them all. But, from time to time, an entrepreneur will make a pitch that stands out from the crowd. Investors are listening for a few key things that show you have a real business with real growth. The rest is filler. Every entrepreneur has a story. Many are interesting; some are not. For investing purposes, there has to be five key elements to capture their interest: Real Traction Entrepreneurs who have sales and show it are head and shoulders above the rest. Most talk about the traction they will have in the FUTURE but not what they have today. In an investor’s mind, this equates to “No Traction.” Real Pain Point The entrepreneur has found a real pain point in the market and is filling it. Someone once said, customers pay for pain to go away. They don’t pay for nuisances or inconveniences. Real Team The company has someone building it and someone selling it, and those team members know what they are doing. Real Product The product works and is non-trivial to build. It’s more than just spin marketing. Real Growth Prospects The market opportunity has strong growth potential and will not run out of steam in a year or two. A startup pitching with each of these elements in place will always capture the investor’s attention. Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: https://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/the-art-of-pitching/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    How to Pitch Investors Through Email

    March 10, 2021

    1 min read To pitch investors online is a skill one can learn. Here are some crucial steps in reaching out to potential investors through email to pitch your deal. Choose investor prospects carefully. Don’t spam an entire list but rather research each lead and identify qualified candidates. Search for connections to those candidates and topics of interest. Then devise strategies for how to reach out to them. Indicate why you are reaching out to them. Show why that person and company could be interested in your deal. They may be interested based on a past investment, a network connection, or a group affiliation. Answering the “why” will keep them reading. Show your connection to the reader. Finding a common link will significantly improve your chance of a response, so it’s worth looking for someone who is in their network that can provide social proof that you are legitimate. Show the problem you solve. And not just the problem, but the solution that you offer and the market that you target. Do this in one or two sentences and not one or two pages of text. Show indications of traction. Use 3 to 5 examples of traction such as leads generated, sales closed, number of users in a beta program, etc. Introduce yourself and show social proof. There’s a tendency to start the email with this information but showing your position in the community and credibility comes after establishing a topic relevant to the investor. Close with a one-sentence ask. Make clear the next step such as a conference call, a meeting, advice, etc. Also, remember the following points: Write in a conversational but business-style tone; not marketing-speak. Keep it short and to the point avoiding long blocks of text. Use numbers to make your pitch stronger as it shows specificity. Remember to attach the executive summary or pitch deck. Read more in the TEN Capital eGuide: https://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/the-art-of-pitching/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Even More Startup Pitch Exercises

    June 24, 2018

    2 min read Entrepreneurs know the importance of the startup pitch. Many blog posts explain tips and techniques on how to communicate your vision, passion, and story to the investor. Most pitches tell a story. Most pitches tell a story, and some entrepreneurs use their entrepreneurial journey as the format, which goes something like this: I had a problem I couldn’t find a solution So I created my own solution Others started asking me for it So I started a business Walkthrough the Executive Summary Another approach is the “Walk through the Executive Summary,” which takes the audience through an Executive Summary section. Here’s the problem and how much it costs the world This is my solution to the problem This is the product I came up with for the first version Here’s the advantage of it Here’s how the business model works For a useful exercise in building your pitch, try the following: Give your pitch in numbers Give your entire pitch in 10 words or less. Give your pitch from your customer’s point of view (i.e., how would your customer describe your business; what value you offer the customer). Give your pitch from the investor’s point of view (i.e., how would the investor describe your pitch; how your business makes money, etc.) Give your pitch from your employee’s point of view. (ie. how would your employee describe your business, what your business does on a day-to-day basis, etc.). Give your pitch from your competitor’s point of view (how would your competitor describe your business; what is unique about your business, etc.). Read more from the TEN Capital Blog Post: https://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/startup-pitch-exercises/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

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