Your startup pitch is everything and knowing how to pitch a startup is essential to your success. It doesn’t matter how innovative, well thought-out or potentially profitable your product idea is – if you can’t attract investors to your startup, your business will face serious difficulty scaling up and achieving wide-spread success.
Keep your pitch simple!
You need to clearly and quickly outline your business idea and you plan to offer investors a return on their investment.
Start out with a brief explanation of your business idea that immediately conveys your vision and purpose. Explain the problem that your startup is attempting to solve and why your business offers the solution. Outline how your business plans for going to market and generate revenue.
Be aware of the time!
Don’t run over, or worse, run out of things to say in the opening minutes.
Move at a steady pace without rushing.
Questions from the panel is an opportunity, take your time and breathe before answering. Or, if it is a really tricky one, take a zip of water, that will give some extra seconds to think.
Tell your startup story!
Rather than approaching the opportunity as a sales pitch, use the occasion to tell your investors the story behind your business.
Stay focused!
When developing your pitch, make sure that its core elements are clearly developed and emphasized to avoid getting lost in irrelevant tangents.
Know your numbers!
While including too many numbers in your pitch can take away from your focus, making sure that your presentation includes a few critical figures will allow you to demonstrate that you are prepared and understand what’s relevant for your business and its industry.
Be passionate!
Get out of your comfort zone and look to increase your natural energy level while presenting. This doesn’t mean that you should fake enthusiasm but letting your passion for your startup shine will help convince investors that you’ll have the drive to overcome any setbacks that your business faces.
