A beginner’s guide to pitching
Preparing for your first investment pitch? An investor and a founder share their tips.
Contributor
Kerri Jackson
Pitching can be daunting for founders even when you're rehearsed what you want to say to investors a hundred times. Icehouse Ventures partner Barnaby Marshall and founder Amber Joseph give some helpful advice that may help to calm your nerves.
The investor’s perspective
Considering the investor’s point of view is key to a strong pitch, says Icehouse Ventures partner Barnaby Marshall.
With investors and funds talking to as many as 10 businesses a week, your pitch needs to stand out. You also need to be clear on why the risk of investing in your business is worth it, says Marshall, who lists four key things most investors will want to know from a pitch.
- What’s the unique insight? What does this team know that very few other people in the world know?
- Is the timing good?
- Is the market large and growing?
- Is this the right team to execute on this opportunity?
Kiwi founders need to also clearly lay out to investors how the business will tackle a global opportunity. “It’s about communicating why a business from New Zealand, which is far away and difficult to access, is going to win a big international market. What is the go-to-market that is going to make this business win?”
Simplicity and clarity are also essential, he says. “Complication is the devil. The rule should be communicating the ideas in as few words as possible. The simpler your deck can be while getting the same potency of ideas across, the more successful you’ll likely be at fundraising.”
Icehouse Ventures has a pitch deck template and online resource hub for founders preparing to pitch. Marshall also recommends viewing TechCrunch and Y Combinator pitches on YouTube. “Take some with a pinch of salt, but they’re useful.”
The founder’s perspective
The devil is in the detail if you want to put together a strong pitch, says Amber Joseph.
The founder and CEO of NextWork, an end-to-end online education platform, is in the throes of a $3 million seed round, which has taught her the importance of ensuring background data and detail are up to scrutiny. The 24-year-old started her company three years ago and has bootstrapped it until now.
“What people don’t often tell you about is all the background work that needs to be done so you’re ready to lift the hood on the business and show the detail of what makes it work.”
“[Investors] will ask all the questions you don’t want them to ask. You need the details on what you’ve done in the past, but also what the future looks like and what your goals are. You have to be absolutely crystal clear on those, and why those numbers are there.”
“It’s actually a huge advantage of doing a raise; you come out of it a better business.”
In terms of pitch deck-related resources, Joseph recommends taking a look at Y Combinator and sourcing early-stage pitch decks from global businesses like AirBnB and Canva.
However, Joseph admits she’s learnt that preparing the pitch is only a small part of the capital raising process. “It is really just the first third of the journey, if that. Once you have interest, that’s just the start of a whole process of negotiations and paperwork.”
Research on finding the right investors for your business is also important, Joseph says. “People talk a lot about product-market fit, but investor-startup fit is also important.
“New Zealand has a fantastic network of small investors but they’re often looking for different things than a larger fund with more capital and capacity for risk. We were seeking out investors that were responding to a really big vision. That’s not going to resonate with every investor.”
When it comes to confident pitch presentation Joseph’s approach was to practise on friends, family and other founders, which made her more confident in her pitch, and in her business.
“I wrote down everything people said in terms of comments and advice about the business and I realised one of the most important things you can have is your own internal filter for what people tell you.”
“You have to take it into the context of your own business. Most people you’re pitching to will have only heard about your business for the past 15 minutes whereas you’ve been living with it for 12 months, or more.”
“You can end up surrounded – fortunately – by amazing people, but you can’t be a people pleaser. It’s just not a good strategy for yourself or your business.”
Joseph was one of small group of founders that pitched to the 1100 or so investors at the recent annual Icehouse Investment Showcase.
And she has a suggestion if nerves throw you off track.
“Go back to your story and talk about how you got to where you are today. That’s often what resonates with most people, especially in the early stage. Even if you think your story is boring or conventional, everybody is different and that’s often enough to get a conversation started.”
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