2. How To Pitch To Investors With 13 Slides In Under 10 Minutes Video Lecture | How to pitch your Startup? - Entrepreneurship

welcome to how to pitch to investors
with 13 slides I'm Nathan gold chief
coach at the demo coach now I know
you've paid for this video so I'm not
going to waste your time with Who I am
what I've done and who I've helped if
you want information about my background
please feel free to go to my website at
demo coach comm and you can find out
everything you want this is about you
this is about giving you a model deck
that you can use when pitching investors
of all shapes and sizes whether friends
and family angels or venture capitalists
it makes no difference
you need a deck that's tightly rehearsed
and easy to deliver so that everyone you
pitch to will get your message and ask
you questions that are meaningful and
relevant to the opportunity that you're
presenting them with I almost forgot to
mention that you don't have to take
copious notes on the video you're seeing
here right now because all the visuals
I'm using will be in a PDF document that
you can download at the end of this
video so let's get started this
presentation has two parts the title is
how to pitch to investors with 13 slides
first thing I'm going to do is give you
the 13 slides once you have those you'll
be able to use that as a model to make
up your deck and then let's talk about
the how part because I find that most
people don't spend much time on the how
you pitch to investors it's more about
what you're pitching with the deck and
that's where people spend most of their
time so when people come to me and
they're asking for coaching usually the
middle part of the deck is okay they
know about their business and what they
want to save the opening is weak and the
closing is weak and we'll talk here in
this
about how to make a really memorable
opening and a very very good clues so
that people never forget who you are or
what the opportunity is that you've
presented them with okay let's get
started
so this investor pitch deck that I'm
about to give you with 13 slides is a
model that's all it's a model it works
though it's a model that you should be
able to deliver to any investor in ten
minutes or less usually ten minutes is a
good rule of thumb to be able to pitch
your entire deck there are many
organizations around the world that give
you ten minutes
seven minutes five minutes or a certain
limited period of time to pitch your
investment opportunity if you can do it
in ten then you can work it back to
seven and five and maybe even less but
ten minutes without any questions is
about the amount of time it should take
to get through this deck let's take a
look now this is just a model but it's a
model that works and here's an example
of a company that I just recently helped
a few months ago glued networks they use
this model that I'm about to share with
you right now
and they raise four and a half million
dollars in angel money that's right only
Angels they started out at a million and
were oversubscribed they went to two and
oversubscribed went to four and
oversubscribe and decided that four and
a half that was it and they were again
over subscribed to four and a half and
this is a company from Sacramento then
everybody wanted to move down to the Bay
Area and they said no no no we're
staying in Sacramento but yet they were
able to raise four and a half million
dollars and it was just angel money how
about that so let's take a look at what
they used now first of all who says that
thirteen slides is the right number of
slides well let me back this up for you
a little bit
first of all there are two people in the
world that would say 13 is the wrong
number the person on the left is Guy
Kawasaki if you haven't recognized him
if you present to garage Ventures and
Guy Kawasaki or anybody on his team go
to his website read his blog about the
10 slides that you should use and use
those 10 slides don't use any more on
the right side of your screen is Michael
Moritz from Sequoia Capital they also
have a 10 slide deck that they'd like
you to use when you present to them
aside from garage Ventures and Sequoia
Capital everyone else that you present
to you can use 13 and the deck that I'm
about to present to you comes from David
rose David Rose is the CEO and founder
of Angel Soft he's also a serial
entrepreneur and a venture capitalist
himself in fact David presented at Ted
in 2007 you can go watch his
presentation is fantastic he spends 18
minutes about what investors looking for
in the last bit is spent on the deck
that I'm going to share with you right
now and as I share it with you I've put
a few of my own twists on it based on
information that I've gathered from
people using this deck over the last
four to five years now interestingly
enough a few months ago I ran into David
Rose at a conference I couldn't believe
it I just bumped into him accidentally
and I talked to him about using his deck
to help my clients and he was absolutely
flabbergasted that somebody actually
using his information I think he was
really just pulling my leg but he's
given me carte blanche and total
permission to use his name and his deck
anywhere and everywhere so feel free to
thank him and and the Angel Soft group
for this model deck all right let's take
a look
the deck itself remember 13 slides
number 1 the first slide is your logo
your name and your title that's it you
don't need the date you don't need who
you're presenting to you don't need all
the information about how to contact you
because frankly they don't care about
that at this point and everyone knows
that you can modify a keynote or a
PowerPoint presentation minutes before
to change that you're presenting to them
just leave it alone all you need is your
logo your name and your title now this
is the slide where people blow it they
say something like this thank you very
much for your time here today I'm Nathan
gold CEO of fish on fire let's get
started and bang you go into the next
slide this is not good
this is a missed opportunity and in a
bit after I get through the deck I'm
going to talk to you about what you can
do in the opening and this is where you
do your opening it's not only the slide
with your logo and your naming your
title but this is where you set it up
this is where you put the hook in this
is where you do the grabber so the
audience will want to pay attention more
on that later
slide number 2 this is your business
overview very simply put one or two or
three lines you don't want to go into
chapter and verse in lots of detail but
this is where you re a
the problem or the unmet need that
you're solving with your business the
questions that you see on the screen
here what business are you in what
problem do you solve why does the
problem exist what advantages do you
have why should anyone care these are
the kinds of questions that should spur
the answers to what you say on this
slide okay so that's it business over
you very quick just to give people an
understanding of what you do slide
number three
this is your team now that you put the
business overview out there now you need
to tell people who you are very quickly
very succinctly no long drawn-out
discussions remember you only have ten
minutes to give these thirteen slides so
when it gets to your team maybe you talk
briefly about yourself and maybe one or
two other people and just summarize that
the team together bah bah blah blah
we'll have 15 years and this and that
and whatever but just make it quick and
simple now well my favorite way to do a
team slide is like you see here right
now pictures of each of the people in on
the team and I mean team not management
team not executive team the team because
when you're in early stage startup you
may not have a management team you may
not have an executive team well don't
worry about it but you do have a team
and it's at least you plus whoever else
and your advisors so here's where I
would suggest you put the logos of the
people that work for you or that are
working with you on your team in a
collage all over the place and then
maybe you pick out one or two of these
as you're talking to the investor
because that would be the point of
interest
don't lay out all the degrees and
everything else that people have you can
mention that as you talk slide number
four is your market opportunity this is
where you need to be very careful most
people want to know how big is the
problem what's the economic impact of
your solution can you quantify what it
is you're offering and most importantly
many people will come in to an investor
presentation and say if we just get a
half of a half of a percent of the
market you know the total available
people in the world will be rich that's
a top-down approach to discussing what
your market opportunity is
investors don't like that you want to
use a bottom-up approach a bottom-up
approach starts with who the users are
who the people are that are going to buy
your products or services you start
adding up those people you start at the
bottom of the pyramid and you start
adding it all up and then the total sum
of all those people is your market when
you start at the bottom and work your
way up you show that you've really
thought about who it is you're going
after anybody can go to Google and say
how many people are using social
networking today and then you come in
and say if we just get one percent of
those people using social networking
today according to Google or according
to Gartner group or whomever then we'll
be rich we'll be a hundred million
dollar business don't go there folks
investors know it's too easy to come up
with that kind of a number start at the
bottom and work your way up and a little
pet peeve of mine just so you know it's
not bottoms up
bottoms up and I'm amazed at how many
financial people say Bottoms Up approach
to financial planning or market sizing
is no it's not bottoms up is when you
take a glass and you tip it and you
drink its bottom up so don't let that
little grammar slip-up
maybe embarrass you with somebody that's
a stickler for words like me slide
number five this is the all-important
slide where you talk about your product
or your service some people have a cause
but in general the people I talk to have
a product or service now on this slide
be sure and remember to put the name of
your product or service I'm amazed at
how many times I run into people's decks
and we get to the slide missus so what's
the name of the product and they look at
me and say oh my god we forgot to put
the name of the product there so be sure
to put the name of the product on your
slide now there's two things you can do
on this slide one is to have screen
captures of your
product if it's one you can do that way
if it's not screen captures that maybe
photographs if it's a hardware product
you have you can take some photographs
of its parts or inside the parts and put
that on this slide that very often can
help you with talking points about what
it is you want to draw people's
attention to now if you do screen
captures because you have software that
can be displayed on a computer and you
can capture those screens I suggest you
use Snagit Snagit allows you to not just
capture the screen but it allows you to
capture the page so that means if you
have a scrolling page in your demo of
your product you'll be able to actually
scroll down in it when you get to
showing that part of your presentation
if someone says can I see a demo of your
product you'll have screen captures but
not just screen captures it actually is
page captures all right Snagit you can
use it for 30 days it's really a great
product and can and can make you look
really really good without having to get
online or even have a local version of
your product running on the computer
that you're using in your presentation
okay now many of you can stand to have
something to break up the monotony of
slides
whether you use keynote or PowerPoint it
makes no difference you're all using
slides and we need something to break it
up now I'm very often asked by people
should I do a demo in an investor
meeting my answer is always I don't know
ask so you look at the min you say I
have a two-minute demo of my product
would you like to see that now or shall
we save that for later
if they say show it to me now bounce out
a PowerPoint or click a button that
shows the screen captures that that's
all you have
now a better way to break out of the
monotony of having slide after slide
after slide and presentations is to use
a screen capture utility something like
Camtasia that allows you to capture the
screens so that you can run your demo of
your product if it's software of course
run your product demo capture all the
screens and then edit out all the stuff
that you don't need and then you have a
one or a two minute demo that you can
run anytime I would never do a live demo
in an in a first meeting in a first
investment meeting where these slides
are being pitched I don't think you
should do a live demo but playing a
recorded version of your demo is
perfectly ok but the most important
thing is when you play the version of
this demo make sure that you don't have
sound on the demo unless of course it's
music or video then let's sound go what
I usually recommend to people is let the
recorded version of your demo stand on
its own while you the presenter tell
people what's happening for instance
here's an example of the software
product that's social related and it
helps people to spread the word here's a
place where you enter in your email
address is it at the bottom is where you
can share it on Facebook or Twitter as
soon as it goes off to Twitter bang it's
up in live in the Twittersphere and and
that's how you can demo a live product
if you look at the URL in this demo
you'll see that it's a real live demo
it's just recorded and it's playback
anytime anywhere on a moment's notice
and you also know that the recorded demo
only shows the things that are important
at that moment Camtasia is is simple to
use product you can use it for 30 days
at no charge and I highly recommend it
as a way for you to get your demos in
your pocket whether you run them on your
laptop or or directly off of
drive right so what happens if your if
your presentation fails no problem you
have a copy of your PowerPoint and your
video and your thumb drive you can plug
it into anybody's computer and run it
automatically and that's how I would run
a demo slide number six this is your
business model this is where you need to
tell people how will you make money how
do you expect to make money this is not
your financial projections this is how
you expect to make money what your
go-to-market strategy or any of the
other questions that you see listed here
on the screen most importantly if you
can talk about what traction you have in
your business right now that means more
to investors than just about anything
they love to see traction they love to
see momentum so be sure that you talk
about what your business model has been
what its planned to be and how it's
working out so far
now this slide doesn't have to be messed
up with a whole lot of words if you have
a software subscription model maybe just
put the word subscription on this slide
that may be all you need in order to
discuss the fact that we are building
our business based on subscriptions we
have a free model a freemium and a paid
subscription and you talk about what it
is you're looking to do don't have to
mess it up with a lot of words slide
number seven is where you get to talk
about your strategic relationships now
in many early-stage startups you don't
have any strategic relationships you may
not have any partners and certainly you
may not have any customers so this is
the only slide in the deck that can be
moved to the very end after the last
slide in your appendix area if you don't
have any and as your business develops
and you get your first partner slap this
slide right back into slot number seven
and this is where you would put any
partnerships any customers and maybe if
you had a letter of intent or a
Memorandum of Understanding from a
company it doesn't go a really long way
but you might be able to mention it and
I would just put the logos of the
companies here so that gives you the
freedom to talk about what the kind of
relationship and partnership is that you
have with these companies and of course
don't I wouldn't expect to go through
all of these in one 10 minute
presentation you take a look at who
you're presenting to and if McDonald's
is an important company to that person
maybe you say what the relationship is
that you have with McDonald's which
could pertain to the opportunity that
you're presenting them with okay slide
number 8 the all-important competition
slide now you have to have this slide if
you don't have this lie investors will
obviously ask you the question and I
highly recommend you don't leave it for
them to ask the competition is really
important but remember you're not there
to sell the fact that the competition
isn't as good as you you're not there to
give them information about the
competition in those 10 minutes that
they may already know to prove that you
know who your competition is it needs to
be something very simple and very
powerful and if you go by sales 101 you
won't even mention the names of your
competitors so here's an example of how
you might use a slide like this let's
say all these companies on the slide are
your competitors and you look at your
investor and you say we have some
formidable competition in the space
we're in right now we have already
looked at the strengths and weaknesses
of each one of them and I can assure you
that at fish on fire we have the unique
advanced
of and then you put in whatever that
unique advantage is and you roll on
ahead you get the competition out of the
picture slide number nine this is your
barriers to entry and if there was one
slide in the 13 that confuses people
more than anyone it's this slide for
some reason this is not your barriers to
entry it's not what's keeping you out of
the business or keeping you from
succeeding this is the barriers to entry
which is what's keeping other people out
of your space wants to stop another
company from hiring a hundred engineers
to re-engineer what you've done and come
up with something that's the tenth of
the price I don't know but this is the
slide where you need to make sure the
investor here's what's keeping other
people out of your space now
intellectual property and patents can
sometimes be what a lot of people hang
their hats on and say well we have the
patents well let me just let you in on a
little secret here just because you have
a patent doesn't mean you can afford it
do you have the money to enforce a
patent against somebody like a Cisco
that's going to maybe use one of your
ideas can you prove that you're the one
that invented it I mean hopefully that
won't happen but don't rely only on
patents as the barriers to entry to
keeping other people out it's not the
name of the game so you want to talk
about how defensible your technology is
and don't forget you may want to bring
back one or two of the team members into
the barriers to entry discussion because
who knows maybe you're the top blog on
the planet and you just hired away the
top video blogger in the world to be
your number one and now there's a pretty
slim chance that anybody else out there
is going to be able to hire that person
away and be able to claim that as a
barrier to entry for them doing what
you're doing
so make sure that if you have a team
member that has something that might be
part of the various
bring it back in and mention it on this
slide number 10 is your financial
overview now this is a very simple
overview this is nothing detailed you
want to roll everything up because it's
really only a couple of points you want
to make on this slide the first one is
you want to mention or state the
investments that have been made to date
and who has made those investments
briefly especially if you've got your
own investment in it investors love when
people put their own skin in the game
more than just time money speaks euros
speak they do trust me now all you need
in the financial overview is a simple
top-line five-year projection now I know
five years is a really long time so
maybe you can give them three but it'd
be expected to have to answer two years
four and five when you get into due
diligence right we're only talking about
the first meeting here so all you need
to do with this chart is to identify
your breakeven point and your
profitability point as we've done in
this chart with color you can mention
that in March of your to post funding we
expect to break even and then in July of
year three post funding we expect to be
profitable as you can see from the
numbers on this chart I'd be happy to
give you chapter and verse in my
extended detail once we get beyond the
point where you want to know more about
my company simple as that okay and you
don't have to put the actual years at
the top of this because it's very simple
to say post funding this is what our
expectations are then you never have to
edit this slide number eleven this is
your last chance now remember this deck
has been set up to sell the investor on
the opportunity it's not to just tell
them about the opportunity this is a
selling opportunity and whenever you're
selling normally price and the amount is
the very last thing you talk about
right especially with a high-end sale
like a million or two or whatever you're
asking for
so this slide number 11 is your
second-to-last slide this is the one
where you get to tell people what it is
you're going to do with the money you
raise this is what we're going to do
with your money and this is how we're
going to give you a return on your
investment we're going to do this and
we're going to do that we're going to
get the sales people in place and we're
going to bring down that little hanging
fruit this is where you build that
momentum you might want to use a little
timeline to show what you expect to
happen over the next three six twelve
months or however you want to describe
it but this is it this is the last
chance for them to get that enthusiasm
and that passion from you about the
opportunity because slide number twelve
is the capital request this is the slide
where you want to state the deal what
are you looking for how much you're
looking to raise is this a convertible
note is this a Series A is it a serious
beef how much is it this is the slide
where you need to put that number out on
the table now many people come to me and
they say well we're going to ask for
between a half a million and two million
that's a bad idea folks because the
investor is going to look at you and not
know which way to go if you really have
a business that you can build on a half
a million investment and you have a real
business that you can build on a two
million investment you can at times say
to the investor we have two business
opportunities two ways we can go we can
raise a half a million and do X and y or
we can raise two million do X Y Z and
something else so you can lay it out as
a choice that way and see whether or not
the investor wants to look at one or the
other and you'll know what's happening
you'll know which way they want to go
based on how the deal is structured but
be aware that most people will typically
put a single number out there and then
talk about that as being the deal
you don't necessarily have to talk about
your exit strategy you can I usually
like to let that one become one of the
questions you get from an investor
because most of the investors you're
talking to are smart people they'll know
who your potential buyers are they'll
know if you're an IPO candidate they'll
just know and then finally there's
valuation I'm often now should I put my
valuation on the table every fiber in my
body says don't put the valuation on the
table that's what the investors are
there to do that's their talent is to
take a look at other deals and other
opportunities and compare them to yours
and take a look at everything you're
doing all your sales if you have any and
they figure out the valuation so get
coaching on how to answer the question
so what's the valuation you have on your
company okay now let's get to the final
slide number thirteen you've done all
your work you've just put the deal on
the table you've told them how much
you're looking to bring in and now is
your conclusion slide number thirteen is
the same as slide number one except now
slide number thirteen has all your
contact information on it your phone
number or your email address and
everything else but this is not the end
of the presentation the end of the
presentation is now in your hands
assuming there's been no questions for
the moment we'll assume there's been no
questions because we had ten minutes you
need to close and this is where you
close you close with slide number
thirteen in conclusion to the 13 slides
here they are in one simple list I call
them the David Rose thirteen and you now
have a deck that you can work with it's
nothing more than a model but I can tell
you it works and it'll save you headache
it'll save you the pain of figuring out
well what slides do I use should I
should I talk about this verse or that
first this deck has been very well
thought out it's tried and
and it produces results now let's take a
look at how to pitch this 13 slide deck
to begin with the way I look at it you
have three