3. The Seven Deadly Sins of Investor Presentations Video Lecture | How to pitch your Startup? - Entrepreneurship

I'm Brian Brewer a business plans
Northwest and in this short video I'm
gonna tell you about the seven most
common mistakes that entrepreneurs make
when presenting their business plans to
angel investors I've seen hundreds of
pitches here in Seattle Northwest
whether through screening committees or
angel investment forums or a business
plan competitions and in my experience
these are the most common mistakes now
it's not just my opinion these are the
same mistakes that angel investors tell
me that they see over and over again now
the good news is if you take this advice
to heart and you fix these mistakes
you'll have a real competitive edge over
other entrepreneurs who are raising
money so let's go over each of these
seven deadly settings of investor
pitches obfuscation is the sin of not
clearly explaining what your business
does this is by far the most common
complaint I hear from investors now it's
understandable as an entrepreneur you
made me so close to your business that
you're not aware of the jargon that you
use or the assumptions you have about
your audience but it's really important
to make your business clear and simple
and understandable really easy enough
that your grandmother can understand
what your business does a way to get
help with this is to get feedback from
people who are not familiar with your
business or industry and keep honing
your pitch until it's clear and simple
for them by the way one area of your
pitch to help focus here is on the
problem and solution area if you can be
very clear about what problem you're
trying to solve and how your company
solves that that's half the battle
verbosity refers not to talking but to
too many words on your slides your
slides are there to support your talk
they're not meant to convey details you
don't want your audience reading your
slides you want them
you talk so it's real simple just use
fewer words and use more graphics where
appropriate so I have to tell you that
I'm sometimes appalled when I'm sitting
there watching an entrepreneur pitch to
investors seeking to raise hundreds of
thousands of dollars and there are typos
and misspellings or other mistakes and
the slides they all distract from the
total effectiveness of your message and
there's another type of inaccuracy that
shows up a lot when an entrepreneur has
a valuation for example if three million
dollars listed on the slide and then the
investor looks at the one-page executive
summary and it's a different number say
2 million that raises a lot of doubt and
confusion in the investors mode it's
really simple here just double-check the
details in all your materials go through
your talk your slides and your printed
materials so those first three sounds
obfuscation verbosity and inaccuracy are
easily correctable it's just basic
communication 101 and if you avoid those
mistakes you'll easily be in the top
half of presenters now the next two sims
are a little more subtle and actually
may require a change in attitude in
order to avoid the key question here is
have you taken the time to practice your
pitch because if you haven't it really
shows and I'm not talking about
practicing just once or twice but dozens
of times so that you can hone your
delivery and be natural and confident in
the way you come across it's just being
professional and here's a tip when you
do practice make a video recording of
your practice sessions and review them
and learn from that to improve your
pitch the sin of arrogance appears in
the question and answer period following
your pitch getting defensive through any
questions or criticisms is one of the
quickest deal killers around you have to
remember angels are thinking not only
about investing money in your business
but investing time and effort in a
relationship with you if you get
defensive it's a sign that they may not
want to deal with you it's just human
nature so develop an attitude of eager
interest and respect and the questions
and learn to practice a little
so I hope you understand how those
previous two sentence laziness and
arrogance may actually require a change
in attitude in order to avoid now the
final two sims are about two very
important aspects of your investment
opportunity timing and money raising
money too early can be a problem
angels prefer to invest in companies
where the product development risk has
already been lowered only a small
portion of companies with just an idea
or a prototype actually get angel
funding use the money from friends and
family and your own resources to develop
your product or service first and then
seek angel' money to go to market if you
develop your product first you'll get a
higher valuation for your business but
if your valuation is too high if you're
not to them to the current market for
angel investments then you've also got a
problem you won't be competitive either
it's important to understand that
typically about 20 to 35% of the
post-money valuation is represented by
an angel level if you over price you
simply won't get funded the way to solve
this is to get advice from the people
who know and those people are attorneys
who see angel deal flow and can help you
set a realistic valuation for your
company so thanks for listening I hope
this helps and there's one final thing I
want to leave you with every once in a
while I hear an investor pitch where the
story is clear and compelling the
entrepreneurs delivery is smooth and
confident and the deal is just right in
terms of the timing and money everyone
is sitting there in the room absorbing
the message and at the end of the pitch
the room falls silent it's a magical
moment when you can hear
Indre in fact I can almost hear the
sound of investors reaching for their
checkbooks if you put in the time and
effort to avoid these seven deadly sins
in your investor pitch you may be
fortunate enough to experience one of
those magical moments yourself so get
out there and pitch with confidence