Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and sat through more pitch sessions than I care to mention. As an investor, I want to know if I can make money from this investment – Is there a differentiated product solving an unmet need in a sizable, growing market? Is there a defensible position? Does the revenue model make sense? Can this team execute?
Sitting through pitches, there often comes an ugh moment. A moment when the entrepreneur says something in the pitch that makes everyone in the room groan. This is the time when we start checking our emails on phones. Our job is to make sure you don’t lose your audience over a lack of pitch skills.
“Mike is an amazing combination – he has deep expertise & skills from his background in Venture Capital. He absolutely understands business and how to build it based on solid fundamentals. Mike also has a razor-sharp mind and is very direct and to the point. I like to tease him that he is the “Dr. Phil” of business – he’s going to tell you as he sees it, whether it’s easy to hear or not!” – Melinda Phillips, ZümiFi.
Fortunately, we have resources like Harvard Business Review, The Kauffman Foundation, and others that have studied successful pitches (those that raised money versus those that did not) to help us understand what makes a Pitch Deck successful.
200 Pitchdecks Studied
DocSend, a startup that provides people with a secure and private way of sharing files like offer letters or legal agreements, studied more than 200 pitch decks to figure out the right way to graduate from bootstrapped to seed-funded or from angels to a Series A.
They partnered with Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann to look at companies that had raised $360 million in total.
What did they find? You can see the study here.
Our job is to make sure you follow best practices for your pitch, know the underlying data supporting your conclusions, and make sure you can articulate your message clearly and succinctly. Investors want to know that you are addressing a significant unmet market need with a defensible, differentiated solution that results in a profitable revenue model. And most importantly, you are the team to do it. Your pitch must convey these key points.
The pitch aims to stimulate interest in your audience to want to learn more.
A vision that’s always on track
The team at Understanding eCommerce has the collective experience, contacts, and vision to put emerging companies on track. Our competencies help both young, and maturing companies succeed in the emerging technology and consumer sectors.
Why? Managing a business and meeting objectives can be challenging for companies of all sizes, especially for many emerging companies who don’t have the business experience, internal human resources, and capital. They may have the start of a solid engineering team, product vision, and unique IP, but that doesn’t assure success. The next phase is developing the business plan, the product marketing plan, driving customers for revenue, and securing funding.
We leverage our business, operational and technical experience and insight on behalf of emerging companies. Our team adds vision, strategy, and hands-on efforts to position our clients for long-term success.
Pitch Coach for Startups
Join us on LinkedIn
