2012 Example Investor Pitch Deck and Discussion
http://www.reoverthinking.com/2012/01/2012-example-investor-pitch-deck-and-discussion/
This is the updated, 2012 version of the ReOverthinking start-up pitch deck; since the first version was written in 2009, this post and it’s predecessors has been read on average 50 times a day…often more than that. I really hope this indicates the number of entrepreneurs that are thinking about or working on a start-up.
A successful pitch deck organizes the concepts and details about your business so that you can clearly and simply communicate excitement, metrics and aspirations to potential investors. It is, at the end of the day, a facilitator of discussion and not a stand-alone product. This post will take personal experience pitching and listening to 100’s (and 100’s) of pitches and help you structure a complete investor pitch for your start-up.
What’s new in this version:
There are three reoverthinking “companion” posts to this one; Read #1 before you meet with VCs and read #2 and #3 after you’re funded:
1. What to ask in a VC pitch meeting 2012;
2. The current example board presentation;
3. The current start-up planning post.
Swing thought: Experienced, early-stage investors get excited by the following:
Visionary, experienced entrepreneurs…
Solving a valuable problem in a huge, growing market…
With some fundamental, defensible advantage…
That’s been proven through scalable customer traction…
In a business with healthy-margins and low capital requirements.
A bit of background
Entrepreneurs tend to have consistent questions regarding pitching professional investors (both angels and VCs). For example:
So what does your company do?
You may be surprised to find that it’s difficult to concisely describe your company, its business model, or market opportunity. If so, it’s critical to investigate, discuss and understand why that is the case. You might not be ready to pitch professional investors. You may need more iteration on the product, with customers, or in your target market.
An increasingly common way that start-ups answer this question is to describe their company in the context of another company. For example, we’re mint.com for start-up finances. Or we’re OpenTable for Self-storage. Clearly, this is a good shortcut if the analog company is successful and the market is large and growing (see above list of 5 things investors want). I think it’s interesting to consider that Google, Facebook and Twitter probably couldn’t have described their businesses this way because of the lack of analogous companies.
Implicitly or explicitly, investors will ask this question and the others that are posed in the discussion below – and the only truly “wrong” answer is not having thought through the possibilities (“I don’t know because…” can certainly be an acceptable answer).
Starting Suggestions:
Check out the link for the rest:
http://www.reoverthinking.com/2012/01/2012-example-investor-pitch-deck-and-discussion/
http://www.reoverthinking.com/2012/01/2012-example-investor-pitch-deck-and-discussion/
This is the updated, 2012 version of the ReOverthinking start-up pitch deck; since the first version was written in 2009, this post and it’s predecessors has been read on average 50 times a day…often more than that. I really hope this indicates the number of entrepreneurs that are thinking about or working on a start-up.
A successful pitch deck organizes the concepts and details about your business so that you can clearly and simply communicate excitement, metrics and aspirations to potential investors. It is, at the end of the day, a facilitator of discussion and not a stand-alone product. This post will take personal experience pitching and listening to 100’s (and 100’s) of pitches and help you structure a complete investor pitch for your start-up.
What’s new in this version:
- Slightly adjusted the flow of the presentation
- There are 2-3 examples of some of the more important slides
- NOTE: think you have a better example of one of these slides? Post it to the comments of this deck and I’ll include the best slides in the next version.
- The discussion for each slide has been expanded based on feedback and observations over the past year.
- Along the way, I’ve tried to call out “Best Practices” that represent, for the most part, universal advice that withstands the test of time. Feel free to disagree.
There are three reoverthinking “companion” posts to this one; Read #1 before you meet with VCs and read #2 and #3 after you’re funded:
1. What to ask in a VC pitch meeting 2012;
2. The current example board presentation;
3. The current start-up planning post.
Swing thought: Experienced, early-stage investors get excited by the following:
Visionary, experienced entrepreneurs…
Solving a valuable problem in a huge, growing market…
With some fundamental, defensible advantage…
That’s been proven through scalable customer traction…
In a business with healthy-margins and low capital requirements.
A bit of background
Entrepreneurs tend to have consistent questions regarding pitching professional investors (both angels and VCs). For example:
- What topics are required in a pitch deck? what should be omitted? WHY?!?
- what is the best way to communicate xyz?
- What depth of information should be provided in the deck?
- What about those 7 really great slides that make the too lengthy?
- What’s is the best flow from slide to slide? why?!?
So what does your company do?
You may be surprised to find that it’s difficult to concisely describe your company, its business model, or market opportunity. If so, it’s critical to investigate, discuss and understand why that is the case. You might not be ready to pitch professional investors. You may need more iteration on the product, with customers, or in your target market.
An increasingly common way that start-ups answer this question is to describe their company in the context of another company. For example, we’re mint.com for start-up finances. Or we’re OpenTable for Self-storage. Clearly, this is a good shortcut if the analog company is successful and the market is large and growing (see above list of 5 things investors want). I think it’s interesting to consider that Google, Facebook and Twitter probably couldn’t have described their businesses this way because of the lack of analogous companies.
Implicitly or explicitly, investors will ask this question and the others that are posed in the discussion below – and the only truly “wrong” answer is not having thought through the possibilities (“I don’t know because…” can certainly be an acceptable answer).
Starting Suggestions:
- Create your own deck! This is as true today as it was in the first version of this example deck; create a deck that allows you to tell your story according to your style and your business; use your own look and feel; name the slides what you want; tell your story with text, pictures, spreadsheets, hand puppets, etc.
- Don’t leave out critical information! This outline is my list of what constitutes “critical information;” no professional investor will fund your company without knowing the information suggested by this outline. That said, if there are elements to your business that are critical and unique – make sure you include them in your pitch and discussions. Force yourself to limit your core investor pitch slides to less than 12…put everything else you think you might want to talk about in a “back-up slides” section after the final, “Thank you,” slide. In my experience, you will rarely get through a 15-20 slide investor pitch.
- Proactively answer the big questions! If there are obvious, elephant-in-the-room sort of questions regarding your business: address them before they get asked. This is always a better way to go because it proves you understand the issues and are not scared of them. If you let investors “discover” big issues during the pitch by not bringing them up proactively, they can easily assume that you were nervous about that fact or that it’s a true weakness in the business.
- Please please please don’t just read your slides! Investors can read the words; they want the story behind the story. The details and anecdotes allow investors to get to know you and how you think. Reading your slides is a rookie mistake. A complementary suggestion on this point is to limit the font size (the bigger the better) and number of words per slide (less is more).
- Be passionate and informed! A core part of what investors look for and “invest in” is the team itself – show them your passion and be sure to know data from adjacent or competitive markets, companies, and models. Smart investors want to see a self-aware founding team that knows what they don’t know as well as understands their collective strengths and weaknesses. Investors want to see a team that is comfortable NOT knowing all the answers (this is the nature of being an entrepreneur)…as long as the team has the drive and determination to find and verify that answer.
- Finally, at a tactical look-and-feel level, it’s important to have enough white space in your presentation format. I like a white background because it prints and projects cleanly. I like titles that are single-line and as few words as possible; less is more in a presentation because it allows for questions and conversation instead of simple presentation of the ideas.
Check out the link for the rest:
http://www.reoverthinking.com/2012/01/2012-example-investor-pitch-deck-and-discussion/
