![Pitching]()
Me Pitching For The First Time
2024 was a crazy year. I have done a lot of great things which I would have never thought to dream of. Having ‘crazy’ and ‘never dream of’ in the same sentence are the only two things that come to my mind when I look back and understand the inhuman effort, hard work, and sacrifice that I made.
One of these amazing things was to raise money for my startup. Pitching is one of the most important exercises any startupper will have to do throughout their life. A pitch is not just going to present your idea/MVP or product. It is selling yourself as the best person for the project, your team as the best team to build the future, and your product as a solution to a real pain point.
In this blog, I will share with you how I prepared my first pitch to raise pre-seed capital.
Do not take your reputation for granted
In the lifetime of any startup, it is important to be very visible. Founders will take any chance to talk about their project and try to make some marketing in any form. This will let people and potential investors know you. Remember that everything is now on social media and investors are as well.
When pitching you should never assume that someone knows your product, your team, or yourself. Present your product as if it is the first time you are showing it to the world and present your team members (their name, position, and expertise). When it comes to you, you should present yourself as the best person to grow this project. Talk about your strengths and why you are the best founder for the project. Another important point is to dress correctly and to have a neat and tidy hairstyle.
Know your persona and understand their pain points
No one should wake up in the morning and tell themselves ‘Ok today I will create this, and the world will want to use it’. Your product/service/solution should help the people using it. This is how you get people to adopt what you make. You need to define your users and categorize them as no solution works for everyone on the planet. The more characteristics you can have about the user you want to target will help you in getting your persona. From there, you need to get on the field and talk to the maximum people fitting this persona. Ask them about their current pain points and how they would like a solution to be. You will find something for your persona with your persona. During a pitch, exposing these (keep the people anonymous of course) shows research and a product fit.
Come with figures
I will take an app that allows you to sell clothes or other items that you are not using and interested people can buy them. One of their selling points is that this promotes circular economy and throwing away such items causes pollution.
Just coming with this statement in a pitch is vague. Saying that every year X ton of clothes are being thrown away by a country of Y population causing Z pollution. While XX clothes could be sold at lower prices to needy people will help them and reduce the pollution by ZZ%. In a country where YY% of people are considered needy, this solution is not only marketable but is also contributing to a bigger purpose.
Make sure you get the numbers right and get them from reliable sources or, if based on your research, tell if it was your findings from surveys.
Investors like to see figures and the more numbers they have, the easier for them it is to decide as they can easily forecast their return on investment. Note that investors are up to date with a lot of things and talk to a lot of people. As such, do not try to come up with some fictional numbers.
Prepare and rehearse weeks in advance
Talking from a personal experience, the more you prepare and rehearse, the better it is. Most of the time, you will get only 5 minutes to pitch. These few minutes go by very quickly. You must talk about the problem you want to solve, the solution you are proposing, why yours is better, and how you plan to grow. Most of the points should be backed with numbers. You need to deliver this fluently while having the pressure and stress of playing your future.
Remember, you should not bring your notes. You need to look at the audience and investors and show confidence; meaning you should know your pitch by heart.
This is not done in days. I rehearsed for 2 weeks for these 5 minutes. Timing myself every time, trying to optimize on the number of words to stay in the allocated time. I would advise you to rehearse, build confidence, and know your pitch by heart in the first week. In the second week, do the pitch in front of your friends and family. Ask them to judge your delivery and time.
The more you practice, the more confident you will be.
Anticipate questions
After every pitch, investors will ask you questions about different aspects of your company and why you think your solution is better than your competitors. While preparing for your pitch, it is important to put yourself in the shoes of the investors and ask yourself what you would like to know more. This will help in fine-tuning your solution and allow you to prepare answers to these potential questions. Even in answering, you need to show confidence.
When practicing in front of friends and family, encourage them to ask you questions. The more questions you get, the more you will be able to prepare.
Conclusion
Pitching is a stressful exercise but when prepared correctly will prevent you from showing how stressed you are. Pitches allow you to raise money, grow, or even pull people to join your adventure.
I have shared with you what I learned and did while I was preparing for my pitch. When representing your company, everything counts from the way you look to the way you talk confidently and how you get to know your persona and get numbers.