Advice for First-Time Founders: How To Perfect Your Pitch

Trust me, I get it. The fundraising process can be intimidating, debilitating, and exhausting. I’m here to help. Below I outline what I believe are the three keys to success in your first pitch to a VC:

Explain why you’re the right person to build the company.

Why you? Why now? Anyone can come up with an idea, but why are you the right person to execute on the idea? All too often, founders jump right into explaining the product. We get it, you’re excited about what you’re building, which is great. But we want to learn about YOU. What is your background? What about your background led you to want to solve this problem? What do you have that no one else does? Is it your passion and drive, your deep domain experience, your technical ability, or something else? Give a glimpse into the real you; this is what we’re really here for, and it will help us ultimately make our investment decision.

Clearly articulate your vision.

Investors want to know what your long-term vision for the company is so that we can get a sense of how big you truly think it can be. For example, let’s say the problem that you’re trying to solve is reducing carbon footprint, so you’ve developed a next-generation electric vehicle. While that’s certainly an impressive product and perhaps you’ve gained some significant traction, what we really want to know is that your ultimate vision is large. For example, you envision the product replacing gas-powered vehicles completely — now that’s cool. If your end goal is to run a lifestyle business, chances are investors won’t be interested.

Have crisp answers for every question.

Sounds impossible, right? It’s really not. First of all, you should know the following inside and out: market sizing, competitive landscape, traction to date, financial projections, metrics that are relevant for your business (such as CAC, LTV, sales cycle), sales and marketing strategy, your employees’ backgrounds, and exit strategy — including potential acquirers and relevant comps in the industry. It’s your business so you should know these things.

However, there will always be questions that you don’t know the answer to, and you can also be prepared to answer those. Let’s say you get asked about a potential competitor that you haven’t heard of before. What I typically hear founders say is “I haven’t heard of them; I will look into it later.” Instead, you could pull your phone or computer out and say “Interesting, I’m surprised I haven’t heard of them but I’m curious so let’s take a quick look.” Take 30 seconds to look the company up, and then give a response on why you think your company is different/unique. This type of response shows that you’re thoughtful, curious, and action-oriented.

I hope these tips are helpful for all the first-time founders out there! Feel free to leave questions or comments below.