perfecting your pitch

Hey there,

Dragos here, from Project Arrow, where we guide founders with what to do and who to talk to in order to get funded and accelerate their startups.

Every month I see hundreds of startup pitches and what they all have in common is that they’re selling their proposition to an investor. What most of them also have in common is that it is painfully clear which ones are first drafts and which have been iterated a couple cycles - not too many of those.

People I work with know that I preach this all the time: selling to investors is like selling to anybody else:
- you need the right value proposition
- you need sales materials supporting it
- you need the right media mix for the right customer segment.

Here’s some pointers to keep in mind when evaluating the quality of your startup pitch.

1. The pitch deck is sales material. If it’s poor, it won’t help you close the deal. Au contraire, it will dilute your message, alter your image and damage your chances.

2. Have an objective - what’s the one thing I want to be remembered for after scanning through the pitch? The interesting idea? A smart business model? A huge opportunity?

3. Related: have an ask - you sell something, that’s what the ask is. If you don’t have an ask your pitch becomes a passive marketing presentation, leaving the reader with the ‘why am I reading this’ question.

4. Keep it short and structured - 10-15 slides the most and appendix if you really feel the need to provide additional info. Ideally, you should provide just the essentials that can be understood by anybody who has nothing to do with what you do.

5. One slide = one message - each slide is important, every detail from the presentation matters. Don’t write prose in it, be straightforward, include specific cues, stick to what’s important and don’t fill it out with BS. Remember, every thing in there should sell something and brevity is a must.

6. The packaging matters - have a nice design, make sure you don’t have grammar mistakes or spelling errors.

7. Write it in English - duh! Yeah, not your mother tongue, I get it, but this is the big boys game.

8. Have a written script and memorise it. When you present the pitch, you NEVER read what’s in the presentation - you should be able to speak freely pointing out to presentation cues, eventually. Think of it this way, what happens if you run into an investor and cannot pull your deck? You need to be able to sell your business orally.

9. Get feedback on it - every person will give you ideas on how to improve it and tweak it. Keep in mind that what works for some people may not work for others. The trick is to get to a simple low common denominator that has all your bases covered.

10. Practice your pitch - by yourself and with your peers. That’s how you become more comfortable and figure what’s working or not.

Overall, your presentation deck needs to provide a clear answer to “how do I get rich in a very short time”, which is the investor mantra. It should convey a clear idea about what you’re trying to accomplish, and make investors jump straight away on the opportunity to fund your efforts.

Building a deck is hard and its refinement process is iterative. It’s never a perfect product - but getting feedback and help from the right people will boost considerably its quality and ability to sell. That’s what we do every week at Project Arrow - you can join from here.

Community

Startups recently seeded
If you want a full list of interesting startup raises from all over Europe, you can go check Monday CET. Here we have a selection of the coolest ones:

🇩🇪 Infrafon - smart badge system in credit card format (Freiburg)
🇫🇷 Alpagga - marketplace enabling the purchase and sale of second-hand professional equipment on the agri-food market (Paris)
🇳🇴 AppearXR - no-code design tools for augmented and mixed reality (Oslo)
🇬🇧 Spendkey  - SAAS for spend analytics and insights for all levels in an organisation (London)

Did you just raise funding for your startup? Hit reply and we’ll feature it here.

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