Pitching An Idea To Venture Capital and Angel Investors
Intro: Download PDF
The biggest mistake budding Entrepreneurs and future CEOs make is treating their pitch as a performance rather than an opportunity to sell their product or service to an individual with disposable income.
Telling jokes, like using a play with words or humorous vocal tones does not communicate the serious impact your product or service will make in your neighborhood and with, their help, society as a whole.
Corporate Structure : Essential Executive Staff
CEO Chief Executive Officer:
Although not always the face of a corporation the best CEOs have a deep understanding of all the departments and are ultimately responsible and held accountable by the Investors, Customers, & Staff from the ground level to the top.
CEOs can become founders when they succeed while working for others at any management level. An individual does not have to have executive staff experience. Instead they should have talent, and experience with hiring, firing, managing sales, customer service, and an overall good standing with all the staff they encounter in their workplace.
CFO Chief Financial Officer
Not always required at the launch of a small startup, a founder should always keep someone in mind for the position. CFOs are generally a trust. Their objective is to make reasonable, rational, & justifiable financial decisions to relieve the CEOs responsibilities of daily, weekly & monthly purchases. Sharing the responsibility creates flexibility in time management for Top Level Executives.
COO Chief Operations Officer:
An Excellent COO is crucial to a successful company. Their responsibilities cover everything that has to do with daily operations. This includes cleaning staff, equipment maintenance, logistics, inventory management, etc.
CMO Chief Marketing Officer
The CMO has double duties in modern times. Good ones also handle the responsibility of the VP Sales.
CMO can have the responsibility of managing & accomplishing company sales goals across all territories. The CMO defines sales promos, and advertising distribution channels. CMOs are also responsible for scouting Brick and Mortar store locations and everything that closes the deal with customers. Finally, Sales responsibilities also include customer service related responsibilities such as de-escalations and minimizes the number of Customer Service Tickets.
Equity:
Equity is divided into 2 categories, Liquid & Illiquid. Liquid Assets are cash in the bank and any assets that can be sold for cash immediately. Shares, regardless of schedule or voting/non voting privilege, are not considered liquid because they can’t be immediately sold in privately held corporations.
Prepare Your Company For Launch
The fundamental question is how large is the staff you need in order to launch and can you get everyone hired and trained by the launch date?
What software tools like Desktop Applications and Websites do you need at launch?
Is a Brick and Mortar Location Other than your HQ office essential to a successful launch?
Product Development
Conceptualizing a Design:
In general, entrepreneurs want to sell an idea for an unreasonable profit without putting in any effort. This is, quite frankly, a fantasy that cannot be fulfilled. The first step is the art. Some creatives sketch, others create 3d concepts. All in all, everyone has to see the product to get the process started. It is possible to go into presales with a product that has not been prototyped yet but you need more than a sketch. A lot more.
Prototyping Process:
3rd party prototyping companies need a few things to bid on a project. Other than local office 3d printing, real prototype development requires excellent relationships with manufacturers all over the world. The reality is they will not damage their relationship with those manufacturers for any reason. Know that a real prototyping company would rather walk away from your project than hinder their ability to do business.
The technical specifications along with artist renderings are the assets everyone collectively needs to move forward at any and every step. Getting a quote form a prototyping company sets the framework for the development budget and funding.
Marketing Plan
Press Releases:
Press releases can define when your brand name, logo, or product design was first used. Best practice would be a local newspaper that will keep your press release up on the web until you submit in writing that you would like the press release article taken down off the internet. On average, if a press release has already been written, the cost will be around $250 to get the press release article published. A journalist should only charge around $100 to write a press release but can it be as much as $250.
Hope Marketing:
Hope marketing is the worst idea to ever grace the minds of mankind. An example would be an awareness campaign. Most entrepreneurs will create a logo and a landing page with the hope that all they have to do is let the world know they exist and they will magically make a lot of money. Although the largest businesses in the country do awareness campaigns all the time, entrepreneurs have to realize that large companies have disposable income. They compete differently, especially against each other. At a company startup launch,being efficient with your financial resources can make or break your company within 30 days to 6 months.
Sales:
The reason sales scripts exist is not always for consistency across the national sales experience. The sales script takes the potential through stages of emotional connection, education, identifying problems, objections, and challenges with the goal of Trust, Comfort and Value. When the customer sees the value an entrepreneur will know to close.
Budgets
Seed 1: Investment: How much do you need to launch an online business
Founders come in threes. There is no perfect team. Each founder's education and experience can cross over and overlap so as a team someone has to see how your talents fit together and to make sure that clear communication can be established across all departments of your business.
Seed 2: How much do you need to open a brick and mortar location?
Accelerate 1: How much Do you need to scale your business to cut manufacturing and logistic costs and expand your territory?
Accelerate 2: Maximize your Domestic Territory for competitive dominance?
The Pitch Deck
Pitching Yourself
The problem with pitching is that a founder has a limited number of attempts to close the deal with an investor. If a founder gets the answer no by 3 different unrelated investors then the startup is doomed. Investment is like all niche industries. Everyone knows each other.
Branding, Color Palette, Logo
Your pitch deck has to have your branding in place. it has to be that polished. The branding gives the investor an initial glimpse into the brand experience.
The Perfect Pitch
Leading Meetings is a skill and key area of expertise. The reality is CEOs, who have maintained their positions in companies founded by others, are best suited for mentoring the next influx of CEOs.
Like any skill, developing the pitch deck & presenting is a refined skill or talent.
We can help $100 per month for 10 months = $1000 we will write your pitch for you.
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