TGR reflections: Most common pitch feedback to founders
Originally published via LinkedIn
Reflecting back on the first year of The Green Room, here are some of the most common points of feedback from investors to founders on how to improve their pitch:
Sell your team
Make us feel like every person on the team is there for a particular reason, and that together, you have something really special that can't be replicated and, accordingly, you are the best possible team to solve the problem you're solving. Don't relegate the team slide to the end of the deck - we need to know right at the beginning why we should be listening to what you have to say, and your team is the best indication of that.
Don't overindex on explaining the problem
In a ~30 minute pitch, don't waste more than a couple minutes explaining the problem. If you need stats to illustrate, don't use more than 3. And instead of focusing too much on the very high-level macro drivers (that largely will remain out of your control), drill into the 1-2 aspects of the problem that your product/solution can directly solve.
Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees
You need to clearly articulate both: (1) the grand vision - what this company (and the world) will look like if you achieve your vision, (2) what near-term priorities and milestones are for the business - specifically as it relates to the capital you're asking for and where you think that can take you by the next round.
Investors LOVE timelines!!
Whenever you get a chance, try to articulate in chart or infographic form where you've been and where you're going. One underutilized slide that we all love is the "phase 1, phase 2, phase 3" of the business - how you get from your short-term goals to the long-term vision. In each phase, you should outline: anticipated years/timeline, what the goals of the phase are (e.g., "PMF," "Scaling GTM", "Go global"), your revenue/ARR target for that stage of the business, etc. We should come away feeling like we know where the capital will be spent in each phase, what is being experimented and what you hope the outcome will be, and how the results of those experiments will give you the right to execute in the next phase.
