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TRANSCRIPT
Confronting
the Elevator THE STORY YOU HAVE TO GET
RIGHT BEFORE YOU CAN WRITE
THE STORY OF YOUR COMPANY
Don’t be this guy
Know
Your
Audience
WHAT KEEPS AN
INVESTOR IN THEIR
SEATS?
What’s on an Investor’s
Mind?
Four investor thought patterns that are essential to
understanding a Solution Pitch
Business Model
Fear vs. Greed
Managing Risk
Exit Arithmetic
The Dan Gordon School of Pitching
Investors & the Business
Model
Do they care about your product?
No so much as the customers wanting to buy it
Do they care about the problem?
More how you make money solving a it
Investors care (a lot!) about your business
model
The Dan Gordon School of Pitching
Fear and Greed
Fear: “they will lose my money”
Suspicion and delay are the BFFs of Fear
Greed: “I will miss out on making a killing”
Manic Haste is the BFF of Greed
The Dan Gordon School of Pitching
What is an elevator pitch?
A Story about your Business
in a 30 sec package
Facebook’s Original Media Kit
What Makes a Story
Good?
Engaging characters
Good plot
Exciting action
Climactic finish that wins the audience
Engaging
Characters CLEARLY DEFINED,
INTERESTING AND
MEMORABLE
Who is this Person?
Buildings don’t
buy, people do!
What’s their
problem?
Why should we
care?
What is this customer’s story?
What about this customer?
If the customer is not clearly and
specifically defined how can the
rest of the story work?
Good Plot YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH NEEDS A ARC JUST LIKE YOUR
FAVORITE MOVIE…JUST A LOT SHORTER
Business Thesis: Your Plot
• Customer Statement: “Our company helps [specify people]…”
• Problem statement: “who have [specific problem or aspiration]”
• Solution Statement: “by providing…”
• Value proposition statement: “resulting in…”
• Unique market position statement: “better than [current alternative and why and by how much]…”
• And here’s how we make money!
Learn to complete this sentence in 30 seconds and you might have a business!
Problem Statement: a TRUE Story
Tangible
Relevant
Urgent
Easily stated Airbnb Problem Statement
The Solution
Statement
Simple, conceptual understanding
Talk about the specific weakness with the current solution
Not about your technology or product…only do this if they ask and then keep it short
Solution Statement is What
You Do
“We eliminate the bottleneck in…”
“Whitens teeth, freshens breadth”
“We create highly controlled micro
environments for cellular mutation analysis”
Not how you do it!
Value Statement
Customers don’t buy products or services
They buy the benefits the product or
service provides
Investors want to buy value creation not
product development
The Value
Statement
Tangible
Measurable
Directly Relevant to customer pain/gain
Airbnb
Strong value propositions
You can’t go wrong with “better, cheaper and faster”
Unique Positioning Statement
No one has “no
competitors”
Focus on clear
differences that create
value
Limit the number to
increase the impact
The Big
Finish GIVE THE AUDIENCE
WHAT IT WANTS
What gets investors
excited?
The business model works
Validated the model and initial sales traction
The market is big and growing
There’s a big exit in your future
If you can’t make money on one
transaction, how do you make it
on a million?
The Business Model
Some Potential Things to
Mention
“Average order size of X”
“Lifetime customer value of $Y over Z years”
“Low upfront investment, long-tail revenue stream”
“Gross margins in excess of industry standards”
What’s Your “Ask”?
You Can What you Want, ‘Till
You Know What you Want
Getting a meeting is the goal
Who should I contact?
Is there firm the right one?
If not who they advise you speak with
If you get the
meeting… PREPARING THE FULL-LENGTH VERSION FROM THE
PREVIEW
The Five Things Investors
Have to See
Validated business model
Team that can deliver
MVP
Early sales traction and a pipeline
Partnerships for early scale
How to seal the deal
Realistic and attractive financial projections
Exit that’s attractive and reasonable
A team that can deliver
Investment “ask” that’s sensible
Things to mention
Who is the logical acquirer?
What do the sales metrics look like in your
space?
How much money will you ultimately need?
What’s the timeframe?
Simple and easy to read
Focus on key metrics vs. detailed P&L
Clean graphics can help make the point
The longer the timeline, the less believable
Financial Slides
Give them confidence you can deliver
Team Slide
Investment Slide
How much do you need?
How far does the money get you?
How will you spend it?
Valuation or other deal terms not required
Exit Slide
How will you exit?
If acquisition, who are the likely acquirers?
Timeframe?
Some other quick tips
Don’t do an ugly deck!
Organize presentation to best tell your story
Never forget that you’re a performer
Remember why you’re there. Stay on message