Leza Parker: The concept of your VC Pitch Deck matters.

I have been on both ends of this spectrum - the investor and the entrepreneur seeking investments. Hence, I understand how that pitching game works, how to excel and how to win investments. It's not a straight forward process but instead consists of multiple stages, trying to keep the interest of the investor lingering around until it builds momentum to close. It takes longer than usual, if you are not delivering your best at every stage but if you do, it's not hard to seek funding.

Understanding Investors

Bear in mind, the behaviour of an investor - they have seen and rejected hundreds of deck before they hear your pitch. Even so then, they have another list of hungry entrepreneurs wanting their funds to realise their dreams. Dreams which are probably better than you, more scalable and more profitable than yours can ever be. But not all investors are always after the maximum return, which is why it's common for businesses undergoing losses could still successfully raised funds in the millions past Series A.

Investors are more open to other kind of returns, for a bigger profit in time more than any short term gratification.

• Impactful Changes with Specific Intention. Some investors loves investing in environmental friendly and sustainable projects. Some investors prefers e-commerce businesses largely disrupting the way retail works.
• Growing Network. Followers and Fans, email subscribers and customers form the figures that are interesting to some investors. They believe "Your network is your net worth." A larger company in time, might purchase your network out for the database, engagement and community you've been building (under losses) for years.
• Charitable Cause. Some investors allocate a certain amount of funding for the purpose to raise returns, to contribute to a social cause. Their fund becomes the capital and catalyst to a business, that commits to give away their returns to impact the humanitarian and charitable causes all over the world.
• Similar Interest. Some investors are funding because your idea resonated with them in several ways. It could be an industry they have develop a deep interest in, a business that compliment theirs so their existing network can be tapped on for faster growth, or a business that is familiar to them from their past experiences investing and succeeding in similar trade.
• Personal Touch. Some investors develop a personal liking to the individual with growing interest to become interested in making this individual succeed.

Illustration is essential

Words can be powerful, but for someone who is reading your business pitch for the first time while he was reading fifty others would mean words (alone) would drown him in boredom relatively quickly.

Statistics show that 75% of the readers out there react better and are more attractive to messages accompanied with visual medium. Being able to visualise, makes it easily comprehensible, build the momentum of interest and naturally stand out among other decks.

Create illustrations to depict important messages in your business deck such as your roadmap to success, current traction up to date time, future stages of business, potential share market, packaging decks, mock up illustrations for what your app and website will look like etc.

Content is crucial

But then again, even if your concept is tip-top, your content have to be well structured covering all important aspects of the business. Here are some of the aspects to consider in your deck, ensure you get a proof reader to assist with structuring your content and planning the sequence of your deck to get a more attractive flow.

• Overview of the Business
• Core Team, their profiles and/or existing employees & their roles
• Potential scalability of growth
• Potential market share & Positioning
• Competitors, Strategies to stay ahead of competitors
• Analysis of Marketing Strategies Tested
• Breakdown for the use of capital funds raised
• Product & Services, Benefits and Impact
• Exit Strategy
• Traction up to Date
• Future timeline
• and more.

Keep it concise. Forget lengthy essay look-a-like deck, this is not a book. Keep it simple, but informative. Accompany with illustration and mock ups.

Make that vision come alive through your deck that by the end of the read, the investor knew exactly who you are, what you are capable of, and where your vision lies.

A business idea is nothing but an idea.

It makes a difference when you invest efforts in refining your decks.

Display of professionalism speaks more about your efforts than verbal accounts. If you are serious in raising investment, your investment starts from Day 1. This means, whatever funds you have, should be invested in a proper VC Deck written because that is your investment to get your capital to do everything else.

Sending a poorly written deck, which looks like an amateur using Microsoft Presentation Skills will turn off an investor within the first 8 seconds. And you can keep on forwarding that deck to another 1000 and the result is, the same. None of them would consider your business, considering how little effort it took you to invest (time & money) to make their time worthwhile to read about your pitch.

Here are some of the decks for the companies, I've personally written:

https://tinyurl.com/decksamples?

Need help with reviewing your deck?

I spent my weekends, reviewing pitch decks for free. It's in my interest that as many entrepreneurs and founders learn (from my honest reviews) on the importance of a VC Pitch Deck & the investment that comes in preparing it.

If you are seeking funding, and requires some reviewing, recommendation to investors, LinkedIn boosts through my network - submit your information & deck here.

If you are seriously looking at winning funding, make the time of your investors worth their while.

Quick Check List - If you have finalised your pitch deck but not receiving interest from investors, here are four points to consider.

a. Your vision is probably unclear. You can get a mentor to plan your roadmap such that the vision is realistic and possible to achieve, work out the kind of people/expertise needed to make it happen and who on your core team is able to help you achieve that. The investor will doubt your capability as the sole founder, so your team of trusted core people must be able to add value to you.

b. Your idea is probably poorly illustrated through your social media branding (if any), written articles of progress (if you blog) and concept of the design. You must be able to create a simpler medium for investors to comprehend and imagine. Invest $ into getting professional designers to create mock up design of your product / technology on top of structured content to support in the explanation of how impactful your idea will be in time.

c. Investors are after track records. Pre-seed investors or Angel investors, are purchasing your shares at its cheapest stage hence the highest risk. The stats says that about 90% of start ups fail, after first series funding. So without track records (or reference/ recommendation by top professionals who could vouch you) will affect you in convincing anyone to part with their money. For me, I got involved with a lot of speaking gigs, and university voluntary work to build my portfolio.

d. Have a legal mandate. Trade equity financing is a big decision, where strangers might invest in businesses outside their region and in unfamiliar areas. Having a legal representative by good law firms, would give assurance that due diligence on you (founder) has been done to ensure this is a legit and of potential.

Follow me on Youtube and my business blog. Over the many years, I've helped businesses grow and raised funding, invested and exited a few, and built my own tech start ups. Feel free to contact me if you need any help for your business.Read my other related articles:

1. Not just your idea, you also have to be worth the investment.
2. Don't make bootstrapping a choice. It should be mandatory.
3. You have no price until someone buys your tag.