HOW TO GET 30+ PITCHES ON WEBSUMMIT?

#investment_directors_notes

or HOW TO GET 30+ LIVE PITCH SESSIONS ON WEB SUMMIT?

Everyone keeps asking me two questions after my return from the Web Summit

1. Did I come bearing cash?

2. How did I manage to pull off 30+ live pitch sessions?

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Let’s dig deeper into the process:

1. First and foremost, it's really awesome to have a clear goal in mind before going to a summit. Some folks go there to “do some networking”, “feel the pulse”, “meet new clients”, or “find new partners”. My goal was not just to “talk to investors” but to “deliver 30 pitch sessions”. Feel the difference?

2. With a clear goal in mind, I spent every second of my time there trying to answer one single question: “Will what I’m doing bring me closer to another pitch?” This goal was my filter that helped me decide whether I should go to an event or party. All the people I talked to and even had lunch with went through the goal filter: “Can this dude/gal give me a direct or potential opportunity to deliver a pitch session?” All parties and evening drinks got filtered in just the same way. On the last day, I even went shopping with a girl who works as an analyst for a fund – I’m a bitch, I know.

3. 30 pitch sessions. Does this mean I need 30 investors? Does this mean I need to hunt them down and schedule meetings?

Investors get pestered and hounded all the time; they have a very busy schedule. This means I need to plan ahead:

1. First, I tried sending them texts in LinkedIn about two months ago.

I looked up the participants’ names on the website, found them on LinkedIn, and sent out messages that went like "Hey, I'll be at the summit, too, let's meet up." I got zero replies. After sending around 50 messages, I received a text from someone who wrote: “Are you in a bad shape upstairs, lady? Are you seriously trying to make appointments for an event that only exists in broad strokes, and you are seriously doing it two months ahead?” The lady realized she went too far and put this task in the backlog.

2. I ended up sending most messages in the three days from October 27 to 30 (the first day of the summit was November 1). Seriously, I spent three entire freaking days looking up contacts in their app and sending out “cold messages”. Next time, I'll be damned if I don’t hire an assistant for this job. But then again, next time I will be raising funds for Series A, and there is no way Dmitrii Pangin can say no to a full-time assistant. I wrote more about the app in one of my previous investment posts under hashtag #investment_director’s_notes

3. Who did I write to? I had a clear goal, remember? I was looking for investments. So, I typed in relevant keywords: investor, angel, fintech, early stage, seed, pre-seed. Next, I selected regions: India, Russia, and a small bunch of investors from Europe in the last cohort.

4. I wrote up about 300 queries in total. The texts varied slightly, depending on the dude’s profile details. I sent out both direct messages like

“Hey, dude, I have a fintech startup with a viable product ready for launch in India” (for investors) or

“I’m launching a startup in India and would like to share some knowledge about the market” (for cocky/hotshot investors to showcase some value). I’ve attached a couple of screenshots for you.

5. I also reached out to folks who run similar startups (fintech, payments, BNPL, India).

It never hurts to make friends with those who are already in the market or have some track record or found/got their hands on some dough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not boy/girl crazy. The thing is founders can be a big help to each other as they can make intros for investors and other folks.

To the startup crowd, I usually sent texts like "Hey, dude, we're doing the same stuff, let's meet up / share strategies".

6. The main idea was that a few days before a summit/conference, folks are frantically sorting out their flights, hotels, and schedule. And this is when they finally get to open the goddam app and guess what they see... a happy letter from me? :) )

7. It turned out I wasn’t wrong. Little by little, I started getting replies. And then I spent literally the entire flight time (and this took more than 20 hours, haha) playing with my phone to send replies and schedule meetings. What else is there to do, guys? When you have to spend long hours waiting for your flight, endure all these layovers, take-offs, and transfers? Making appointments is your only choice!

8. Groups are, of course, a special thing to discuss. With multiple groups shaping around the events, I focused on the Russian-speaking crowd. This had nothing to do with Russian being the easy choice – Indian investors were at the top of my list but Russians came second. I sent direct messages to each and every investor (this is where contacts came in handy, hee-hee).

My results were:

- 8 meetings in my calendar on Day 1

- 9 meetings on Day 2. And a venture yacht party

- 8 meetings on Day 3

-And dinners with some of the folks I met during the day as a must-do – or eating out with new folks.

-On top of that, Guetta’s concert together with strategically selected people again.

-And Portuguese wine up the yin-yang every night – with the right company, again :)

RESULT I AM BRAGGING ABOUT: I spent almost the entire three days in the investors lounge. It's funny that by Day 2, my face had become so familiar that staff actually tried to kick me out a few times saying: "You're just hanging around here, you can't possibly have so many investor meetings in a row."

I had to seek protection from a “big brother”, one of the investors whom I had already met or was about to meet on that day. "Yes, Taisiya is with me." “No, Taisiya is not vegging out, she is really trying to do some business here.”

I didn’t attend any of the actual summit sessions, ahaha. I’ll tell you more, I didn’t even have a look at the program. I had my goal, and it had nothing to do with anything happening on the stage.

How about my actual results? Did i get money or not?

1. I brought back 5 soft commitments, meaning that folks want to invest, but they need to start a process, come up with some KPIs, complete due diligence, and so on and so forth.
2. And one investor (a Polish fund) has already started a due diligence.
3. And I have 42 more contacts on the list and on Telegram. Some investors are warm, some said no, some may be ready for later rounds.

Ain’t that cool?

Am I happy?

Oh, I’m really happy. I like clear-cut tasks that allow me to slave away with a laser sharp focus.

PS

1. You are most welcome to share your thoughts in the comments.

2. If you need some insights into the Indian market, drop a comment. I have a ton of reports on different markets, and I can tell you a thing or two about the Indian fintech market myself.

3. If you attended the summit too and some of your strategies panned out, please share in the comments.

4. For more stuff like this, follow me on LinkedIn or follow Penenza 's account

5. If the project sparked your interest, follow the first link to view the pitch deck. Any questions on the deck? Drop a comment.

6. To learn more about raising money for a company, follow the hashtag

#investment_directors_notes

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#penenza

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