Pitch decks are more interesting with a story - and that will help get your startup to the right investor

When you pitch to investors, you are selling yourself and your solution, with a focus on the needs of the investor to manage a potential investment risk and fund with confidence in the substance of the opportunity.

Investors are busy people who may see hundreds of pitch decks a month. Your dedication and focus will mean you are blinkered to the perspectives of your business, and your main job in communicating to investors is to come out of your shoes and into theirs. And often the best way to do this, is to tell a story.

Introduce yourself

Investors often back the people rather than the business, so take a moment to introduce yourself, and any team behind you, playing on your key strengths. Tell your story, how you came to being there and where you have credibility.

Set the scene

Summarise the problem that you have identified and demonstrate the gap in the market that you propose to fill with your offering. Describe it with real-life examples if you can, and use data to reinforce the importance of the market gap.

Showcase your solution

When you describe your solution, you want to present it as the hero in the story. You will need to weave into your explanation how you have a healthy and sustainable profitability, a strong competitive advantage, and how you manage any risks.

Describe your business model

Here you can go into more detail on the practical operations of your model, but be careful not to get bogged down in the detail. They will ask for more information if they want to hear it, so be confident enough in your vision that you can hold back some of the detail.

Understand diverse competition

Constant disruption in the global marketplace means you are never the only one, and in some cases you have an advantage if you’re not the first mover, so you are always better off being aware who is out there now, who could be out there starting up, and what pushes and pulls your target customer to buy any given solution.

Demonstrate traction

You need to take your idea beyond concept to practical demonstrations of viability. A very lean MVP should help you to prove the leading indicators to potential sales of your final product. Engagement and intent are good, but the closer you get to sales, the better. Find your cheapest route to something similar to a pre-order written in stone.

Communicate the impact

Describe where you are taking this, with an acute awareness of dependencies and potential challenges. Your growth trajectory is guess work in the earliest stages, so you may want to present a best and worst case scenario to show that you have an awareness of the variability in outcomes and that you have the flexibility needed to achieve a sustainable business.

The offer on the table

How much equity you are willing to give up can be an emotive subject, you should retain ownership and incentive, and if you have a good founding team then you will already be splitting that a few ways. Have your top and bottom end percentages worked out, and be prepared to be pushed by someone more experienced than you.

Dimensions of value

Recognise the value that investors can bring beyond money - they can open doors to customers and help you to navigate inevitable troughs in your business growth - and this should not be underestimated. Know what you need, so you can leverage them.

Take all the advice

It always helps to get another perspective on what you are creating, so take advantage of the experience of others and practice your pitch on them. It should make sense if it is sent by email with no introduction – as this is often the first view an investor will have.

Tell me your story!