Startup Fundraising Tips

There are lots of articles on fundraising pitch decks. And yet, founders routinely fail to present the way investors prefer. As an angel investor, I've seen this repeatedly. When you're raising money, whether for two minutes, 20 minutes, or if you're told you have an hour, you still have to tell people exactly what it is you quickly. Tell them precisely how you are going to make money.

Let them know what problem you're solving. What is the marketplace for this product or service you've created? And why do you care about this? Why are you devoting so much of your life to this startup? And who else have you brought on to be a part of this team? Finally, what are you going to do with the money? You need to answer these fundamental questions in your presentation.

I routinely see entrepreneurs never addressing these basic questions. Instead, they want to dive right in to explain all the nuts and bolts of this process, of how they've created this nifty thing. They want to go into all the details of this product. Most of the time, I'm scratching my head, saying, I don't know what this person does to make money for their business. I don't really know what this business is.

So, the first thing you've got to do very quickly when giving a presentation is explain in simple terms and focused terms what your business is. How would you make money even if you're not making money for the next three years? The investor listening to you doesn't care about all the product's design elements. They don't care if you have ten or 20 or 50 patents. Patents don't mean anything if they don't understand your business, and why would people pay money for your product or service? Or why would you attract so many billions of eyeballs that your product could be monetized through advertising or sold to someone else? You have to explain all this if you want to raise money.

Sometimes, the challenge for entrepreneurs is stepping back for a minute. You're too close to this because you've been working on it every day for weeks, months, sometimes years, and you've got to really step back and look at it with fresh eyes. So that's what you got to do right now. This is your homework. I want you to address these questions in your pitch deck:

1. What is your business?
2. How do you or will you make money?
3. What problem are you solving?
4. Why hasn't it been invented yet?
5. Why is it hard to copy your idea?
6. What is the marketplace size for your business?
7. Why are you the person to build it?
8. Who else is on your team?
9. Who else is so excited that they already become initial/MVP customers and partners?

Think of those questions and address them in your fundraising deck, and you will quickly raise the cash you need.