Pitching… in the absence of the pitcher!

We spend a great deal of our lives delivering pitches. From cajoling parents to give us more money, begging teachers for more marks, haggling with the auto guy, requesting the cop to let us go, pleading with the maid to come on time and finally praying to god… everything is a Pitch.

Most of us are good at different kinds of pitches.

However with the advent of the great corporate Brahamastra ‘PowerPoint’, the pitch presentation has become an art in its own right. And most people suck at it.

Ironically, the reason why most of us can’t deliver effective pitches is because somehow the pitch has become more about the slides than about communicating what is required to convince someone to come aboard.

A pitch can be made

On the phone (Hello Sir I am calling from XYZ bank…)

On Email (My name is Odumbe Ombaka from Nigeria and I want to offer you a chance to make 1 Million $…)

On TV (This is the best abs machine in the market because you never need to exercise….)

Through Flash ads (Want to find hot friends in & around Delhi?….)

In a meeting (Sir this product will kill the competition….)

Non-Verbally (Wink Wink Smile Laugh….)

etc etc etc

This post is NOT on how to make effective presentations since I have already covered that somewhat (here). This post is about what you need to know before making effective pitches to various people using a PowerPoint or equivalent program.

But just to keep it simple and in the interest of those who (mercifully) take out time to read this blog, I will only be writing about Pitches from a Startup’s perspective.

Oh! And I write the below pointers assuming that you WON’T be present when the person views your pitch. Which means that he/she will be looking at the presentation and there will be no opportunity to razzle and dazzle with your mellifluous voice.

There are 4 different types of pitches for Startups

1. For Investors – They are interested in Your Idea/Product, The General Market Contours, The Profile of your Customers, The Pain you are trying to Solve, What you have achieved till now, How they can get in touch with you, Existing backers, partners and investors and most importantly Who are you and your team mates?

2. For Partners – They are interested in Your Idea/Product, The Profile of customers, What you have achieved till now, How they can get in touch with you, Profile of your team, What are the potential ways in which they can partner, Any Press coverage, Why is this so exciting and WIIFM (What’s in it for me).

3. For Customers – They are interested in the Product/Service, What makes your Product/Service so kick-ass, What you have achieved till now, The management profile, profile of some other clients, any press coverage, How to get in touch with you and the benefits of what you are selling.

4. For Employees– They are interested in knowing about how amazing your startup is, Why your Product/Service so kick-ass, What have you achieved till now, Management Profile, Your Backers/investors/partners, Profile of a few employees, Why this market so amazing to work in, What positions and skills you are looking for and finally How to get in touch with you.

10 Rules to follow while making a Startup Pitch

1. Keep it simple – Pushing in too many ideas, with too many flowcharts and too many details is going to kill your pitch. If you know what is the central Idea to your startup (I hope you do), use that as the common thread which binds all slides. Please note that the central idea may differ based on the category of viewers as given above. A tagline which encapsulates ‘what you do’, is very useful. Use only a few elements per slides. Don’t use too many animations, pictures or arrows. He/She will turn off really quick if you insist on being difficult to follow.

2. An Idea per slide – Ever tried reading 3 different subject books at the same time or even watching 3 movies. No? Well I hope not because it will be a waste of time. One idea/topic per slide makes it really easy to follow, register and digest in the mind of the viewer.

3. Colors and Graphics – Colors, Shape and Sizes affect the brain subconsciously. It’s a scientific fact. So even though Yellow font with a black background might sound like a GREAT idea, it usually isn’t. Please pick out easy colors, shapes, graphics and fonts for your presentation because the ‘Environment’ of your presentation really makes a lot of difference on how the content aka meat of your pitch is received. If the pitch is about a Startup making toys, then a black and white presentation devoid of any color is a bad idea, similarly a financial services startup may not want to use the rainbow as the presentation background. It will really help if the colors, fonts and graphics used in the pitch are part of your startup’s ‘creatives standards’. Finally, make sure that function comes before form. That is, the environment should support the content by making the presentation easy to read, pleasant to view and simple to remember.

4. Foot in Door – The pitch should not be written or made to communicate everything there is to know about you. You never mail a free mini-dictionary to someone in the hope that they might buy the extended 3 part volume series dictionary. You talk to them about the benefits owning a dictionary and how it will enrich their lives. The main purpose of a pitch is to introduce yourself, make yourself look interesting and to get a meeting! The final sale/decision/agreement etc will happen in that meeting. Your pitch must ensure that the person sitting across the table really wants to meet you.

5. Master Presentation for Material – Make a master presentation for your startup which may be treated as source material for all further variants. I have seen too many people messing up on details and content by putting up different things on different presentation and pitch variants. To a detail oriented person it can be irritating and confusing especially when they call you for a follow up presentation after they have seen your pitch. A master presentation also makes it easy to keep updating other variant presentations whenever required.

6. Easy to search – Most investors, customers and people get hundreds of emails a day. Since your pitch will probably be going through email, make sure you put easy to remember and recognizable subject lines, email ids and file names. If your Pitch presentation is named ‘Pitch’ or ‘Presentation’ or just XYZ12rd4 or some such ambiguous term, then the probability is that your file will be lost in some hard-drive or email inbox for eternity. Make the email subject easy to search. Put your Startup’s name and the term ‘pitch presentation’ in it. Also name your file using “Startup Name Pitch Date” format. For example “CoffeeCup Pitch – 22 Mar 2012”. Personally I would like to also know how many slides I have to go through and how many minutes it will take. This helps most of us get mentally prepared for the time and attention commitment.

7. Easy to share – If you can also mail a link of the pitch on slideshare, youtube etc then not only will you make it easy for someone to access it across platforms, you will also make it easy for them to share the pitch with other interested parties and stakeholders.

8. Don’t insult his/her intelligence – Don’t dwell too hard on the basic info. Everyone knows that the internet market in India is growing, that eCommerce is growing, that food consumption is growing and that global warming is also growing. A few revealing and relevant statistics will be nice. If you know the profile of your potential investors, customers, partners etc then you must include info which is relevant to them and doesn’t dwell on the known. This helps save time, effort and eases communication.

9. Tease – The art of the pitch is to open the mind of the person in front to receive the sales information you want to provide to finally make the sale. Since the aim of the pitch presentation is to get you a meeting where the other party really wants to know what you have to offer hence it makes sense to not reveal everything there is to say. Keep the bang for the final meeting. But most importantly tease the person to make him/her really want to meet you.

10. Make it for Mobiles – Probably the biggest shift one has to understand while making a pitch presentation. If you go over the last 9 points you will realize that almost every point has been written with the Smart Phone medium in mind. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that most of us will soon be consuming media in a major way through our smartphones. Certain demographics (like VCs, Investors, high flying executives, ahead of the curve customers etc) already do so. Anyone who owns a blackberry or a better smartphone would know that most emails, messages and social media updates are viewed through the smartphone. So the probability that your email and presentation will be viewed on a phone is really high. And if you have ever gone through a presentation on a blackberry you would know how frustrating the experience can be with slides made for a projector i.e. lots of data, small fonts, lots of words, messy graphics etc). My advice – Make a presentation and see if others can understand it on a basic blackberry phone.

Things NEVER to Say at your VC presentation

Here is a list of things never to say during a VC Presentation

1. Everyone is our customer – This is never ever true. Figure out the Market Size and your customer demographics. Give numbers and a good idea of what your customer is like.

2. We will kill the competition – Yeah? Unless you are Rambo reincarnated as a scrappy Startup you won’t kill anybody. Facebook has taken years to ‘kill’ Myspace. Don’t say it because you can’t prove it.

3. We will win because of First Mover Advantage – It’s obvious you haven’t done your homework or been in the real world. This statement is inexcusable. Being a First Mover means you are developing the market, educating partners, customers, developing standards, making mistakes and hiring expensive manpower… all by yourself. Except for a few cases, this is not an advantage.

4. We want to grow from 1 store to 3 stores in 5 years – VC investors want you to think Big because they make money only when you grow fast and grow well. If your goals are modest, you will put them off because then even if its a sure-shot idea, it makes no financial sense to them.

5. Exit Strategy? Only IPO – A miniscule number of startups end up living through a public offering in the world. To bet that you are one of them, is going against probability. Even if in your heart you know that you will make it to an IPO (and gut instincts count for a lot) you should be able to underline viable alternatives to your prospective investors.

6. We need $10 Million…because it’s a nice round figure – Please tell them why you need the money, how much, when and what you want to do with it. Don’t just put it there because it looks good.

7. We will promote our product/Service using ‘Word-Of-mouth’ – No one has ever been able to control this force of nature called ‘word-of-mouth’. How can you claim to use it for your goals? ‘Word-of-mouth’ is the final result of your marketing/promotions, it is not a promotion activity in itself.

8. Customers will shift as soon as they see our cutting edge technology –Apple makes better laptops than most other players. So even though it is known and respected as such, you don’t see people dumping their netbooks/laptops in dustbins for the Macbook Air. It takes more than just a better mousetrap to get things going.

9. We are technical guys and we will hire people for sales after funding – If you aren’t doing selling on your own, you should plan on getting a senior guy as part of the core team to handle Business Development and Sales. However, if none of you takes ownership for sales in your startup, then investors will have a hard time figuring out how you plan to convert your product/services into hard cash.

10. We don’t have a product/service yet – Then don’t ask them for money. They want to see proof of concept. (Admittedly some angel investors and VCs might still invest)

11. We will start as soon as we get funded – An extension of the above statement. If you haven’t started then why will VCs invest on the basis of your Powerpoint Slides?

12. We have no competition – If you say this… Then you are an idiot. There is a famous example related to this statement. When the first Insurance company started working in India, they had ‘No Competition’. But then why didn’t they capture the market without any issues. Till date the Indian customer shies away from Insurance. The answer is because LIC had a big competitor. It was God. The customer’s intrinsic belief that God will look after him, negated the value of an insurance scheme. You always have competition.

13. 2 line definition for my Product? Ah… it’s a little more complicated than that – Albert Einstein answers this one – “You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother”. VCs think of it in the same way. Customers definitely behave like Grandmothers.

14. I don’t really have a presentation ready but… So you aren’t prepared? Too bad. We may have still been interested had you just discussed the concept with us, but the fact that you aren’t prepared at all, puts us off.

15. We will keep our customer acquisition cost low by using Social Media – Social Media is a difficult to crack medium which has been capitalized by major brands like Axe, Coke, Pepsi etc who spend big dollars on creating great social media experiences. If you think its low cost, then you are going to be ineffective at best and shoddy at worst.

16. We have a better product/service because we sell it cheaper – Subhiksha sold stuff cheaper than other stores. Look what happened to them. You should be able to communicate Benefit and Value offered to your customer and to the investors. Just because you make a handbag which is cheaper than Gucci doesn’t mean it will sell better. Point – Don’t play on the price, but on the value/benefit even if it is related to the price.

17. We will outsource the (Core Part) of our Idea – That’s just dumb, you have to prove how you will own, grow and execute the core part not outsource it because it is painless. That’s like Apple deciding to outsource the development of the Mountain Lion OS to Infosys.

18. Our competition numbers aren’t relevant because we have a vastly different product – Your competition is always relevant in some way or the other. It’s only by using their numbers that you can build projections, costs, standards, salaries, market assessments. Not being intimidated is great. Not acknowledging or being aware is a sin.

19. We are infinitely scalable – Everything is infinitely scalable given the right resources. Just like how your foolishness is infinitely scalable with the right exaggerations. While your idea may be scalable because you have a web based business or a mobile app, you need to underline the related investments for that scalability.

20. Me Me Me Me Me… The best way to turn off VCs is to go on to monologue mode about yourself/your team and how you are God’s Gift to mankind. They are interested in you, but aren’t going to be partners in your endeavour to startup narcissism.

21. We don’t really understand the finances yet –Then be prepared. Don’t go in without the numbers. Hire a CA if nothing else.

22. Our Sales in year 1 will be $1 Billion. Why? Because its common sense – In the 1940s most Germans thought that they, the Aryan race, were the most developed race on earth. Why? Because it was common sense. Some things, which you may take for granted, may not make much sense to the VCs. Please backup whatever you state with plausible numbers and facts.

23. We only need your Money – That’s what Newbies do. Sure, you primarily need the money to make your Startup grow and prosper. But for VCs, many of whom expect to be in the thick of things, this is like a red flag.

24. Let me tell about how AWESOME the internet is – Don’t start off/bore them with the obvious stuff. They know that clean tech, internet, web 3.0, eCommerce, Mobile Apps, Cloud technology etc is hot and amazing. They probably know the contours better that you. Don’t waste their time or test their patience.

25. And as you can see on Slide No. 137… No point, they slept off/were brain dead by slide 15. Please follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule.

26. I am sorry I am late – We are sorry we are no longer interested. (Please never ever be late, unless you lose your arm on the way)

27. This presentation will only take 10 minutes (and then go on to 90 minutes) –Be truthful in the real sense and don’t expect them to be comfortable with IST (Indian Stretchable Time).

28. I know Bill Gates very well – Don’t drop names. And if you know Bill Gates then ask him if I can get a discount on the XBOX 360. 

29. You Guys? No I don’t know what you (The VCs) are all about – Insulting. But more than that it shows you just aren’t aware enough or care enough to google them.

30. There are really no major risks here –Bullshit! In that case Banks should be running after you to offer loans. There are always risks and you should be honest enough to acknowledge them. The investors will find it difficult to trust you and your intelligence if you don’t.

31. As you can see on this slide… no… sorry it’s the other slide… – Major turn off. You aren’t prepared well enough.

32. Knock Knock…who’s there… – While a little humor is a great thing, especially for ‘bored-out-of-their wits’ investors/VCs, no one wants to invest in a Joker.

33. Excuse Me. I need to go pee – You will pay for breaking the momentum. VCs, due to their profile and time constraints have major ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) issues.

34. Today we are here… to Blow your mind! – Even if you have that one Idea which will change the world, this statement ensures that VCs will no longer be surprised. So unless you have suddenly invented time travel, conducting safe nuclear fusion in your bathtub or have figured out what women really want, stay away from it.

35. Let us begin with the Definition of Marketing – No, this is not college, you don’t get marks for the definition. You get funding for changing the world. Keep it nice and meaty.