Thoughts on creative investing, product management, UI/UX, and marketing strategy.
I'm currently Director at a>m ventures. You can find more about me at patrickwoods.com
I'm currently Director at a>m ventures. You can find more about me at patrickwoods.com
A basic tenant of marketing involves the definition of the target audience. Without a clear sense of the customer, it’s impossible to define benefit and craft messaging in a way that resonates with customers.
This point borders on the pedantic, but as much time is devoted to urging founders to define, understand, and talk to their potential users, such advice is rarely applied to a different yet equally important kind of customer: potential investors.
Many great blog posts have been written about how to effectively pitch investors, but these helpful lists rarely account for the differences in mindset of potential investors.
The assumption is that this outline or that approach to the investor pitch is always and everywhere the best way to pitch. However, as a member of a non-coast startup community (Memphis), I’ve begun to notice crucial differences in the mindsets of angel investors from different contexts.
As crazy is this may sound, not all investors are immediately interested in the nuance of your product’s features, your customer acquisition model, your cost-per-user, and other talking points we’ve come to know and love. If you’re pitching to this type of investor, often found outside of the traditional tech hotbeds, there are three things that will almost certainly resonate more powerfully than your impressive technical implementation or even the details of your social viral launch plan (I know!).
passion
Above anything, you as a founder must communicate your passion for your product, company, and market. The angels you’re pitching won’t hear anything else unless you can infect them with the passion that propels 100 hour work weeks, causes you to make decisions that seem crazy to friends and family, and drives you to risk everything in pursuit of your vision.
vision
A founder should be frustrated with the way things are and live for the cause of aligning current realities with the way things ought to be. Passion is crucial, but it’s entirely possible to be passionate about model train collecting, which, while potentially interesting, doesn’t promise the home runs investors seek.
So you must demonstrate your vision, that you keep one foot in present realities and another in the future. Regardless of their background, investors can undoubtedly get excited when a founder’s passion becomes wedded to a rich vision and aimed at a large problem.
real solutions to real problems in big markets
Vision and passion are about you and your team, but you must demonstrate that your passion and vision are focused on something meaningful in a market that’s growing. The angel investors I know are generally intelligent with a thorough understanding of business. Your pitch can provide the context for what you’re doing and ultimately set the stage for why your solution is worth their investment dollars and time.
Your 12 minute pitch simply cannot contain the level of product and marketing detail you’d like to get into. You eat and sleep with your product and know everything about what makes it special, but your pitch is not the place to wow us with all the features and tasty UI elements.
passion
Above anything, you as a founder must communicate your passion for your product, company, and market. The angels you’re pitching won’t hear anything else unless you can infect them with the passion that propels 100 hour work weeks, causes you to make decisions that seem crazy to friends and family, and drives you to risk everything in pursuit of your vision.
vision
A founder should be frustrated with the way things are and live for the cause of aligning current realities with the way things ought to be. Passion is crucial, but it’s entirely possible to be passionate about model train collecting, which, while potentially interesting, doesn’t promise the home runs investors seek.
So you must demonstrate your vision, that you keep one foot in present realities and another in the future. Regardless of their background, investors can undoubtedly get excited when a founder’s passion becomes wedded to a rich vision and aimed at a large problem.
real solutions to real problems in big markets
Vision and passion are about you and your team, but you must demonstrate that your passion and vision are focused on something meaningful in a market that’s growing. The angel investors I know are generally intelligent with a thorough understanding of business. Your pitch can provide the context for what you’re doing and ultimately set the stage for why your solution is worth their investment dollars and time.
Your 12 minute pitch simply cannot contain the level of product and marketing detail you’d like to get into. You eat and sleep with your product and know everything about what makes it special, but your pitch is not the place to wow us with all the features and tasty UI elements.
The goal of your pitch should be to leave the audience interested enough to ask plenty of follow-up questions. Any salesman knows that once the prospect begins asking questions, they’ve become emotionally engaged and vested in the conversation.
Leave them wanting more.
…
The caveat, of course, is that you must know who you’re pitching to and what they need to hear. Pitching a room full of serial entrepreneur angels in the Valley certainly has different requirements than pitching high net worth individuals outside of the usual tech hubs.
The tested problem-solution-market-ask outline for pitching has merit, but I encourage you to craft your message in a way that accounts for who’s listening. Share your passion, cast a vision, and demonstrate that you’re doing something worthwhile.
19th December 2011
Notes: 21
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