How to Perform the Quick Pitch to Investors in the First Three Mins

I'm pretty sure that there are tons of pitch deck advice out there for startups and you can download the deck template from the successful startups and the founders. Having interned for Tech Wildcatters, one of the Forbes top 10 startup accelerator, and watching amount of the pitch of startups, I summed up couple of tricks and tips for the early-staged startup companies who want to raise money.

So Health Wildcatters hosted a Quick Pitch event for its new class of 2014, and people from health startup community got together and watched twenty four startup applicants pitch yesterday. The process was that every investor rated the performance of each pitch and decided whether to invest to the company. I was sitting among the investors and carefully watching how each pitch affected the decision-making process of the investors. Here are some interesting facts.

• A Great Presenter. 

I cannot say how important it is any more, even most of startups have already realized it. During Health Wildcatters Quick Pitch Day, 80% of the startups couldn't speak up when they were pitching. It was such a pity that seeing investors checked the not going to invest box just because they couldn't hear clearly about the product and service. Some founders presented with the cheat sheet and kept looking at it, and it just made the presentation so dry and unconvincing. Imagine how investor would react after watching twenty presentations. Also the timing is so critical. each team had exact three minutes and half of them failed to showcase their products within that period of time. Even they had the chance to approach the investors during the happy hour, the objective of a good first impression was just uncompleted. I found that the presentation provided by the convincing and sincere speakers was more likely to be rated higher. It doesn't matter that how great product you have if you cannot give a great elevator speech.

• Market Opportunity

Are there any customers going to buy your product? The startup nowadays is becoming not so much as creative as four year ago. A lot people dive in the technology area and try to develop something that already exists in the market. Even there is a slight difference, the customers are not going buy something they think that it is not as useful as the one they are using. Mobile applications and websites are still two popular markets where startups are interested in because of the low initial cost. When the investors listen to the pitch, most of them are willing to know whether there is problem in your current market and what solution you are going to use. Despite you are in a competitive market, would you do something different from your competitors to win your customers? Though people say you just need an idea to build a startup, most startups are not revolutionary enough to raise money just by throwing an idea out. Investors are looking for the professional business plan, even nobody wants to admit it.

• Financials 

Have you ever wondered that how all these startup established there market value? Almost every startup can worth roughly a hundred million at least and the projected revenue can be even three times higher than the current year. I don't think the investors really care about the numbers that the companies made up because they know how much each company is going to worth. Investors care about the liability of the company, the total expense, the numbers of customers and the fundings that the startup is going to need. From my observation during the Quick Pitch, half of the companies didn't even talk about their financials or just briefly talked a bit. If investors cannot see the return of their money, it's so unlikely for startups to raise money.

• Great Products

I believe that the product that you're going to sell is the most important thing that every startup should be considering. Don't just copy the other's. Startup is not an unreachable word any more and some people who do the startup are just for flipping their business and make money from it. There is nothing wrong about making money, but if you know how to build a sustainable business and devote to changing people's lives, you are going to succeed.