Your startup needs investors to scale up the business. Attracting investors to pour their money into your business is not everyone’s cup of tea.

It’s necessary to demonstrate how your business is going to make profits for your investors. A strong pitch can help you get a much-needed investor for your business.

Let’s discuss the 11 main steps on how to pitch a startup.

11 Steps on How to Pitch a Startup

#1. Keep Your Pitch Simple

You should make your pitch simple and talk to the point because investors listen to multiple pitches in a day and they expect you to be simple and straightforward. If you are beating the bushes, you would be wasting their time.

You can present an outline of your business idea and what your investors will get in return on their investment.

You can start with a brief explanation of your business idea that clearly depicts your vision. Tell them what problem your idea can solve and how.

Show an outline that how your idea will generate revenues. Try to keep it simple without going into unnecessary details.

#2. Optimize Your Time

It is important to present your pitch in the right place because it will save you as well as your investor’s time.

You can’t frustrate your investors by lingering on to unwanted details. Keep your pitch concise, stay within the time allotted to you, and pace your presentation in a consistent way to avoid ending your pitch in a rush.

Set a timeframe and keep a steady pace. Ideally don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide (you may change slide timing a little bit, depending on the topic)

Don’t overburden your audience with boring facts and figures. Engage your audience and leave time for the questions because a conversation from both ends is necessary for a positive outcome.

#3. Tell a Story

You can easily get involved in explaining facts and figures that can turn down your investors. Rather than bogging down with information, tell them the story behind your startup idea.

Show them why you felt the need of your business idea, and how it would solve customer problems.

Start your story with the problem and ends it on the solution.

Add facts into the story to create great emphasis.

You can express your emotions while telling the story but keep a level of professionalism. Talk in a way that resonates with your audience.

#4. Show Uniqueness of Your Startup Product

You can win your investors by telling them how your product is unique to other similar products already available in the market.

You have to visualize in your pitch that how your startup will solve a specific problem in such a way that no other one can do that.

Emphasize the process that your business follows or the features of your product that makes it unique from others. You can even show your licenses or patents you have registered if any.

#5. Be Clear About Your Target Audience

You must be clear about your end customer and tell your investors how well you understand your customers.

This will give your investors confidence that you are determined to help your customers.

Paint a picture of your ideal customer and explain why he is your target customer. Use relevant data to support your claim and show them the profitability of targeting the specific audience.

#6. Tell the Key Figures

Every investor in the world is interested in knowing the answers of following questions.

Money your startup wants to raise

Your current running costs

Point where your startup will be profitable

Time requires to achieve the profitability

Keep these figures clear while presenting your pitch. Don’t keep too many figures, but try to keep relevant figures to answer their questions.

#7. Emphasize on the Social Cause

These days giving back to society is important because people are more concerned about social upliftment along with individual benefits.

You can present how your startup will help society or give back to society.

You can pick a trending cause or something close to your heart but make sure it should be relevant and realistically aligned to your business (not for the sake of emphasizing your investors).

For example, Warby Parker the famous eyeglasses brand, donates 1 eyeglass to poor people per sale.

#8. Strong Team

Your team’s experience will encourage your investors to invest because an experienced team ensures that you will carry out your business plans successfully.

You must highlight the successes of your team while pitching the investors.

Even if your startup is new and your team is less experienced or new, you can still highlight their individual strengths and specializations.

Showcase how your team will help your startup succeed.

#9. Startup Pitch Presentation

You can easily grab the attention of your potential investors by showing them a sleek Pitch Deck. Pitch deck is a bundle of slides that supports your pitch with a visual reference.

You can add charts and graphs to present your complex stats in an intuitive manner.

Use 10-20-30 rule

According to the 10-20-30 rule, your pitch deck presentation should contain at max. 10 slides, You should finish your pitch within 20 minutes (you can change if the prescribed time allowed for the pitch is different), and you should type in at least 30 point font.

#10. End a Startup Pitch

Remember, you are telling your startup’s story. The end of your startup pitch should have a clear and concise summary of your explanation of why the investors should invest money in your startup.

Don’t forget to bring all the elements of your pitch together in the conclusion.

#11. Practice a Lot

The more you practice your pitch, the better you will be able to retain facts and figures in mind while doing it live. This will help you engage more with your audience, rather than flipping your notes in between your presentation.

You can pitch in front of your closed ones and ask them to give you sincere feedback. Improve as per the feedback and try to absorb the whole pitch so that you must be confident while presenting in front of your investors.

Conclusion

Once you are clear about what you have to show, you can deliver that with confidence. Be clear, practice a lot, and deliver your pitch with full enthusiasm.

During your presentation, keep a conversational tone and make eye to eye contact with your audience.

These tips will improve your chance of finalizing the deal.