You love your idea for a startup. Your friends love your idea for a startup. The pizza delivery guy loves your idea for a startup. Heck, even you mother loves your idea for a startup (although she wishes you would go to law school instead).
Sounds like you’re ready to take your pitch to the outside world.
This pitch can be to venture groups you want to fund you, reporters you want to cover you, potential customers you want to buy your product or service, or even meetup groups you want to embrace you. Whatever group you’re targeting, you need a clear message that resonates with your audience. You may have to vary it slightly for different folks, but the foundation should remain the same.
Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when crafting your pitch:
1. Do your homework.
Know who you’re talking to and what their interests are. Get inside their head to understand the type of information they’ll find valuable. Angel investors what to hear about ROI, while reporters want to know what will catch their reader’s and potential customers want to know how you’ll help them be more successful. Get in the head of your audience to understand what they want to hear. Anticipate every question they’ll ask and have an answer ready.
2. Lead with a quick hook that draws them in.
Time is money, and no one (especially wealthy venture capitalists) has enough time to listen to a long drawn-out song-and-dance introduction to your startup. Be passionate, be warm and friendly, be yourself and above all else be succinct. If people in the audience are captivated by your startup, they’ll ask questions and then you can extrapolate at great length.
3. Start with a problem, end with a solution.
Your initial introduction should be your “elevator pitch” in 10 words or less (yes, 10 words or less). It should identify a pain that people have (or need to know they’ll soon have) and how you’re a knight in shining armor ready with a solution.
4. Next add some spice with facts and figures.
We’re all suckers for cold hard facts. Once you’ve established your passion and caught their attention with a hook, back it up with relevant statistics. Is 70% of the market being under serviced? Are there 6 million customers who are low-hanging fruit? Does research show that the market leader is letting a $5 million dollar business slip through their fingers because they have bigger fish to fry? Whet their appetite with impressive numbers. Try to quantify the market opportunity in terms of revenue.
5. Emphasize your uniqueness.
If you’re another “me too” startup, your chances are slim and none of getting a foot in the door. Even if you offer a product or service similar to others, stress what makes you different. It can be how you provide better service, better pricing, better marketing or better whatever. Just emphasize what makes you better than everyone else.
6. Define how you’ll pinpoint customers.
Quickly segue into specifics on communicating your solution to your target market. While everyone envisions :30 TV ads during the World Cup, fact is as a scrappy startup you’ll need to be a little more realistic. Explain how you’ll be savvy and hire freelance telemarketing experts, use social media to spread the word affordably or hand-out 2-for-1 coupons as college student leave class. Try to explain all the channels at your disposal and how you’ll best utilize them.
7. Speak about expanding your team.
Discuss the manpower/womanpower that will allow you to accomplish all you’ve now got them excited about. Who’s on your management team, and what are their work experience and core competencies? Who do you know that can pull strings to get things done? How are you going to hire freelancers to ramp-up quickly and efficiently?
8. Close like a champion.
Don’t let your pitch spiral into the deep dark abyss. Wrap up your presentation with a clear-cut call-to-action. Ask for an agreement on funding terms, or a follow-up meeting with the rest of the team. If it’s a reporter, confirm when the article will run and how you can expedite the publication. If it’s a potential client, have them sign on the dotted line. Just make sure everyone agrees on the next-steps before you all go your separate ways. Oh, and thank them too, regardless of the outcome.
Needless to say, practice your pitch over and over. And over. In front of the mirror is nice so you can see if you have the enthusiasm you’re aiming for. Have others listen in too and critique you (this is where the pizza guy can earn a really nice tip), especially wok on the speed of your delivery. While you want to pitch at a brisk pace, you don’t want to rush your words together so it all sounds like a motor scooter in alleyway. And most of all, have fun and sell away.