Template
A Guide to Developing Your 10 Minute
Investor Pitch
Introduction
• Your primary goal in an initial pitch is to get to the next meeting. This is
true whether it’s a 30 second, 3 minute or 10 minute pitch. You are not
trying to tell them everything about your company with this pitch. You are
trying to communicate the opportunity and the excitement.
• If you have a good business pitch and deliver it well it will help you not only
find investors – but can also be used to recruit potential service providers,
employees, partners, advisors, mentors and others. Most importantly
developing the pitch will also make you develop your strategic plan to grow
your new business.
• Remember that investors, especially equity investors, have the opportunity
to review hundreds of business opportunities each year. Most of them are
presented poorly and some great ideas are rejected because the exciting
opportunity was lost in a sea of jargon and equations or because the case
that this is a money-making opportunity was not made in a convincing
fashion. It is up to you to make your pitch stand out against this background.
Follow this template carefully and you will be off to a great start.
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• A more in-depth review of the company will take much more effort and time
and is appropriate when a potential investor has asked for it. Greater
technical detail is fitting at that time.
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Template Outline
• This presentation is set up as a set of master slides you should produce for
your investor pitch. The master slides are directed at the business
elements that your audience will be expecting to be covered by your
pitch.
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• The master slides all have a pale green background. Following each
master slide are tips for developing these slides.
• The titles on all of the master slides are suggestions – tailor them to fit
your presentation.
• Please use this template as a guide not a rule book - you may change the
order of the slides and you may need more slides to cover one or two of
the points. It is your presentation so you need to be comfortable with the
content and the order.
• Remember if you are adding slides you still need to keep to your time
limit – try to keep the presentation to 10-15 slides.
• At the end of this document are some general tips on presenting and
developing your PowerPoint presentation.
MASTER SLIDE:
Title Slide
Your
Company
Logo
Company Name or Brief Title
Brief Tag Line About Benefits
Your Name
Your title
Title Slide
• This is the slide that will be up when you are introduced.
• After you have been introduced repeat your name and give your
20-30 second elevator pitch – this should cover very concisely what
your company does.
• The slide should be very simple – you want your audience to
concentrate on your elevator pitch.
• Your logo should be very prominent on the title slide – include a
smaller logo in the corner on all subsequent slides.
• If you include a tag line make sure it covers benefits (why an end
user would care about what your technology does) and not
features (how your technology functions). Ideally your tag line
should be less than 8 words.
• Remember to include your name and title – but don’t include
contact or background details keep these for later in the pitch.
MASTER SLIDE:
The Opportunity
• Address the ‘pain’ in the market that
your company is addressing - be specific.
• Document the size of the market your
technology will impact.
• Be quantitative in terms of money
whenever possible.
• If necessary use 2 slides – one on the pain
and one on the size of the market.
The Opportunity #1
• This slide should make sure that your audience understands the market need for the
product you are hoping to develop and sell. You should talk about the current products
available and why there is a need for your solution.
• Tell me *what* it does, not how, except as it pertains to what makes your
approach unique.
• Tell me that you have an invention that is important to users in your
market and protectable
• Use a few slides (maximum of 3) for all the technology. If you need more
you are doing something wrong.
• It is important to talk about benefits (what the tech does for the end user)
and not features (the technical items that support the benefits). E.g., if
your technology is a light switch, I care about the fact that it makes the
light turn on and off a lot more than I care about the electromagnetic
technology associated with the actual switch mechanism. I do care about
why your switch is better than anyone else’s but only in terms of how I
benefit, e.g., a dimmer switch, a clapper switch, whatever. I do care that
the advantage exists and that it is patented, but not (now) the details.
Avoid Technology Overload
#1
• Avoid:
– Jargon;
– Undefined acronyms;
– Equations;
– Chemical formulas;
– Complex diagrams;
– Overly complex slide builds to show how your technology works;
– Data graphs that are hard to read or need a lot of explanation to tell your
audience what they show;
– Multiple data graphs.
• Try to use very simple schematic diagrams that show the inventive
part of your solution and explain why you solve the pain in the
market you previously described. Simple, well laid out stories work
well even for sophisticated investors.
• Remember the point of the presentation is not to teach about the
technology but to demonstrate that you have the foundation for a
viable business.
Avoid Technology Overload
#2
• Use video very sparingly – it needs to be less than a
minute – and make sure you can still make a
coherent presentation if the video fails to run (you
can be certain that it will not work at the most
important presentation you make).
• Do not do a demo – save this for the next meeting
when you have a lot of time to explain what is
happening
• Don’t show screen shots unless they are readable
and it is very clear what they are showing.
Remember Your Purpose?
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MASTER SLIDE:
Competitive Advantage
Your answers should:
Highlight the benefits of your technology over
competing technologies
Your competition includes:
“Business as Usual”
Technologies from existing companies
New solutions from other startups
Caution: never ever say that there is no
competition.
One Useful Way of Representing
Competitive Advantage
For example:
•All inventions assigned to Excellent University
– 2 U.S. Patents
– 4 U.S. Patents Pending
– 1 PCT (Int’l) Patent Pending
•Exclusively licensed to “My Company” in all relevant
market areas
•New inventions being reviewed for patentability
OPTIONAL MASTER SLIDE:
Business Model
How will you make money?
• Optimize technology
• Refine business model
• Development partnerships
• $600,000
• Implementation
• Manufacturing at
scale
• $4 Million
• Additional products
for new markets
Show your plan
Board Members:
– Top Dog, experienced entrepreneur, raised $100
million in capital and sold 3 companies
– Fat Wallet, angel investor, senior executive roles in
Fortune 100 companies
Advisory Board Members:
– Professor W. Smart, author of numerous peer
reviewed papers in this subject area
– Edith Editor, major relevant journal editor
– Bill Boffin, thought leader and expert
Why Are You the Right
Team?
• Engender confidence that you understand the
components of a good team, even if you haven’t filled
all roles as yet. Show that your current team has
relevant experience and knowledge of the technology
and the market.
• Include any scientific and especially business advisors
who will add credibility due to their reputation and/or
skill set. Make sure they have agreed to serve on your
board before you list them publicly.
• You might have a long list of advisers – if so only list
affiliations and only talk about a small selection and
what they specifically bring
MASTER SLIDE:
The Ask
Your Name
Your Position
E-mail address
Web address
Closing Slide
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Have Relevant
Back-up Slides
Have Relevant Back Ups
If there is an opportunity to have a follow-on
discussion with the attendees then make sure you
have relevant back-up slides. These might include:
• More details on the investment sought and its uses
• Current equity structure if you already have
investors
• Exit strategy
• Detailed technology slides and data
• Details on partnerships
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Sample Slide: Exit - Clear Path
• Acquisition ( ≈ 3 - 5 yrs)
– Market position – OEM relationships
– Brand – Field-tested technology
– Sales channel – Recurring revenue stream
–
Sample Slide: Funding
• $2.0m to Date - Common
• $3.0m Proposed - Series A Preferred
– 45% Sales & Marketing
– 35% R&D
– 20% G&A
• Strong Funding Partner
– Industry Knowledge
– Contacts
– Hands-on Capabilities
– Follow-on Support
General Tips and
Recommendations
Powerpoint Tips
Keep it Basic - #1
• Basic colors and layouts – make sure they are readable (no red fonts
on blue backgrounds) – and remember approximately 10% of men are
red/green colorblind.
• Less is more – max of 5 bullets per slide with a max of 5 words.
• Use basic illustrations – that are relevant and not a cliché.
• Don’t use too much animation or fancy slide transitions – but do use
slide builds occasionally if they help you make a point.
• Don’t use footnotes as they clutter the slide. This is a sales pitch
follow-on meetings and Q&A can be used to validate your numbers.
• Avoid adding “Confidential Information” or similar phrases on your
slides. This is an initial pitch and you should not be revealing
confidential information. Suggesting that you are by using this
phrase suggests that you may be naïve.
Powerpoint Tips
Keep it Basic #2
• Use basic fonts that are easy to read.
• Do not pick an unusual font, even if you embed it –
you never know when you are going to have to put
your presentation on someone else’s machine that
may not have the font installed. And if you have to
switch platforms there is a very high likelihood it
won’t display correctly.
• Pick a font that is sans serif – serif fonts are harder to
read and can less clear because of resolution issues on
projectors.
• Good fonts to use are Arial, Verdana, Times New
Roman, or Trebuchet.
General Preparation