nvestors look for the right product and organization. The main focus is on the founders and the team that executes the mission. People get just 1 chance with a particular investor unless they have proved already. One cannot mess up this golden opportunity while pitching.
Words, tone, body language
Story telling is very important. But every word, your tone of uttering the word and your body language play half the game. You need to have confidence. Any sign of doubt or fear, will end up in failure. You cannot expect a fixed set of questions from the investors. So whatever preparation you have done may not help you all the time. It is your confidence that matters the most. You need believe, feel and live the product you build.
When 2 or 3 people meet the investors as a team, synchronization among them is very important. Any gap in your thinking or words will tamper the investor confidence. So you need to rehearse as a team before pitching.
Wrong moves
Never go with half baked pitch deck. When it comes to numbers, be very careful that you can substantiate those. Remember, the investors deal with numbers more than you.
Your purpose to seek funding must be very convincing. End use of funds must be very clearly stated.
Stating a past failure is not harmful. No one expects you to be failure free.
Investors know that you may fail in many areas. But make sure that you learn, pivot and move on. The speed at which you overcome failures is more important than your failures.
Never under estimate the marketing needs. In fact some of the investors have asked me to spend more than half in marketing. There is always an issue when you start spending more on product than marketing. That is ok for initial stages. But when you have to scale, marketing engine must fire on all cylinders.
Facts, simplicity
Do not overstate any numbers. When things come closer, you will be audited. Any gross variations will abruptly end your funding journey. Stating the facts makes it simple. You require hype only when you want to deviate from the facts. Founders need to prove that they are frugal when it needs to be. Things are not going to be rosy on every one of your moves.
Unless you are in a high growth path and revenue generating mode, do not state that you want to exit. Not every investor expects you to exit in 7 years.
All the best.
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