1. 1. Adam Lorant adam@lorant.com The Art of The Pitch
2. 2. My Background 1998-2000 2001-2004
3. 3. Agenda 1. Know Your Audience 2. Build Substance The 5 Ts 3. Package Style The Pitch Pyramid 3 Source: Pennstatelive
4. 4. CleanTech 3% Digital Media 17% Life Sciences 8% Other 29% So ware 37% Wireless 6% Know Your Audience 4 PLEASE. Before you prepare a pitch or a presentation or a web site. 1. Understand who youre talking to; 2. What questions theywant answered; 3. What youwant to get out of the meeting.
5. 5. Tune your pitch for your audience Co-founders Employees Professionals Partners Customers Investors Media Your mother 5 Source:KaffeeTrauma
6. 6. 6 Remove Risk
7. 7. 7 Tell a Great Story
8. 8. Remove Risk Team Risk Market Risk Business Risk Technical Risk Financial Risk 8 Risk Valuation Investors Dont Like Risk ! Your job is to maximize valuation. Demonstrate to investors youre low(ish) risk.
9. 9. People buy in to a Great Story. 9 Source:RapidCityPublicLibrary
10. 10. Telling a Great Story: Substance, Style. 10 Source:RapidCityPublicLibrary
11. 11. Substance
12. 12. Creating Substance: The 5Ts Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e 12
13. 13. Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e What problem are you solving for your customer? How big of a pain is it for them? Whats the cost to switch from their current solution? Risk vs. WOW Trouble 13 Trouble Pain Change Cost/Benefit
14. 14. Creating Substance: The 5 Ts Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e 14 Whats your secret sauce? Why do I care? Whats new, original and different about your product? First/Best/Only How easy is it for a competitor to replicate? Know-how or Patents Risk vs. WOW Technology Unique Valuable Protected
15. 15. Creating Substance: The 5 Ts Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e 15 Risk vs. WOW What domain expertise does the management team have? Where are the experience and expertise gaps? Who are the advisors & board of directors? Team Experience Credibility Coverage
16. 16. Creating Substance: The 5 Ts Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e 16 Risk vs. WOW How well do you understand your customer? How many customers do you have and whats your growth rate? What do customers say about you/your product? What is your customer acquisition strategy and cost to acquire customers? Whats the customers cost/benefit? Traction Stories Proof Metrics
17. 17. Creating Substance: The 5 Ts Tr o u b l e Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e 17 Risk vs. WOW How big is the market? How much money do you need to raise? How fast are you going to get to revenue & profitability? Whats your pricing strategy like? Treasure Investment Milestones Timing
18. 18. 18
19. 19. Style
20. 20. Putting it all together: A Great Story 20 3 - 5 wordsConcept 100 secondsStand-up 100 wordsGet a Meeting 10 slide deckInvestor
21. 21. The Concept Pitch Say it in 3-5 words 3 - 5 wordsConcept 100 secondsStand-up 100 wordsGet a Meeting 10 slide deckInvestor
22. 22. The Concept Pitch NOT your Tagline 22
23. 23. The Concept Pitch NOT your Vision or Mission Statement 23
24. 24. The Concept Pitch 24
25. 25. The Stand Up Pitch Your elevator pitch. Cocktail party conversation. The 100 second story. 3 - 5 wordsConcept 100 secondsStand-up 100 wordsGet a Meeting 10 slide deckInvestor
26. 26. What you need to cover: Tr o u b l e 26 a a Te c h n o l o g y Te a m Tr a c t i o n Tr e a s u r e a a a
27. 27. Sample Stand Up Pitch PetPlay is introducing a line of gourmet canned cat foods with the brand name Petite Cuisine. These products look good, smell great, and taste great because they are people food for cats! You may not want to, but you could eat it! Research shows consumers love the products for their refreshing look and pleasant smelland cats devour them. Petite Cuisine is 100% nutritionally complete for cats and is made from products you would buy at the meat and fish counter. The line currently has eight items including whole tuna, red snapper filets, baby shrimp, and rock crab. I launched and ran Fancy Feast, the largest competitor in this space nationally and ran one of Nestle's international pet food divisions. I know this market well. Orders are in from Ralph's grocery chain with additional distribution commitments totalling 500 stores. Capital is being raised in two stages$500,000 in initial launch capital for 500 stores and then a round of expansion capital of $3 to $5 million for 3,000+ stores. Tech Coast Angels, 2007 27
28. 28. Breaking down the Pitch PetPlay is introducing a line of gourmet canned cat foods with the brand name Petite Cuisine. These products look good, smell great, and taste great because they are people food for cats! You may not want to, but you could eat it! Research shows consumers love the products for their refreshing look and pleasant smelland cats devour them. Petite Cuisine is 100% nutritionally complete for cats and is made from products you would buy at the meat and fish counter. The line currently has eight items including whole tuna, red snapper filets, baby shrimp, and rock crab. 28 Catchy concept pitch Problem youre solving Understands industry and consumers Differentiated productT T
29. 29. I launched and ran Fancy Feast, the largest competitor in this space nationally and ran one of Nestle's international pet food divisions. I know this market well. Orders are in from Ralphs grocery chain with additional distribution commitments totalling 500 stores. Capital is being raised in two stages$500,000 in initial launch capital for 500 stores and then a round of expansion capital of $3 to $5 million for 3,000+ stores Breaking down the Pitch 29 BIG experience Good traction Understands what it will takeT T T
30. 30. The Investor Pitch 3 - 5 wordsConcept 100 secondsStand-up 100 wordsGet a Meeting 10 slide deckInvestor
31. 31. 31
32. 32. The Investor Pitch NOT a product pitch NOT a business plan in PowerPoint NOT about explaining It's about SELLING 32 An illustrated story about the opportunity.
33. 33. Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule 33 10 20 30Slides Minutes Point Font Lots of graphics.
34. 34. Clean,Simple,Visual,Powerful,Memorable 34
35. 35. Contents of an Investor Pitch 1. Problem 2. Your solution 3. Underlying magic/technology 4. Traction and customer acquisition 5. Competition 6. Team 7. Status and timeline 8. Business model 9. Projections and milestones 10. Summary and call to action 35
36. 36. Youve Got To Capture imagination Show passion Show experience Show credibility Show simplicity Show validation Show ambition 36
37. 37. Paint a Picture 37
38. 38. Customer Engagement Metrics, Metrics, Metrics MRR, Churn, LTV, CAC, Revenues Downloads, Activations, Usage Customers Pilots, stories, references, names Lead Innovators Program 38
39. 39. Boring Finance Slide Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Revenues 100 200 300 CoGS 10 20 30 Margin 90 180 270 Sales & Marketing 50 100 120 R&D 75 100 100 FG&A 20 30 40 Income (55) (50) 10 39
40. 40. Investment Return Graph 40 Revenue Profit $5M investment Break Even Q11 2,000 Customers $1,000 per customer Rel 1 Revenue Q5 $3.5 M spend Beta Q4 $2.5M spend Alpha Q3 $2M spend Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q8 Q10 Q12Q7 Q9 Q11 1,000,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 4,000,000 -1,000,000 -2,000,000
41. 41. So Many Great Examples So Little Time In the spirit of making it real: http://www.pitchenvy.com/ http://www.ted.com/talks/david_s_rose_on_pitching_to_vcs 41
42. 42. The Art of the Pitch 42 Concept Stand-up Get a Meeting Investor STYLE AUDIENCE SUBSTANCE Technology Traction Team Treasure Who They You $$$ Trouble
43. 43. Storytelling is an ongoing process of continuous improvement Apply TestCritique 43
44. 44. 44
45. 45. And they lived happily ever after 45 Source:RapidCityPublicLibrary The End