4 Things to Know About Your Company To Make a Successful Pitch to Investors
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Renee Butler
When you pitch your business to potential investors, explain your company's purpose, target market and competition. You started your business for a reason. What was it? Potential investors need to understand your vision and see how you can be profitable. Articulate your business model in detail, including your assumptions, and acknowledge what factors could affect the success of that business model. There is also a matter of ability, so you should detail your accomplishments, both individually and as a team. That way, any potential investors can trust you are the right people to take advantage of the opportunity you have identified. Lastly, to make a successful pitch to investors, you have to explain why you want the financing. How does your company plan to use the money? What objectives does the money serve?
How You Make Money
Pitching a business is the same whether you are talking to a group of venture capitalists or having a conversation with your local bank manager. The basic idea is you are explaining the ways your company makes money in enough detail that the investor can understand the opportunity for your product or service. By the end of your pitch, the investor or investors should know how you intend to take advantage of that opening in the market. To this end, it is critical that you can explain your business model in detail and demonstrate how you developed it. You have likely made some assumptions about how the market will respond, the rate of inflation and how long your equipment will last. Investors like to hear your reasoning and see how a different scenario might change the outcome.
Why Your Team?
After an investor can see your business model, but before he understands how your company engages customers and knows how you spend your money, you have to answer a very big question. Why you? Or, more precisely, why do you think you and your team could succeed with that business model? Be prepared to illustrate why your company's management and key personnel are in their roles. Investors want to know what experience you have, any accomplishments you have concerning this business concept and your previous endeavors. They need justification as to why this is the team to make it happen. Discuss any achievements you have made as a company up to this point, and talk about your plans for personnel and hiring.
Your Market Strategy
Next, expect to answer questions about your market. Investors want to know how your company attracts new customers, how you plan to keep these customers coming back and how often you expect that to happen. After all, if you make a 50-year light bulb, you may not have many repeat customers; their light bulbs will not need to be replaced for a long time. Address that fact. Also, talk about how the market you have identified might change, and discuss how you could approach these shifting attitudes and trends. Expect to talk about market share, market growth and pricing.
Explain Why They Should Invest
To make a successful pitch to investors, explain how your company uses its current income, and walk your potential investors through what you plan to do with any money they give you. Investors want to know how you are going to apply their investments and how long that money is supposed to last. To this end, expect to discuss your monthly burn rate and your financial projections, including any assumptions you or your team have made. For example, are you trying to get financing so you can scale up operations, or are you looking to broaden the scope of your company's operations?
Written by:
