Preparing for a Pitch Presentation? Don’t Start with the Slide Deck
If you want to create a pitch to investors — and do it efficiently — then don’t start by creating a slide deck. While it may seem counterintuitive to everything you’ve heard before, it’s true: the entire industry is focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Think about it: What’s the process of getting to the point where you’re up in front of an investor? What happens before that? Somewhere along the way, you must submit something to them that they have to read without you being there. And if you haven’t nailed that (your Investment Summary, that is) then you’re not going to be pitching to them in the first place.
To learn more about the most effective and efficient process in creating a successful investor pitch, watch this short video:
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I wrote this article, I thought it was getting published in Forbes, and he rewrote it and basically stripped the important point, which is that if you want to create a pitch to investors and do it efficiently, do not start with the slide deck. If you want to have a really inefficient process, then by all means do that, but it’s not the efficient way to do it. It made me laugh because the editor rewrote it back into this slide deck thing is where he starts.
Speaker 2: If I’m hearing you correctly, the entire industry literally is focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Right, because the other thing is what’s the process of getting to the point where you’re up in front of any sort of investor group, whether it’s angels or Venture Capital or seed, that you’re presenting the slide deck, what happens before that? Somewhere along the line you submit something to someone that they have to read without you being there. And if you haven’t nailed that, which is your investment summary, you’re not going to be pitching to anyone.
