Presenting to investors can be nerve-wracking. The Idea Guide book contains an entire section called Pitching Your Plan to Investors containing over 20 practical tips to make your investor pitch.
1. Follow up the pitch with a summary email
The next day after the pitch, send the investor group a thank you note. Include in this note 3 to 5 summary bullet points (the problem, solution, competitive advantage, market size, customer proof are five good ones) about the business that will resonate and remind them of its potential. Even if they do not open the attached deck, 5 crisp bullet points will remind them of the key points. If there were any unanswered questions or information to retrieve, include that data as a separate attachment.
2. Avoid talking too much
For every 30 minutes of pitch time, spend 10 minutes on presenting, and 20 minutes on questions. Focus on product need, market potential, competition, financial projections, and other key factors. Then end your pitch, and impress them with great answers to their questions.
3. Minimal amount of slides
Have 10 to 12 slides to present that cover the major topics (problem, solution, target market, size of the market, competition, competitive advantage, team, marketing plan, financial objectives, the investment required, and use of invested funds are all essential) and keep everything else as Appendix that you can flip to if asked a relevant question.
4. Crowded slides or text too small
Keep your slides simple with one main point. Multiple text boxes and complicated diagrams become eye charts for a viewer. You risk losing the attention of an investor.
5. Talking over one another
If you are part of a team giving the pitch, appoint one lead speaker for each slide depending on the background of the person to speak to the topic. A financial person should speak to financial slides, for example. Avoid talking over one another. As soon as one person answers a question, resist the tendency for others to feel at liberty to add more comments. Otherwise, time to get through the entire presentation can become an issue.