Pitching – The ideal pitch

Why is pitching so hard?

Do you have a business idea but aren’t sure how to approach it? Want to discuss your idea with someone but have an aversion to selling yourself? Don’t worry, pitching doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and it isn’t a skill we are *born* with. Luckily, we can learn to give a pitch and we can perfect it, so we can become actually good at it. Since pitching is a valuable skill that can prove not just useful but game changing, we will give you a few pointers for starters.

Pitching is hard because in our normal everyday lives, most of us rarely pitch ideas, and if we, for some reason do, we don’t get feedback on the pitch itself but rather on the subject of the pitch.

Why is pitching so important?

In a startup business ecosystem, pitching is one of the most important skills we need to develop, as it allows us to find investors and get a financial injection for further development of our idea. With a pitch, potential investors, gets to know our business idea and ultimately decides if he is interested in further pursuing the business relationship.

How to give a proper pitch?

But how to give a proper pitch? What makes a pitch good? Does an ideal pitch even exist? Let’s start with the information: We need to present all the information that an investor needs in order to decide if he is interested in the idea. Nothing more. That means, we need to condense our information into a clear, short presentation that will convince an investor in the shortest time possible. There are numerous advices and theories from all sorts of business professionals, investors etc. There are 10 deck pitches, 8 deck pitches etc. What we need to keep in mind, that we are pitching to potential investors who usually hear numerous pitches, don’t have a lot of time. Most people get very bored with redundant information and frustrated by missing key information. Even more so if these people are busy business investors who are usually very stingy with their time.

 

Here we introduce the 5 key point, that we need to be well prepared for in order to give a proper pitch:

  • Problem

In this point we need to present the “problem” for which we offer a solution (our innovative business idea). When we are presenting the problem or better yet a perceived pain point, we also need to present how this pain point is being solved currently.

And what is a perceived pain point? These are not just physical pains, and we can find them everywhere: like laziness and vanity. These two pain points have inspired many very successful startups. So, to conclude a perceived pain point is a problem that our potential users will be willing to pay to solve it, which means users are perceiving them as problems or pains.

Of course, large monopolists are able to create perceived pain points (and the most certainly do), but there is a significant difference in managing a monopoly and creating a new business.

  • Solution

In this point we clearly present our solution, the way it is addressing the problem presented in the previous point and (most importantly) why our solution is better than those currently available.

  • Market

Here we present our market. At this early stage, potential investors want to know the number of people who perceive the specific problem you are solving, and if that number is big enough. Take the number of people using the current solution and multiply it by the price of your solution (this is called TAM – Total Addressable Market).

  • Traction

This can be the strongest and most persuasive part of the pitch, so we simply must include it in our presentation.

Here we show that, over time, an increasing number of users want your solution. Ideally you want to show a nice graph with time (weeks or months) on the x axis and revenues, orders, interest, or users on the y axis.

  • Team

Here we present our team and show that there is no better team in the world to address and solve this challenge. And how do we do that? We must present reasons why we understand the problem better and why our execution of the solution is the best.

If we convince the investors that we really understand the problem, better than anyone else (maybe because we lived it) and are very passionate about solving it we have presented this key successfully.

And another tip: Before working on our own pitch, it is a good idea to watch and review other people’s pitches before working on our own. This will help us to identify the key principles, see some god and bad examples and be more rational about our own pitches. When we finally do our pitches, we should exercise with our co-founders, family, and friends.

If you want to find out more about Marco Trombetti and what he has to say about pitching, check out his page here.

You should also check out this video. And there are many more available all over the internet.

If you want to find out more about realising a business idea or green entrepreneurship, check out other content available on the Young GREENHub.

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