Best Ways To Communicate Value To Investors

You’re about to get on a Zoom with an investor. On this call, there’s one thing you must not do: just show up and talk. Many founders “show up and throw up.” They come onto the call and give a long, unfocused monologue. They quickly lose their audience. And they don’t get a check. You’re making a presentation, and that presentation needs structure. Here’s how to do it right… *Know What’s Important* Long before the call, you have to know the most important things to cover. They’re not hard to remember — I call them the Big 3. The Big 3 are Vision, Team and Traction. What’s the vision for your startup? Who’s on the team, and why are they the perfect people to take on this problem? What traction do you have to show you’re addressing the problem successfully? There are 100 other things you could talk about that don’t matter. Advisors, complex market size models, etc. Don’t bother. We need to be tight and focused. *Rehearse Your Presentation* Practice your presentation over and over. Keep doing it until it’s smooth, natural and easy. Figure out how long the presentation takes. That’s important, because you want to leave lots of time for questions. Your co-founder is a great person to rehearse with. Have them play the role of the investor. *Deck and Demo* Using a deck will help you stay on track. Don’t read the slides to the investor. Just use them as a guide. Include a brief product demo. Focus on showing the value the product gives the customer. Dan Siroker, founder of Limitless, did a beautiful job of using a deck and demo together to raise money. He pulled in $12 million at a $350 million valuation with his pitch, which I'll link to below. *Leave Lots of Time for Questions* Your presentation should take up the first third of the meeting. Leave the rest for questions. When you’re done presenting, don’t ask, “Any questions?” It’s too easy for the investor to say “no.”. Instead, ask, “What questions do you have?” Make sure your responses are precise. If they ask for a number, give them a number, not a story. Avoid long, meandering responses. It should take you about as long to answer a question as it took the investor to ask it. Some investors, like me, prefer to skip the presentation altogether and just do Q&A. That’s fine too! You should also rehearse for Q&A. Have your co-founder play the role of the investor. The harder the questions, the better! *Wrap-Up* Fundraising is sales. In most early stage startups, the CEO is the chief fundraiser and chief salesman. The investor meeting is a great opportunity for me to evaluate the founders’ sales skills. If he gives a long, meandering presentation, I’m picturing sales meetings going badly. But if his presentation is crisp and focused, I’m gaining confidence by the minute. Fundraising is a skill and you can learn it. It just takes focused practice. Know what you need to cover. Rehearse over and over. This is the way to raise millions. #startups #venturecapital

They got rejected by 30 VCs. 90 days later, they closed their first lead investor. Same team. Same product. Different story. When they came to me, they were exhausted. Burned by a string of VC rejections and stuck in a cycle of pitch → silence → ghosted. What changed? Not their deck. Not their market. But the way they told their story and the clarity of their ask. Here’s what we fixed: ➟ No more “here’s what we built”. We began with, “Here’s the problem.” ➟ Reframed traction to speak investor language (not vanity metrics) ➟ Built a narrative around momentum, not desperation ➟ Positioned the raise as a growth opportunity, not a lifeline ✅ Clarity of the market ✅Proof of demand ✅Founder conviction ✅A crisp use of funds ✅Evidence of velocity ✅Competitive insight ✅Realistic milestones ✅Aligned ask ✅Simple deck ✅Compelling close 10 lessons that helped them go from ignored to in-demand: 1. Investors fund momentum ↳ Rebuild your story around traction and timing 2. Data is the language of belief ↳ Make every claim measurable and credible 3. The first 10 seconds decide the next 10 minutes ↳ Lead with insight, not your origin story 4. Fundraising is sales with a longer sales cycle ↳ Qualify, follow up, close like B2B 5. A vague raise is a red flag ↳ “$1.5M to do what, exactly?” — Answer it before they ask 6. Pressure kills the pitch ↳ Invite the right fit, not approval from everyone 7. Lead with the problem, not the product ↳ Show you get the pain better than anyone 8. Make it easy to say yes ↳ Fewer slides, clearer ask, sharper logic 9. Own your unfair advantage ↳ Don’t whisper the thing that sets you apart 10. One believer opens the door ↳ The first “yes” is the hardest, then the narrative flips Rejection is feedback, but only if you listen, adapt, and level up. VCs said no. Now they’re getting intros from those same firms. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from rejection? Comment! Repost! ------------------------------------------------------ 💯 Want to qualify for VC funding?   Take your free Fundraising Gap Analysis Scorecard. The link is on my profile page - Leon Eisen, PhD

I see 1000s of deals a year. Here are 5 tips to successfully pitch to investors. 1. Start by explaining the problem your company solves. A lot of companies come in and they pitch what their product does. But the better place to start is what is the problem that you're trying to solve? What really gets me excited is when a company is trying to solve a very clear, well-defined problem for a well-defined customer. We see a lot of products that just don't solve any problems. You want to paint a picture so the investor can actually feel the problem and feel the pain that your customer would experience. 2. Define specifically who experiences that problem. Once you've defined the problem, explain very clearly who experiences that problem. Don't be general. The more general you are, the more I'm going to think you actually don't know who your customer is. Don't say “we sell to consumers” or “we sell to businesses”. If you sell to a business, say… → what kind of business → who the buyer within the company is → what types of businesses are not your customers. 3. Clearly articulate how your company’s product or service solves the problem. You’ve now shared the problem, who has it and how your product solves the problem. Now you should paint a before and after picture for the investor. Hopefully, that delta is so broad that the value proposition is obvious to them. 4. Explain how you charge and what you charge for your company’s product or service. What is your pricing model and what's your price point? Are you a subscription business or a transactional business? Are you taking a commission? What's the philosophy behind why you chose to price that way? And then as a price point, where do you sit along the spectrum? Are you a high-end offering or a lower-end offering? These are all key aspects of your business that need to be understood. 5. Give proof points. You've basically laid out an entire thesis. But that's not reality yet. So what are your proof points? Examples of good proof points can be → revenue growth → customer growth  → the quality of your customers. It can even be management team members that you brought onto the team or board members. Anything of that variety can be a proof point. But something tangible and metrics-based is always helpful. Remember, pitching an investor is not about sharing information – it’s about telling a story. Hopefully, this is a helpful framework to craft a good story for your business.

I blew 20 VC meetings before I realized I didn’t need a perfect pitch; I needed to show investors how I'd make them money. Here’s how I did it by focusing on milestones 👇🏾 REGULAR PITCH: I thought my pitch was smooth: "Our product is in market and we’ve gotten 7 customers and $100K in ARR. We’re raising $750K to hire engineers to move off of no-code" Sounds solid, right? Nope. 20 meetings and 0 checks in, I realized I was making a big mistake. I was telling investors how I'd use their money, not how they'd make money. MILESTONE-FOCUSED PITCH: Once I understood venture math, everything changed. My new pitch: "We're at $100K ARR with seven customers, and our product is a no-code MVP. With $750K, we'll grow to $1M ARR in 15 months - which will allow us to raise our seed round at 2-3x our current valuation." WHY THIS WORKS: Pre-seed investors aren’t investing in today’s version of your company. They’re investing in what your company can become. They need to believe that in 12-18 months, you can raise another round at a 2-3x valuation. That means if you’re raising at a $6M valuation today, your job is to convince investors that you’ll be able to raise at (at least) a $12M valuation down the road. Why do you have to double your valuation? Because VCs need to show their LPs (limited partners; the people who give them money to invest) that they're picking good companies. Happy LPs = more money for the next fund. TAKEAWAY: When fundraising, your job as a founder isn't to show investors your great company. Your only job is to convince them you'll hit the milestones to raise your next round at a higher valuation. The other parts of your pitch (team, product, GTM, etc.) are just there to support the story. What’s your biggest challenge with fundraising? Drop a comment and I’ll try to help! Save and repost this to help a first-time founder 🤝🏾