- First impressions are everything in life.
They say that within the first seven seconds
of you meeting someone or engaging with someone,
they will already have made a lasting
and solid impression of you.
This is doubly true when you're pitching investors
who are literally trying to figure out if they can trust you
and give you their money and you'll make it back for them.
So this begs the question,
when you're fundraising, do you send a cold email
or do you get a warm intro?
Do you send your pitch deck as a DocSend link
or a PDF, or wait, no, an attachment?
Do you actually give them the deck
before they agree to meet with you?
These are all questions that come up
when you start to figure out how to engage
with investors for the first time.
Whether it's for a seed raise,
a Series A raise, or even a Series B raise.
These are true and they become
even more important as you get into later stages.
Having raised capital from some of the best investors
in Silicon Valley, I've pitched over 150 investors
and raised from some of the best of them.
Including Andreessen Horowitz and Founder Collective.
I'm gonna walk you through the three most important
principles that you absolutely need to know,
so that you can actually engage with investors the right way
and you can send your pitch deck the right way
without looking like a fool.
Intro.
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What's up buddy, welcome to "Unstoppable"
I'm TK and on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you
grow your SaaS business faster with an unstoppable strategy.
If you are new to the channel, be sure to hit
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If you're already part of our community,
if you're part of my SaaS,
go-to-market coaching program, welcome back.
It's seriously awesome to see you over here.
I remember when I was first raising money for ToutApp,
I was nuance in the Valley.
I didn't know really any of the major investors.
I didn't really have a full network.
I just had a couple of friends and that was it
and I was trying to break in.
And at that point I did anything and everything
to break in and get angel investors
and seed funds to pay attention to me.
Now, the hustle paid off.
I was able to land angel investors like Esther Dyson
and Eric Ries.
Seed funds like Founder Collective, 500 Startups.
We went on to raise our Series A
from Jackson Square Ventures, incredible firm.
And also our Series B from Andreessen Horowitz.
So it worked out, but it was not through
a lot of trial and error.
So I wanna walk you through the three most important
principles to know as you first engage with investors.
How to do it effectively and not look like a fool
when you're doing it so that you can actually close deals,
raise the funding and build those incredible businesses.
If you excited to dig and go in and smash that like button.
And let's go into principle number one.
So principle number one that I like to follow
I teach all my founders is when you have the choice
and go after a warm introduction.
Given the choice between a cold intro, like a literally
a cold outreach email and a warm intro,
warm intro always wins.
And if you are reaching out to an investor
that is worth their value, they're not just selling,
it's not just dumb money.
It's like really great money and value that's gonna come.
Chances are their inbox is flooded.
They're more likely to engage on a deal
and open a deal and say yes to a meeting from someone
that they already trust.
So you should always go in for a warm intro.
When you are first reaching out to an investor.
How do you get warm intros?
Number one, happy customers.
Some of my best introductions
actually came from happy customers.
We had happy customers, they were connected to investors
and they literally went into those investments,
said, "Hey, this software is amazing.
You guys have got to take a look."
And that's how we got connected with some of our best
angel investors seed funds and series A series B investors.
The second thing is angel investors.
This is where you put your angel investors to work.
Ask them like, "Hey, we're raising.
Here are the key funds that we want to break into.
We wanna raise our Series A from or Series B from
and get them to do the work to get you
those warm intros and connect.
In some cases, someone that's an angel investor
may kind of be related to someone
but they may not know that person, but it's a lot easier
for them to get connected and then intro you in.
Then you going in cold, cause they may be more well-known
or more connected in the space.
So that's perfectly fine, opt for that.
Number three, get your advisors to intro you for you.
Lot of times you have advisors, you have coaches
and they usually have a deep network of investors.
I know I do this anyone that's part of my SaaS
go-to-market coaching program, when it comes to raising,
we do pitch deck reviews.
It's an extension of their strategic narrative.
We actually are reviewed their metrics.
I coached them on how to actually
think about the fundraiser.
And then I introduced them
to my network of investment partners.
This is something that I do and I write deal memos.
So get your advisors to do that as well.
And lastly, you should always make sure
that when you're engaging, do it warm.
Make sure that whoever's reaching out has the right words
or good like short memo on like, what is this deal?
Why is this important?
What's going on?
And a teaser deck that they can send along.
All right, so that's principle number one, do warm intros
use all these different avenues instead
of just going in cold because it just always works better.
Is it possible to do it cold?
Sure, it's just not as effective, all right?
Principle number two is you should adopt zero friction.
Zero friction, meaning you should always have a teaser PDF.
I've seen a lot of advice out there where they're like,
you know don't give a deck unless they agree
to a meeting who knows who they're going to share it with.
I always think that's a really terrible,
that's terrible advice.
Investors want to first understand if you are in
the zip code of what they are good at,
what they can understand.
If there's a market, they understand.
If it matches with their thesis, if it's an investment
that aligns with whatever they promise their LPs.
So it's super important for them to do that.
That way, they're not wasting their own time
and they're not wasting your time.
So I always said, don't be cagey about this.
Create a teaser deck, a teaser deck doesn't go into
all the details into everything around your financials
and your roadmap.
You don't have to give all of that
but you can still create a teaser deck.
One of the things I like to do is have a 12 slide deck
that goes into the core fundamentals around the business.
And I actually walk you through how to create one of those.
You can check out this video, my 12 slide pitch deck.
In it, I go into a lot more detail
into what those slides should be, why it's important
how they all come together.
You don't have to go right now.
I'll link to it below
so that you can go to it after this video.
But super important, have a zero friction
like actually have a teaser deck.
Make it super easy to schedule that meeting.
All that matters is to get that meeting with them.
And I've seen founders like they'll get introduced.
And those are sort of more like,
"Hey great to meet you investor
the best investor in the world, here's my Calendly."
And it's like, look, get it.
You think you're a hot, but in this kind of thing
it's important to understand the power dynamics.
And in the power dynamics, whether you realize it or not
the investors have a little bit more power
and unless you are an extremely hot deal and you really
don't need this investor and don't care for this investor,
which I doubt is the case for majority of people, right?
So just make it easy for them.
I was here, the thing I would do is I would just say,
"Hey great to meet you.
I'd love to meet.
Let me know if you have a schedule link
or an assistant you'd like to loop in.
Also, if you prefer, here's my schedule feel free
to book a time, either works for me."
And that's a super respect when I do this for everyone.
Super respectful and makes it easy.
And it makes it frictionless for them to actually
book that meeting with you, whether it's through their EA
through your calendar link or they want you use theirs
and that's totally fine.
Make it perfectly easy for them to say yes to anything
'cause all that matters is you getting that meeting.
That's the next step.
Also you wanna make it easy for them to say yes, right?
So I've gotten some deal intro emails where like,
"Hey so-and-so company is raising."
And there's like a low review.
And then it's like click here for the deck.
And I click for the deck.
I click on that link, it takes me to this other thing.
They're like login through your Google account.
I'm like, why does the deck need my Google account?
Are they going to read my email, click on that?
It takes me to this other thing where it's like
the screen with these graphs.
I still don't have the pitch deck
and I don't know where to go for it.
And that's not easy to say yes.
And at this point, unless I really care,
honestly came from a really trusted source,
unless I really want it on the deal,
I'm not gonna do it.
And so you're just hurting yourself, so make it super easy.
For that teaser deck, use an attachment
or just link to it directly to the PDF.
That way it's super easy for them to look at it and say yes.
After that, you can add more friction points.
You can add more analytics because look,
I invented a bunch of the analytics that exist right now,
along with others but like on around email tracking
and click tracking.
And how many slides are you in the deck?
Like we started that a ToutApp.
Yes, we're starting that with us.
Like, we were early in those, I know it.
I know it feels good
but it's not a great user experience, always.
So in the early stages just make it super easy
for them to say yes.
Get them to the deck so that they can actually engage.
So that's principle number two, make a zero friction.
Teaser deck, easy scheduling, easy to say yes.
And that makes a huge, huge difference.
Now, before I go into principle, number three
which goes into what happens in the meeting.
Let me just pause here for a second.
If you're starting to get the power in this where you know
different ways to get warm intros, make it zero friction.
All of things make that seven seconds is better
because it shows that look,
we have a very valuable business.
There are no tricks here.
I don't need to track you or anything.
This is an incredible investment opportunity.
And this person says so that you trust as well.
So, do you wanna get on a meeting
so we can discuss further?
Like this makes you show up in a much more powerful way.
And that's what really matters.
Because investors in that first seven seconds there
what they're really trying to figure out is,
can I trust this person?
Is this a big enough market
where I can actually return my fund?
Is this worth my time?
Because I get so much BS.
And right now the market has a lot of BS.
So, if you can actually engage in this way
you're just gonna come out so much stronger.
If you start to see the power in that
can I just get a yes in the comments below.
Also smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm
means a lot to us also when you smash that like button
it helps us spread our word.
We put a lot of love into these videos.
And also, if you're building out a SaaS business
you figured out your fundraising strategy
you go-to-market strategy, your product strategy.
I invite you to check out my five point
SaaS growth strategy guide.
Helps you create a one-page strategy
around your SaaS business on the key five pillars.
It's completely free.
I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video,
let's go to principle number three.
Principle number three is your initial meeting, right?
And your followup.
What's super important is that you follow up just as strong
through that initial meeting.
So the initial meeting you wanna make sure
you actually run through your full deck.
Again, a link to that 12 slide deck presentation below.
You can check that out, check that episode out.
Number two, you may also need to go through some data.
Like they'll wanna dig into something.
If the meeting's going well,
they're going to want to know more.
So what's super important is after that meeting
you should always follow up.
And by the way, I did an entire episode
of what goes through the investor's mind
as you're sitting through that meeting,
when you're pitching them on that meeting.
And what's important to them,
what questions they were asking.
We get so enamored in the, on our side,
on the founder side of the deal process we forget
what the investors aren't optimized.
Well, they're just people, also, they have bosses.
They're LPs.
So you can check out this episode, where I actually
walk you through what happens in inside our investors head
during a pitch meetings.
Super important to watch.
You don't have to go right now.
I'll link to it below as well
but you should definitely check out that episode.
But anyway, after that meeting, you should always follow up.
You should follow up with your deck
if to ask for specific data follow up with that data.
And it also ask for next steps.
It is perfectly okay for you to look at an investor
in the eye and say,
"Hey I would love to understand what you view as next steps
and how your investment process works."
Is perfectly normal, there's nothing wrong with this.
It's not eager.
It's not thirsty.
It's literally like, "Hey, listen.
I'm doing this fundraise.
I wanna make sure I'm optimizing my time
with investors that are serious.
And you're not saying those words
but it shows that way, right?
It's like, can you just tell me what the next steps are
in your mind and what your process is?
And they'll tell you a lot about what their process is.
If there's a partner meeting that needs to be had
if there's a partner that you need to talk to
or if it's just them, if they're leaning in or leaning back
all of those things come into play.
And if they're not interested, they'll just tell you
and that's you rather get to a quick, no than a long, right?
Like than a long drawn out no.
So super important, follow up,
ask about what the next steps are
and share the deck and the data.
By the time you're getting into sharing the deck
and the data you should authenticate it.
You should make sure it's protected.
You can put it in a DocSend with file, a Dropbox link
whatever it is and make sure that
only the right people get to see it.
'Cause now you're actually giving them more access.
And it's perfectly fine to make that process
with a little bit more friction.
So to recap, when you're sending your deck.
Number one, make sure you try to get a warm intro.
These are all the different ways you can watch
this video again if you wanna review those ways.
Number two make it zero friction, have a teaser deck.
Make it easy to schedule and also easy to say yes,
let them just get into the deck.
Number three, the initial meeting,
always have a follow up.
Check out the video I'm gonna link to down below
on what happens during this initial meeting
and how to run it.
I'll also link to the video down below
on how to create your 12 slide pitch deck.
Even if it's for your series A or series B
the principles are very much the same.
And I can give you the nuances as well
for each of those fundraisers.
If you got value from this video, be sure to smash
that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Just also it means a world to me and my team
put a lot of love into these videos.
If you got value from this and you have questions
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We'd love to hear from you.
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And I drop a video like this two to three times a week
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So be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon
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And lastly, remember everyone needs a strategy
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But when you are with us, yours is going to be unstoppable.
I'm TK, and I'll see you in the next episode.
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