Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
How to Send a Pitch Deck to Investors. Essentially, the pitch deck is super-critical. It’s going
to be that document that it’s going to really make it or break it for you in terms of getting
money for your business when you’re going out raising capital. So, today, we’re going
to be covering all the elements: how do you send it? What’s the format? So, with that
being said, let’s get into it. To start off, let’s talk about the format.
The format, at the end of the day of the pitch deck, as we’ve said multiple times, as you
can see underneath on the pitch deck template that you can see for free, that you can use
for yourself, is a 15-to-20-slides type of presentation. That’s what it’s all about.
During that presentation, you’re going to walk them in a very nice flowing structure
through the story of your business because it’s all about storytelling. Fundraising
is about storytelling; it’s about the process and fulfilling concerns, but stories telling
the absolute best movie because people are betting in your future, especially when you’re
early-stage. Obviously, when you’re later-stage, it’s
not so much of a movie, but more narrating the facts of the business because, at that
point, people are really betting on the historicals and what the past and the present of the business
is to forecast what the future is going to be like.
But when you’re at the early stages, it’s really all about possibility; it’s all about
the future, and for that reason, during those slides, you want to make sure you’re capturing
very well the team, the market size that you give a sense and an understanding of what
the key drivers of the business are going to be about, and then what the potential service
or product is going to be addressing. With that being said, you want to keep it
very short. You want to go to the point, and that’s why 15 to 20 slides is the ideal
structure. The next thing is when to send the pitch deck
to investors. When you’re sending the pitch deck to investors is when you’ve had that
first initial call. Ideally, you’re going to get an introduction to the investor, and
some people may ask you to send them the pitch deck ahead of anything – ahead of a meeting
or ahead of discussing further details with you.
But you don’t want to do that at that point because you don’t know if they’re speaking
with other competitors, what their intention is, what’s their agenda. For that reason,
you want to make sure that you are having control. You want to have that first call,
that first conversation with the investor to really understand what’s driving them,
so see if there’s an alignment between what your vision is and your mission, then also
what that investor intends by making an investment in your business. Then, after that meeting,
then you can follow-up with the pitch deck, and then perhaps you can also add in there
the financial model. The pitch deck is something that you’d never
want to send upfront. You always want to send it after you’ve had that initial call so
that you’re basically filtering them, and they’re also filtering you. If there’s
a match, then it’s obviously worth it to continue exploring, then you send the pitch
deck as a follow-up. The next thing is, what happens once you send
the pitch deck? Once you have sent the pitch deck, they’re going to review it. Remember
that typically investors only spend about 2:41 on a presentation. So, you want to make
sure that you’ve condensed, very nicely, the information in a way in which they can
skim very quickly through what you have put together.
Again, that’s the way that things are going to play out. They’re going to review it.
They’re going to share it with a team, with other partners at a venture fund, or if it’s
an individual angel, they’re just going to review it themselves. That’s essentially
what’s going to happen. The next thing is, at what point you’re
going to be delivering the pitch on those slides that you have presented or that you’ve
sent over to the investor. Typically, you’re not going to walk the investor through the
slides on the first initial call where they’re getting to know you, and you’re getting
to know them. That is one of the big mistakes that I see founders making.
Ultimately, the pitch or the deck that you’re sending, that’s going to only be done and
reviewed in person when you’ve had a couple of touchpoints, and perhaps at that point,
there is serious interest in your business. Typically, for example, if you go after a
venture capital firm, maybe it could happen at the second or third meeting. It could happen,
as well, at that partners’ meeting where you’re pitching to all the partners to see
if they want to make an investment or not. But essentially, it’s going to happen later
on. So, keep that in mind as the expectation. Now, when it comes down to the format or how
you are structuring that presentation being sent out, remember that you do not want to
add friction to the process. My strong recommendation is that you go against using tools where you’re
making that investor insert an email, to review it, where it’s clear to the investor that
you’re tracking their movement and having like maybe a program with analytics where
you know where they’re clicking, how much time they’re spending on this slide or this
other slide. Investors hate that, and investors hate inputting their email on anything to
have access to a presentation. So, my advice to you is to put it on a super-frictionless
format whether you’re sending it directly as an attachment, or my even better recommendation
to that is to put it in a Google Drive folder, or in Dropbox, and then send them the link,
so the less size on the email, the better. Again, make it frictionless and don’t make
them give you their email in order for them to access the pitch deck.
With that being said, I hope that you like this video, and if that was the case, make
sure that you hit the Like button, that you leave a comment, and then also subscribe so
that you’re not missing on any other videos. Then, also, don’t forget to check the fundraising
training. That’s the program where we’re helping founders from A to Z on everything
related to fundraising. We have live Q&As, we also have agreements, templates, founders
all over the world helping each other, and I think that you would like it. With that
being said, thank you so much for watching. Bye. Bye.