First, let’s celebrate that this blog supporting the startup book, The Titanic Effect: Successfully Navigating the Uncertainties that Sink Most Startups has been active for one year. Yes, that is right - these timely tidbits have been coming to you for one year. How do we know it’s been one year? We know because we wrote the first blogpost on our way to the How I Built This (HIBT) Summit in 2018. Next week, we return for the 2019 HIBT Summit.
In honor of the HIBT Summit, we want to share words of advice we heard last year from Natalia Oberti Noguera who founded Pipeline Angels, has been dubbed “The Coach” by Marie Claire, and who hosts Pitch Makeover, a podcast on pitching. She did a session teaching people how to pitch in one minute. We appreciate her formula for pitching and want to share it with you all:
Talk about the Problem you are trying to solve. This is the critical setup where you show you understand customers and their needs. If you don’t know customers’ pain points and what they are willing to pay for, you will not be successful.
Describe how your Solution solves their Problem. You have to show that you are offering a value to customers. You have to improve on the functionality they already get. Some people think you should have 10x functionality or 5x functionality. The key here is that you have to offer something better than what they have today. This also demonstrates that you have a business model.
Say how you are better than the Competition. Startups sometimes want to say, “We have no competitors.” This is a huge red flag to investors. All startups have competition. It might be indirect, or do nothing. But, there is competition. So take the competition head-on. Say what they do and what you do. Showcase how you are better.
Share who is on your Team. While the solo founder taking on the world has romantic connotations, the reality is that investors like to see that you can recruit others to help you. Not having a team suggests you either cannot partner with others or don’t understand what it takes to scale. They want to bet on a team of people who can overcome barriers and create a successful startup. So build a team.
Also, think about your investors before you pitch. Understand the metrics that they will use to assess your pitch and your startup. Tell them about the issues they are expecting to hear about. Anticipate their questions and you will be more successful. Subscribe to this blog to make sure you don’t miss out on these weekly tips.