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2020 | Buch | 1. Auflage

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Pitch Perfect

Raising Capital for Your Startup

verfasst von: Haje Jan Kamps

Verlag: Apress

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

You have a home-run startup idea and a whip-smart team to execute it. Everything should be in place to kick-start your company and secure funding. However, there is one more step that can make or break the entire deal: the pitch. Founders everywhere struggle to nail the perfect pitch to garner VC backing, and this book is here to help.

Pitch Perfect by Haje Jan Kamps expertly teaches you how to tell your startup’s story. To raise venture capital, it is absolutely crucial that your foundation is a story that is accessible, compelling, and succinct. Kamps uses his invaluable experiential knowledge to guide you through your presentation, from slide deck specifics to storytelling details to determining a fundamental philosophy for your business. In the process of creating and formulating a pitch deck and the story to go with it, founders often discover deep flaws in their business idea. Perhaps the market is non-existent. It could be that the “problem” isn’t worth solving. Maybe the idea is so simple that it would be too easy to copy. Maybe it’s already been done, or the team simply is not up to the job. Pitch Perfect has all of those bases covered so that you can excel.

How do you convince an institutional investor to part with their money and fund your company? The small block of time you are given for a pitch holds your startup’s future in its grasp. Learn how to craft your startup story in a way that will get people to lean into your message with Pitch Perfect. Your dream is only one pitch away.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Storytelling
… And why a great story is so important
Abstract
You may be tempted to believe that investors invest with their brains. They gather all the information available about a company, the market, and the surrounding big picture, plug it all into a spreadsheet, and then decide whether to invest or not. That isn’t the case, for two closely related reasons. The first reason is that investors are human, and humans naturally love stories and narratives. Being able to paint a picture of the problem you’ve perceived, how you’re going to address that problem, and how the world is going to be different once the problem is solved is tapping into an emotional realm. Don’t get me wrong; your investors will still do their “due diligence” and plug all the numbers you give them into spreadsheets to see if the story works on that level. But you can’t skip the storytelling step: just handing someone a worksheet with all the numbers already filled in would only work for a vanishingly small subset of investors.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 2. How Venture Capital Works
To raise money, you need to know what happens in the mind of a venture capitalist
Abstract
In the previous chapter, I talked about why it is so important to keep your audience in mind when you are telling a story. In my work with founders, I’m sometimes surprised that even pretty experienced founders occasionally don’t understand how venture capital works. By extension, it’s hard to make the most compelling pitch; without understanding venture capital, it is tricky to know what the driving forces behind your investors’ decisions are.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 3. Pitch Deck Design
Design is important—but content is king
Abstract
Many founders make the mistake of thinking that creating the pitch deck is the same as creating the pitch itself. That isn’t the case on multiple levels. The “pitch” is about the story you are telling your investors. It is the answer to the question, "Why should I give you $3m to continue building your business?" The deck helps tell part of that story, but it isn’t the story itself. Crucially, you should be able to do your pitch to a VC firm without a pitch as a crutch.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 4. What Slides Will You Need?
Not all pitches need all slides to tell the full story
Abstract
Slides are designed to convey a large amount of information in a short amount of time. The best way to think of the slides is as waymarkers toward how you are telling your story. Each slide is a topic, and you need to hit specific issues for your account to be complete. In later chapters of the book, I’ll talk through each item you need to cover in your presentation in more detail; in this chapter, I want to talk a little about what an investor needs to know and how you organize that story.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 5. Slide: The Problem
… And why it is worth solving
Abstract
One prominent trait of an entrepreneurial person is that they see challenges all around them. Nothing is ever as easy to use, as efficient, or as smooth as it ought to be. As entrepreneurs, we go through life always thinking, “how can I make this experience better?”
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 6. Slide: The Solution
… And how you are different from other solutions on the market
Abstract
Once you’ve convinced your would-be investor that the problem you’re tackling is worth solving, the obvious next step is how you’re going to solve that problem.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 7. Slide: The Product
What does the solution actually do?
Abstract
In the previous chapter, we talked about the solution and how you’re painting a broad-view image of how your company is going to address the problem you’ve identified in the market. As we discussed, for some presentations, the solution is the same as the product, but I like to think of them as slightly different slices of the same pie. Whereas the “solution” is a broader vision for the problem space, the “product” is more specific; it speaks to the product or solution you are planning to present to your customers first.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 8. Slide: Market
Where is the market today? Where is it going?
Abstract
Given that you now understand how venture capital works (Chapter 2), you’ll have figured out that it’s unlikely you’ll find a venture-backable business in a small market. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you have 100% of the market share for corrective eye surgery for left-handed pet ferrets. The market is not going to be big enough to build a billion-dollar business, which means it’s going to be tremendously hard to raise venture capital.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 9. Slide: Team
Why you are the right people to solve this problem
Abstract
In the world of early-stage startups, your team is the most valuable asset you have. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the world’s sexiest market with the freshest product on the block. Ultimately, your investors are investing in you and your team. When they are considering whether to invest or not, the main question they are asking themselves is whether the people at the top of the food chain at your company have what it takes to walk the perilous and meandering path of startups. The way you tell the story of your team is crucial. It will mean the difference between raising money and not raising money.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 10. Slide: Traction
How are you measuring your success to date? What milestones have you hit?
Abstract
"Traction," in the world of startups, is your finger on the pulse to indicate whether what you are doing is working or not working. Call them key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, or “traction.”
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 11. Slide: The Moat
Why is it hard for other startups to do what you’re doing?
Abstract
Of course, you have personal reasons for wanting to start a particular company. Usually, that is because you have a connection to the problem or the market. If your company has a “superpower”—something that makes you extraordinarily well qualified to start the company—consider dedicating some time to telling that part of the story.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 12. Slide: Business Model
How are you going to make money?
Abstract
Understanding the financial dynamics that underpin your business is a crucial part of being a successful startup founder. When you think “business model,” don’t fall into the trap of thinking just about the money flowing into the business. In the broadest possible sense, your “business model” is every advantage you have, every asset you can leverage, and everything you do to get customers, serve them well, and generate revenue.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 13. Slide: Go-to-Market Strategy
What’s the “beachhead audience,” and how are you going to reach them?
Abstract
There is a paradox at the heart of building a company. On the one hand, to be VC investable, you need to create a multibillion-dollar company. On the other, you can’t start off building every aspect of your company right from day one.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 14. Slide: Competitors
Who else is in the market? How else are your customers solving the same problem?
Abstract
In Chapter 8, we talked about how to determine the size of your market; that’s a crucial part of the story. It does miss out on an essential piece of the puzzle: who else is trying to solve this problem? Generally described as your “competitor” slide, this part of the narrative helps confirm that you know the market you are operating in well.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 15. Slide: The Ask
How much are you raising, and what are you going to accomplish with that money?
Abstract
If there is one slide founders get spectacularly wrong in their decks, it’s this one. Sometimes known as the “the ask,” others call it the “use of funds” slide—this is where you reveal how much money you are raising and what you’re going to accomplish with the money.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 16. Slide: Timing
Why is now the perfect time to start this company?
Abstract
All great new companies have something in common; they were the right company, solving the right problem at the right time. For every colossal startup success, you’ll often hear, "Oh! That thing? Jenny was working on that like a decade ago." Jenny—whoever she is—is now working on a new startup, because she failed to find traction and product/market fit for her thing.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 17. The Take-Home Deck
Should you have multiple versions of your pitch deck? Maybe…
Abstract
You don’t necessarily even need a deck to deliver a great pitch. I founded my company LifeFolder with my co-founder Colin Liotta—a conversational interface (“chatbot”) company that was all about guiding people through their first conversation about death. At the beginning of a pitch, I’d ask the investors, "I have a pitch deck, but we’re about to spend an hour talking about death. Do you want to see the deck, or would you like to have a conversation?" Of course, that opening gambit was part of the pitch. With one exception, investors chose the conversation. That was precisely the point of the startup; that conversations are the best tool for the emotionally intense subject matter at hand.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 18. Who Should You Be Talking To?
Creating an investor lead list
Abstract
Your deck is perfect. Your pitch is tighter than a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. You’ve done some stretching, you’ve had three cups of coffee, and you have even tried your vocal cords at a primal scream in the forest. In short, you’re ready to start pitching your startup to investors. How do you find them? That is where a lead list comes in.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 19. Getting Introductions
So, how do you get in front of the right people?
Abstract
If you’ve read anything about pitching your company, you’ve probably come across advice that says that you need a warm introduction to an investor. Without a doubt, a good, friendly introduction—ideally from a founder they’ve already invested in—is the best way to get on the radar of an investor. If you don’t regularly attend barbecues at the Palo Alto, California, mansions of venture capitalists, don’t worry—access isn’t the only way to raise money.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 20. The Investment Thesis
Your potential investors have a thesis they use to guide their investments. It’s helpful to know what it is
Abstract
One of the most commonly recurring frustrations I hear from the startups I work with is that rejections from venture capitalists are often extremely vague. There are several reasons why you may get a wishy-washy rejection—but a lot of the time, it’s because you’re talking to the wrong investors.
Haje Jan Kamps
Chapter 21. Further Reading
… Because it’s cheaper learning from someone else’s mistakes, than it is to make your own
Abstract
There’s a common saying that you should learn from your own mistakes. That is true—but in the world of startups, learning from someone else’s mistakes is much faster and cheaper. One way to do that is to read.
Haje Jan Kamps
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Pitch Perfect
verfasst von
Haje Jan Kamps
Copyright-Jahr
2020
Verlag
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4842-6065-4
Print ISBN
978-1-4842-6064-7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6065-4

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