In 2019 the popular fiction memoir author, Elizabeth Gilbert published the novel, City of Girls about a group of young women traipsing immodestly around 1940s New York.
Of the project, Gilbert would write:
“My goal with this novel was to write a book that would go down like a champagne cocktail– light and crisp, bright and fun.”
I read the book, and found it the sort of raucousness Gilbert promised. More than this, though, I was inspired by the author’s opening note: here was a serious fiction author (before she ever sold millions of copies of the wildly successful memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert had earned a reputation as a talented magazine writer and author) making an unapologetic romp. One didn’t have to work too hard to read City of Girls.
This is a lesson entrepreneurs should circle three times in red. When founders make pitches to investors, they too often try to insert every little detail, creating overstuffed decks that seem impressive at first but ultimately leave investors asking: “but… what am I looking at here?” Founders forget that, like a good novel or song, a well-crafted investor pitch is exciting, has momentum and builds on itself.
The whole thing should flow.
How to create presentations that investors enjoy
So, what can you do to create presentations that investors enjoy – which, at minimum, capture and sustain their interest? In our team’s experience looking at hundreds of pitch decks over the years, the following three tips can help:
1. Lead with a compelling Why
The single best way to make your investor presentation flow better is to start with a clear, enticing Why and to organize everything else around it.
Who are you, where are you going, and why should an investor care? This is what investors ultimately want to know, and they want to know it right away, within the first few minutes of your pitch. Therefore, this is also the best way to structure your presentation. Lead with Why, then follow with How and What.
Think about it this way: your Why is a coat hanger for your presentation. You hand it to the audience, so that throughout your presentation, they have somewhere to hang all the subsequent data you throw at them.
Moreover, this Why doubles as your hook. What better way to entice someone to pay attention to you, then to promise to tell them a story about how you will make them rich?
2. Offer “meaningful details”
Once you’ve successfully hooked an investor with a compelling vision, it’s time to answer:
“Why are YOU the one to bring this to life?”
“Why now?”
The best way to answer these questions is by laying out a succinct sequence of meaningful details – i.e., facts which reassure investors that you know what you’re doing. If the Why section was about getting investors open to a “yes” then this section (much longer) is mostly about stopping them from saying no.
In practice, investors tend to ask the same kinds of questions to all companies. For example, most investors want to know about market size and opportunity, competitors, your product/service, customer value proposition, validation, business model, go-to-market strategy, financials, your team and what you will do with money they give you. They will also have questions about your specific context and company.
Regardless of what you include though, make sure the facts you provide reinforce and support the greater vision you describe first.
3. Eliminate data that confuses or overloads
More facts = more confidence, right? Wrong.
When it comes to pitching investors, founders often make the mistake of assuming that more is better. But investors are human, with human brains, and fundamentally rely on emotions to make decisions. If you overwhelm them with confusing jargon, overload them with too many facts, or simply make them work too hard to “get the point,” they will tune out or move into a cognitive state that is unconducive to taking action.
Here’s a simple example: what’s easier to understand?
“Our company is transforming, innovating and digitizing a critical space in American dental healthcare”
Or
“Our software helps dentists everywhere get paid, today, by insurance providers.”
Make everything in your deck easy to understand, as jargon free as possible, and has good reason to be there. Otherwise, it is detracting from the simple, clean message you are trying to tell.
