This video explains how to effectively present the amount of money you want to raise in your pitch deck. It emphasizes the importance of packaging and positioning your funding request to investors to make a significant difference inmpact.
What this video covers
Understanding how you’re positioning, packaging the money that you’re going out to market, that money that you’re going to be asking investors for during your fundraising efforts is absolutely critical. That packaging, that positioning is going to make all the difference. So in today’s video, we’re going to be breaking it down for you and give you all the step-by-step, all the insights, so that you know how to nail it. With that being said, let’s get into it.
What you want to do is, even though people say to raise for 18 to 24 months, you don’t know how the market is going to react over the course of time. You don’t know some of the unexpected expenses that you’re going to have to face, so I would recommend that you go for 36 months to give you a little bit more time in the event that you need to maneuver.
Now, the other thing to keep in mind is the milestones. Over the next course of the 18 to 24 months or even 36 months of what we’re discussing, what are the things that you need to achieve? What is going to allow you to move from one lifecycle of your business to the next lifecycle of the business? Is that going to be a certain amount of team members?
The other area is the hiring. Obviously, you need to take a look as to who are the essential people that are going to help you get to the next lifecycle of your business? If you are at a, let’s say, seed round, you’re probably going to have the founding team in place.
Then you need to think about the ask slide. When thinking about the ask slide, I always see entrepreneurs making the mistake of putting a very specific amount. If you’re, for example, looking to raise $5 million, just to throw in a number, don’t go specifically with $5 million. Go with a range. You can say $3 to $5 million. That way, you can get all the people that are investing under $5 million and all the people that are investing $5 million. You can even broaden that up and say $3 to $6 million.
When it comes down to positioning the ask, the way that you want to go about this is don’t just think about the ask slide itself because you need to think about the pitch deck as a whole. Remember, it’s a flow, it’s a structure, it’s a certain story that you’re walking the investor through as they’re reviewing. It’s not just the ask slide itself.
You need to think about the financials, how you’re breaking that down, what are the financial drivers, and how you’re positioning those on the pitch deck itself. You want to think as well about, as well, the market slide, where you are talking about who has raised, other valuations, and that’s going to give an idea to the investor as to where you’re positioned.
One thing the investor likes to do is ask you questions. They like to, for example, ask around valuation, the amount to raise. One thing that you could do so that you’re not negotiating against yourself, and maybe you can raise even more money at a better valuation, is to do some market comps. What that means is, take a look at your competitors, directly and indirectly, see how much they have raised, and at what valuations.
Now, if they try to push you into the valuation, because, obviously, the amount that you’re asking for is going to impact that, one thing that you can do is just to say, “At the end of the day, I believe that in a valuation negotiation, there’s one party that wins and another one that loses. So with that being said, I’m more interested in a partnership where everyone wins.
Given what you are seeing here, and all the different companies with all the amounts that they have raised and at different valuations, where do you think we fit, and what do you think is fair so that we make this a super successful partnership where we both win?”
Just to wrap it up, there’s a lot that goes into creating a super-powerful pitch deck. It’s not just about putting 15 to 20 slides together because every single thing that you say and that you do is going to make it or break it.
