How We Like to Be Pitched
8 easy pieces
Here are 8 tips for pitching to Jovono. These are our idiosyncrasies and should be viewed as supplements to any good pitching strategy.
Explain precisely what you’re betting on
Every startup is based on the idea that you’re changing the world in a big way. That involves uncertainty, which means taking a bet. In a pitch, you should be specifying a model of the world and then, through your startup, betting on each variable. These bets could be on technology, social acceptance, market structure, whatever. Your pitch must explain your bets clearly and show us why you’re likely to be right.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
What are are we really betting on? How many bets are we making?
Why will these bets go our way? How do we improve those odds?
Does the payoff justify the bet?
Tell us how you will shift the paradigm
We want to walk away having changed our perspective on something. This is what we mean by “shifting the paradigm.” Sometimes it means that you show us that the world has been wrong about something this whole time. Other times it means that you’ve invented or discovered something that will change everything in a big market. One example is a cancer researcher at USC trying to end metastases. Since metastatic tumors drive 90% of cancer mortality, her work could turn cancer from a terminal illness into a chronic one, thus transforming how we think about it. Think big.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
How has our perspective of the world, especially a market, changed after meeting you?
What is your role in this change?
How big is this shift?
Have a clear picture for “Series n”
We want to see the tangible targets for this round, with stretch goals and bare-minimum outcomes. To be clear, we aren’t myopic and really want to see your grand vision. However, we have to survive tomorrow to get to next year, which means that we must know what function this round serves. The key is a sense of purpose and corollary goals: what you want to do and why.
If this is your Series n, we should walk away being able to answer these questions:
What did you accomplish with Series n-1?
What do you want to do with Series n?
What are we setting you up for with Series n+1?
We want to see what gives you magic…
We want to see a “why you?” rationale. The narrative is critical, because it tells us about your team and what gives you the greatest edge in the world. The best founders are almost always addressing problems that are intensely personal to them or solving issues they’ve seen throughout their own careers. They’re also flexible. Adaptability is key because nothing ever goes according to plan, and it comes from grit, curiosity, and creativity.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
Why is the problem and solution personal for these founders?
Do the founders have something that no one else in the world has? Do they know something no one else in the world does?
Do we believe in this specific team?
…but we want honesty about your risks and weakness —plus your mitigation strategies
When you go onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt, you need to be able to mesmerize and look impenetrable. When you’re pitching you need to show us that when we’re under the dome of privacy you are clear-headed about your risks and weaknesses. Investing is about building a trusting relationship. We’re not just going to help you grow but help you get through hard times too. If you can’t be upfront about risks we might have a hard time working together.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
What are the biggest risks?
Are there plausible mitigation strategies? What will you prioritize?
How candid were you?
You should know more than us
A critical part of the pitch is your ability to signal that you’re prepared. We can’t watch you all the time, so we need to see that you’ll make good choices when we’re not there. Since you have had more time to prepare than us you should be a relative expert. Hopefully we add enough value to know more than you in at least one area, but if your knowledge is just a subset of ours you have bigger problems than pitching us. Oh, and while background information is essential, please don’t dumb it down for us; we’d rather ask you to explain than miss out on something important.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
What market or technology did we learn more about? What did we learn?
What further diligence do we need to understand this company?
How do you want us to help?
Can we see what we bring to the table to support you?
Show us the sequence of steps to success
While flexibility is essential, we do want you to say what success looks like. In power law markets, competitors often agree on what the end stage company is but disagree on the sequence of steps to get there or fail on executing. For example, in the 2000s, every social media company seemed to agree on what the ultimate social media company would look like. But only Facebook realized that the key steps were picking the right starting market and then algorithmically sorting feeds. So, in a sense, a startup is not a bet on an endpoint but a path, and you need to convince us you’re on the right one.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
What sequence of things must go right for this company to succeed?
Why is this the right order?
We need to know that this is the right time
In a sense, investing is all about timing. Product-market fit, founder-company fit, and every other kind of fit is a function of time and broad infrastructure trends. While this isn’t required, the best ideas usually build on some kind of wave. One great example is Netflix, which was inspired by an Andrew Tanenbaum textbook problem on throughput efficiency. We don’t want you to be buzzy to grab our attention. We want to know what deep insight makes your company urgent.
We should walk away being able to answer these questions:
Is this the right time for this company, product, or idea? Why?
Is there a secular trend or core idea driving your company? Is it a well-executed idea independent of trends? Or is it just a buzzword salad?
We hope this is helpful and very much look forward to meeting you. Find us at our website.
Post-script: general pitching advice
Here are some other great, more general-purpose pitching resources.
The Y Combinator resources page has a whole, excellent section titled “fundraising.”
Li Jiang wrote out the 8 questions he asks every startup (and that every founder should ask themselves).
Reid Hoffman’s annotated LinkedIn Series B pitch deck is a master class in itself on how every single slide should be strategically crafted.
Sarah Guo has a great deep dive on what she looks for in a pitch and what makes a good startup.
We love Geoff Ralston’s blog post on seed fundraising.
Justin Kan’s blog post on Series A fundraising is extremely helpful.
Ash Rush wrote an article on how to build your deck from the ground up that will help you make a good base.
Techstars also has a quick and dirty pitch checklist you should use.