Your Pitch Sucks.

Drawing some inspiration from the You Suck at Photoshop series as well as the 3 pitches that I saw yesterday, I've decided that most presenters need some tough love. Here's why potential investors and advisors think you suck:

1. You start weak. You haven't rehearsed your opening line. Instead, you're nervous, try to be witty, and make a remark about the weather. Then, you make some impromptu introduction about yourself that is boring as hell. I'm already rolling my eyes and reaching for my Blackberry.
2. You ask a stupid question. Your audience is there to judge you, not to interact with you. So when you ask "do you ever have [problem x]?", you'll get a room of blank stares and head shaking.
3. You spent 5 minutes explaining why your team of unknown managers and coders from unimpressive organization is "world class".
4. Your PowerPoint was designed by a coder. 'nuff said.
5. You read every slide, word for word. And on top of that, you stuttered.
6. You don't know jack. You present the revenue projections and the valuations, but none of the numbers add up and you fumble the explanation. On top of that, your company is pre-revenue and you're looking for a huge valuation.
7. You sucked the life out of the room. Your nerves and the lack of rehearsals are catching up to you. When you tell us that you have the skills to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of products in a competitive market to Fortune 50 companies, we simply cannot believe you.
8. You think I suck because I don't love your business. Reality is, investors look at hundreds of businesses before they invest in one. Lose the attitude and up your game.

The solution is simple, really. You need the audience to fall in love with you in the first 30 seconds, so come out of the gates strong. Then, keep their interest for the next 9.5 minutes. If you're a person that's not comfortable in front of crowds, you need to practice 10x more than the other guy. Get a video camera and record yourself. Go to Demo.com and check out the best pitches, as well as the worst ones, and learn from both. Draw inspiration from Steve Jobs and Guy Kawasaki. Test the pitch in front of your friends and family instead of a group of people that might give you big money.

Just in case you think I'm the only that thinks your pitch sucks, I'm not - I've checked with the other guys in the room. So what are you waiting for? Fix your pitch!

Comments

[Mark]

The biggest problem I find with VC pitches is that they're too full of content. The goal for the pitch is simply to get asked on a second date. It should not be educational. Nobody needs to know how your technology works. It should be a sales job and should induce the investor's greed. Period.

Mark

[John]

The "rhetorical question" tactic can work well if the question is something most people can answer yes to. I won't say what I asked but I've had pretty much every VC say "yes" or raise their hand when I asked my question. If done properly, it can help distill a complex solution (or one that deals with a niche segment that not everyone understands) into one that a lot of people can get.

For that reason, if you have a nice product, try to come up with an analogy to something that impacts a lot of people and then say "Well, my company will do that same thing for ____ group of people." It's like in the A Time to Kill movie when Matthew M. goes "And now imagine that girl was white" to the gasps of the jury. Simple. Bam.

[Nishan Sothilingam]

good post Pat.