Does This Slide Deck Make Me Look Fat?

Um, yes. Too much product detail. Empty calories. Get rid of them. Why? First of all, because you have to get through it in 15 minutes and there is no way. But more importantly because all that detail detracts from your message. Yes, you are justifiably proud of your incredibly sophisticated product and, yes, you need to educate your investors to some degree about its many intricacies. Your investor pitch is neither the time nor the place. You want to keep product details at the “only what is absolutely necessary” level. And with the ones you include, you want to focus on benefits, not features.

Don’t tell your investors what your product does, tell them why it does it. Details can be drawn out in the Q&A and during due diligence, so it is not appropriate to go into depth in the pitch. Great pitches tell a compelling story, usually from the perspective of the customer. Remember, success in a pitch is not defined as telling investors everything about your company, it is defined as engaging their interest enough to generate a follow-up meeting. Keep it simple, jargon free and interesting. And for the love of God, practice your delivery.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Customer Crowdfunding: Not So Fast, Entrepreneurs, The Long Road to Instant Success, Angel Video Interview Series, Thoughts on Crowdfunding, Entrepreneur at Work: Caine’s Arcade, The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Pattern Matching Can Cause Blindspots, Getting Off The Ground; Early Formation Economics, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Why Angels Chase Electrons, Boards and Advisory Boards: Different Animals, Delusional Economics, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover Advantage, Are Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?, Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), Pick Your Founder/Co-Investors Carefully & Reflections on the Nature of Entrepreneurs, Should I Wait For A Technical Co-Founder?, When Do You Need My Slide Deck?, 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.

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