Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In your pitch deck, the twelfth slide is the Investment Opportunity slide.

This slide shows the fundraise target and how much is raised so far.

Include interest and committed investors as well as invested funds to date.

Show key terms of the deal.

For convertible notes, show interest rate, discount and cap rate.

For equity deals you can show the pre-money valuation.

I often find stating the valuation in the intro slide draws questions prematurely, so you may save it for a discussion after the presentation.

Also include a pie chart for use of funds to indicate you know what you are going to do with the funds and it makes sense for your stage.

If you’ve raised previous rounds of funding, show what you accomplished with the funds to demonstrate effective use of capital.


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Let’s go startup something today.
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Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In your pitch deck, the eleventh slide is the Financial slide.

The Financial slide gives the current status of the company with respect to revenue, expenses and profit.

You want  to convey highlights such as growth rate, scale of revenue, and break-even expectations.

Show one or two years of historical financials and then the projections for the next 3 to 5 years.

Use a side-by-side bar-graph chart as investors are looking for the broad strokes, such as cash-flow positive, break even, and growth rates.

Summarize Quarter-over-Quarter or YoY growth rates.

Avoid cutting and pasting excel spreadsheets into the slide as these are nearly impossible to read.

Detailed financials can only be analyzed when the investor has the full spreadsheet in their hands, which will occur in the due diligence phase.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
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Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In your pitch deck, the ninth slide is the team slide.

Show the C-level team include CEO, CTO and CSO.

Include a picture of each team member with their name and title.

Show the names of companies and projects they have worked on that are relevant to your target industry.

Detailed resumes are not necessary.

Include advisory board members if you have them and show what role they will play in the company.

The goal is to show you have a complete team and everyone has experience.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
-----
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Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In your pitch deck, the seventh slide is the Competition slide.

The Competition slide often helps highlight the market size and strength by showing who else is playing in that space.

In your slide, highlight three to four competitors.

Use a table format to compare your solution to the competition on features/benefits showing the superiority of your solution.

Use glyphs and icons where you can, as it will help communicate your message.

The competition helps investors understand what market you are targeting and some investors use it to determine if you have a market at all.

Beware of saying you ‘have no competition’, as it demonstrates a lack of understanding of your target market.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
-----
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Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In your pitch deck, the third slide is the Solution slide.

For your solution, show a picture of the core product or technology so the investor gets a sense of it.

Describe how you came up with it and why it’s a great solution.

Leave out ancillary products and other revenue streams and focus on the primary product.

Highlight both features (what it does) and benefits (why we care).

Show the benefits the customers receive from, and their ROI from using it.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
-----
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Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.

In startup investing, “Team isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.

All problems will ultimately be solved by the team. If the team can’t solve it, then the business will fail.

In many years of angel investing, almost all failures trace back to the team not being up to the task.  

In some cases, the investors underestimated the task, but in the end, it’s the team that must face it.

In reviewing a deal, the investor often makes the mistake of matching the team to the current problem but not future problems.

In the earliest stages, one looks for a team that can build and sell the product, but will that same team be able to grow the business and later scale it? These are the future problems that must be solved. 

Hopefully, the CEO will change the team to match the needs of the business.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group