Over the last three to four years I have had the honour and pleasure to listen to approximately 1000 founders pitch their startups and of this I have helped approximately 100 startups improve their pitch deck and help them tell a story when they pitch.

I wrote a post on linkedin  a few weeks ago expressing how you should tell a story and why it is important.  Invariably if and when you are pitching as a startup, you are looking for funding and you are pitching to Business Angels, Investors and VCs.

In these article series I will try to answer why story telling is important and how to go about improving your pitch and building into a powerful and credible story that stands out from the rest of the competition.

But first we need to understand why your pitching should be a story and not the boring standard format of, Hello My Name is, This is The Problem, Our Solution is, The Market is $$$ Millions and We are looking for  XXX K money, here is my Team and a bunch of Advisors (that in most cases no one knows and that will never do anything). Thank you, Will you invest in us?   hhhhm.  Ask yourself (Will you invest your money in your competitors pitch that was just like this?)

I think just reading the above three lines should have been long and boring enough to tell you why the above format does not work.  It is perfect for a pitch deck that you can email to a client.

Now answer this question, When was the last time you read a good book that you could not put down, or watched a good movie that you really enjoyed or for that matter, do you remember the last time your friend told you a story about his/her holiday?  All of these are stories that draw you in but not all stories keep your attention in the same way.

However when you think back you remember more things about a good movie or a story than a bad one.  In movies and books, that author and director tell a story in which they engage as many of your senses as possible, you become involved, you feel the fear and the excitement and in short they arouse your emotions.  The plot unfolds step by step, you don’t know where it is going but you are following it, you anticipate and you work out What IF scenarios prior to it even happening and Finally there is an ending that leaves you with a great FEELING.

Compare the above two paragraph to the three liners of the pitch story and you can already see a difference.  So now that you know why story telling is so important in pitching your startup let’s convert your pitch into a winning story.  In the next blogs I will give you the top five tips for turning a standard pitch into a winning story and we will dissect each part so you can really dig in and get to work.

Too busy with your startup and want to fast forward this job?   Book a free 30 minute call with me http://calendly.com/aliparandehzandpour

Looking for someone with experience as a founder and with public speaking skills to help entrepreneurs in your  accelerator / incubator, drop me an email here