Yesterday I had the pleasure of sharing the online stage at Startup Expo 2022 with many other top mentors across the world.

As an entrepreneur and startup I went through this phase of fundraising. It is always more difficult to see what you are doing wrong. As entrepreneurs, we are all so focused on our product and solution that we think others can see the same.

However, the one important things we have to remember is that the investor is a client of a different kind. They are not buying your product. They are buying into your project and your job is to explain the profitability and potential of your project.

Your pitch needs to include the simple questions that are going through the investor’s mind. Questions as simple as “how much does it cost? What are you selling it for? Ahhh. This is your profit margin and how many people can buy it? How many can you sell to? What does it cost to sell one unit CAC” and so on.

Yet all the above is just the basic raw ingredients. You can’t expect to through them all into a pot (or pitch deck) and hope that it will come out to be an appetizing and sumptuous presentation. This is where you need to ditch your standard pitchdeck if you are going to do a live presentation. Yes, get rid of that pitchdeck, and let’s start again. Your standard pitchdeck is not for live presentations. 9 out of 10 live pitching competitions is where the entrepreneur is reading from their pitchdeck, while the investors are playing with their mobiles and thinking “get on with it, I have better things to do.”

If you really want to make difference on stage and get the attention of the investors then you need to start learning to speak the investors’ language. It is simple. You have all the information you need, you just need to change the order and make it all into a comprehensible story that flows.

If you missed my session on “Learning to Speak the investors’ language”, don’t worry it will be made available online shortly and you can always book a session with me. contact me and check out my blog I have written many blogs on how you should pitch to investors.