We recently held our StartUp Bahrain Digital Pitch Competition 2020 in collaboration with Tenmou, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. We’re having the announcement event on Thursday, December 3rd, at 4 PM, make sure you join us!
We were so impressed with the applications we got, that we wanted to help other startups who weren’t able to join.
What did we do? We sat down with Nawaf Al-Koheji, CEO of Tenmou & The Collective Hub to get the top tips and tricks they share with their startups, so we can pass those on to you.
In this article today, we’re going to have a quick look at six important tips shared by The Collective Hub with its startups so they are better prepared to woo investors every chance they get.
*Drum roll* – here it goes:
- Keep it simple, to-the-point.
As a startup founder, the core ideas and products that power your company are indeed very close to your heart. But while pitching them to a potential investor, always resist the urge to go overboard. Investors might not appreciate it, and frankly, could even be annoyed by what they would probably see as unnecessary details.
We can’t blame them, though, given that many of these investors are often flooded with a plethora of proposals from startups. So, it is better to only focus on what they value the most — the future market-potential of your ideas and the return-of-investment (RoI) they can expect from it. Plan in advance and optimize the time you’re given to present your business in a clear and crisp manner.
- Avoid reading from slides.
Probably it goes without saying that you shouldn’t be reading directly from the slides, as it may leave a negative impression on the investors. Mentally be prepared to devote no more than a couple of minutes per slide and leave enough time for questions.
Also, it is best if you optimize your slides to include as little text as possible without distorting or diluting your core message. Use tables, graphs, and charts whenever possible. The point here is to ensure that your message is not lost in a big wall of text or too much information.
- Do not make a sales pitch.
The Collective Hub recommends that you focus on telling your startup story in a way that it should highlight your product(s) or services and the vision behind them. Avoid making a sales pitch. Whatever is unique about your startup, make it clear from the onset. Use relevant data if need be, as underlined in the previous point.
- Focus on the problem you’re solving.
Always highlight a real-world problem your startup is trying to solve and then dedicate a part of your presentation to how you plan on solving it.
If possible, mention any license, patent, or pre-existing deal that would help you to execute your ideas on the ground. This helps in showing the validity of your startup, and showcasing how it can run in the future.
- Leave no doubt about your target audience, competition, etc.
The next important part is to be always honest about your target audience, market size, potential competition, and other relevant factors. Investors want you to be transparent about these factors as everything will eventually come down to if there is enough RoI potential from your company.
It’s super important to have this information available, always. How else are you going to run and manage a startup if you’re unsure who is it serving or who you’re competing against?
- A superb conclusion will always help.
Leave enough room for a concluding speech where you can bring all your pitch elements together. Feel free to show your passion and enthusiasm for your startup’s underlying values at this stage.
So those were six handy tips The Collective Hub tells their startups during office hours to better prepare them for future pitches.
And as always, if you have any questions or feedback to share, don’t hesitate to reach out to us using any of our social media channels over at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn!
