April 26, 2021

5 min read

This story originally appeared on G2 Consultants

If we want an investor to be interested in our project or company, we will have to call on a launch platform , a sales technique – usually presented in Power Point, Google Slides or Keynote – which will summarize in a short visual presentation the mission of your company, your business plan and its vision of growth, that is to say the way in which you sell your business to potential customers.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of an investor who reviews many startup proposals per year. What you really need is to find real, measurable information in each of them that allows you to spot the potential of the companies looking for your investment. The questions for which you will seek answers are generally of the following type: How much money do they generate per month? What is their capital so far? How much have they grown?

Perhaps, without even thinking about it, an investor is using something known as “financial theory,” which some consider the best method of knowing the acceptability or order of investment projects. It consists of knowing the net present value (NPV) of the cash flows, that is to say the disbursements and repayments, associated with the project.

So for a pitch deck at be really good and functional, both for the person presenting the proposal and for the investor, it must contain at least the following 12 points:

1. Introduction: Who are you and why are you here?
2. Team: Who is behind the idea and what is its role?
3. Problem: What problem will you solve? Is this really a problem?
4. Benefits: Why is your solution special? What makes it different from others?
5. Solution: How do you plan to solve the problem?
6. Product: How does your product or service work? Show some examples.
7. Traction: Traction means you have customers who show potential.
8. Market: Know, or at least try to predict, the size of the market you are going to impact
9. Competition: What are the alternative solutions to the problem you are posing?
10. Business model: How are you going to make money? Present a timeline showing when you expect to get a return on your investment.
11. Investment: What is your budget and how much do you expect to earn?
12. Contact: Leave your contact details with the customer and tell people how they can contact you.

The hardest part will be to maintain the interest of an investor who has considered hundreds of proposals, convince them that yours is the best and get the “yes”.

here are the back’s and not to do that you need to keep in mind when doing your launch platform :

the back

1. Tell a story and create an emotional connection with the investor
2. Limit a slide to one idea, don’t bore your audience
3. Make a good first impression
4. Show people behind the idea
5. Be consistent in the format
6. Know your metrics better than anyone

the is not

1. Don’t use too much bullets
2. That your presentation is not so long
3. Don’t read everything, interact with your audience
4. Don’t include too much text in the presentation, your audience won’t be able to read and hear you at the same time
5. Don’t arrive unprepared
6. Don’t use small fonts

Uber, for example, has one of the best pitch bridges that exist on the market, because it summarizes in a very specific way its business model, where it wants to go, who is part of the project, what is its budget, its profit forecasts, etc.

In this slide they present only 2 bullets the purpose of the business and where they will operate.

Here, for example, it details who is on the team and what their roles are.

Finally, in this slide we can see that it is presented in a very clear and timely manner what its business model is and how customers will interact with the application and, in turn, with the pilots.

A launch platform can mean the difference between a “yes” and a “no” from investors, just think of the success and presence of companies like Uber, AirBnB or Linkedin today.

Raising the capital necessary to finance a business is a complicated task, both for entrepreneurs and for businessmen. However, complicated does not mean impossible. Having a clear understanding of all the finances, sales and valuation of your startup will generate investor confidence.