How to demonstrate “founder-market fit” when you’re pitching to investors

Whattup Greenblasters! (After getting some feedback, this is now our collective name. We’re stuck with it.)

This week, we’re getting into fundraising for entrepreneurs (specifically, how to present your investor pitch).

If this isn’t you right now, I totally get it. Feel free to skip.

BUT if you know someone who IS trying to raise investment money for their business, please forward this to them!

On to this week’s topic:

Fundraising is hard.

I’ve only tried it with angel investors and “friends & family,” and that was hard enough. VC capital is a much higher bar to clear.

I have helped 100+ of founders raise successful seed rounds by improving their pitching skills, and I want to talk about an important concept that VC’s look for in early-stage companies:

“Founder-Market Fit.”

Investors look for “FMF” especially in early-stage startups, because there is not much data on how the product performs yet.

Another way to describe FMF:

“… an innate, unfair advantage a founder has over their competitors.” (Forbes).

So, if you’re a founder pitching to VC’s, you need to demonstrate something that makes you uniquely qualified to serve the customers in your target market.

The best way to do that?

Speak passionately, and tell a story that answers the questions:

“Why you? Why this?”

Think about it:

Scaling a startup is hard. It requires an insane amount of focus, dedication, and sacrifice.

If you as the founder don’t care deeply enough about the problem you are solving, and the people you’re solving it for, you’ll give up.

Every VC knows this instinctively, and their “deal anxiety” is looking for reasons to say NO to you.

So, let’s look at the STORY part first (then we’ll look at speaking passionately).

TELLING A “WHY YOU, WHY THIS” STORY

Many founders will open their startup presentation like this:

“ My name is __ and I’m the CEO and co-founder of … We are a something-something platform that provides yada yada service…,”

This is a very bad move.

When you begin your pitch, the investor knows very little about you.

This is your chance to ALIGN your life story with your mission for your company, showing them how committed and passionate you are.

When I do pitch coaching with founders, I ask these questions:

Why did you start this company?

When did you first notice the problem?

What is the negative emotional impact of the problem on your customers?

What about your childhood, upbringing, or life experience brought you to care about this problem? Did you always care about it? If not, when did that change?

Why does this business NEED to exist? What does the world look like if it doesn’t, and what is bad about that?

And finally:

What would stop you from quitting to pursue some NFT-crypto thing next year if the money seems better?

Answering these questions for yourself can help you START YOUR PITCH WITH A STORY THAT EXEMPLIFIES THE PROBLEM.

HOW TO SPEAK PASSIONATELY

Many startup founders, especially in tech, are introverts. If you are one, I can’t recommend Susan Cain’s Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking highly enough (I’m reading it right now. It slaps)./

The idea of speaking “passionately” in public usually feels either fake or impossible to the introverts I work with.

However, everyone (intro-, extro-, and ambiverts alike) can benefit from the following exercise to make their PITCH SING:

I call it EMBOLDEN, and if I could only give 1 public speaking tip for the rest of my life, this would be it:

1. Write out your pitch “script” in Word or your Presenter Notes on your slide deck (even if you think you can’t or won’t memorize this script for your actual pitch to investors, don’t skip this step).

2. Choose the key words in each sentence; whatever words you want the audience to hear and remember (hint: most verbs, nouns and adjectives will be your key words).

3. Then, embolden the key words in your pitch script, like this. You can also CAPITALIZE the KEY WORDS (some Presenter Notes like Canva or PowerPoint don’t allow for bolding).

4. Then, rehearse OUT LOUD by reading the pitch script, and EMPHASIZE the key words, by:

   1. Getting louder

   2. Raising your pitch

   3. Using your hands and eyebrows

   4. Slowing down

5. Do this until EMPHASIZING feels natural (this may take a while).

FINAL THOUGHTS

So there you have it:

What to say and how to say it to demonstrate “founder-market fit” to your potential investors.

If you have any questions about fundraising or public speaking as an entrepreneur, please reply to this email and I’ll answer your questions as quick as I can!

PLEASE, PLEASE forward this to any entrepreneur you know. I’m trying to grow this newsletter to over 1000 subscribers and I can’t do it without you 😁

See you in the next Blast! 🚀