How To End Your Pitch with Your Vision
Getting investors excited about your product is a critical part of raising capital.
But founders are often so consumed with talking metrics, milestones achieved, or the capital they need that they sometimes forget to talk about their overarching vision for their startups.
“VCs are looking for a grand slam,” according to Steve Barsh, Managing Partner at Dreamit Ventures. And this means that founders have to craft a compelling vision for how the startup can revolutionize a market, change the mindset of consumers, or launch a product that is 10x better than the competition.
Selling a compelling vision is so critical that some investors weigh it more heavily than the pitch deck itself. “It’s not about the slide deck. We have made the decision to invest in entrepreneurs without slides, whose ambition, passion, depth of understanding of an opportunity and compelling vision come through crystal-clear in conversation,” states Sarah Guo from Greylock Partners.
Strategies for crafting a strong and compelling vision for your startup:
Towards the end of your pitch, tell investors that “this is just the beginning” for your startup. At this point, you should outline your vision for how the industry is going to change in the next few years and how your startup will lead or take advantage of that change.
Tell investors how your vision affects your go-to-market strategy and how you’ll expand across verticals within the industry that you’re tackling. Are you creating a new market category, or is your product going to span multiple categories? As all investors know from the case of Uber, you cannot size a market based on an incumbent. Uber’s market was not just the size of black car services; the company’s market would span taxis, public transport, and black car services, and it would expand the market by bringing in more customers with the product’s ease of use and simplicity.
Outline some of the key milestones that will help you reach your vision to enhance your credibility. Investors will get excited about your vision only if they believe you can execute on that vision. Founders should be able to discuss future milestones that they will hit to enable them to raise intermediate rounds of capital before exiting and ensure investors they can de-risk their startups along the way to achieving their grand vision.
Don’t confuse "exit strategy" with your company’s vision. “Investors want visionary entrepreneurs, not mercenary entrepreneurs,” states Steve Barsh. When investors ask about exit strategy, it’s often a way to gauge whether a founder understands the dynamic of the market, the well-capitalized incumbents who might be a threat, and a founder’s ability to reason on the spot. (Read our post on talking exit strategy with investors for more.) The vision for your company should be about how your company will fundamentally change the landscape, why this is an urgent task, and why you are uniquely positioned to achieve this vision.
By Charles LaCalle
Director of Sourcing at Dreamit Ventures