When you don't get interest from investors, it may be because you exaggerate the truth a bit.
The classic mistakes that the people make in their pitches include overstating the problem severity, showing non-paying customers on the logo wall, inflated traction, miscalculating TAM, manipulating graphs to mislead, providing inaccurate or unrealistic revenue projections that aren’t supported by the sales pipeline, and misleading your audience about your team.
Steve Barsh told us how to avoid mistakes in your pitch that lead to a loss of investor confidence and a faster “no” response.
Make sure you’re not exaggerating the problem.
When you’re looking at different types of graphs and data, disclose critical data points. Put things in the footnotes if things seem like they might be a little shady or misunderstood.
Show traction with your logo wall correctly, list who is the paying customer, list who is on the pipeline, and list who is in a trial.
Calculate your TAM correctly, 80% of startups make it wrong. You will lose a lot of credibilities if you don’t even understand how big your actual market is.
Be honest with your team slide, clearly indicate who’s full-time, who’s part-time, and who’s an advisor.
Make sure that your traction is not artificially inflated. Don’t try the fake traction. It’s a really dangerous thing.
And your sales processes and sales pipeline must support the revenue targets you are stating.
Steve also encourages entrepreneurs to be honest and as transparent as possible to increase their attractiveness to investors.
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