How to Pitch to a VC 👀 🐝 And make it past the first call...

This is how you actually pitch to a VC. Now I'm kinda just speaking off the cuff here because the majority of the founders I've spoken to actually don't realise that pitching to VCs is is a science. A lot of founders make the mistake of assuming that the investor on the other screen, the table is an expert in their industry. Most of the time that is not the case. I'm an investor myself. We are simple people, alright? Our job is to not be experts in anyone's space, but be knowledgeable in all sectors so we can recognise talent and we can recognise a real problem. One thing founders don't do enough is keep investors on board throughout the conversation. This is how you should structure your pitch. First thing you outline the problem in a really simple sentence. Founders overcomplicate this step. You wanna do really short and quantify it against either money or for example, this problem cost companies £1 billion a year. Or companies spend 10 hours every week doing this, something like that. Next is the solution. Now when you come to explain the solution, don't mistake solution for being product cause it's, it's slightly different. The product is how you execute on the solution. The solution is how you solve the problem slightly different. For an example, if the problem is manufacturing companies have really inefficient production lines and that's cost them £1 million your solution to that is we implement AI automation into the manufacturing line to save them 70% of that cost. Now, the product is how you save 70% of the cost. I.E. the actual models, the architecture, the user interface, all of the technical of things that actually make a product. And then 3, you wanna talk now, people always mistake progress for revenue or traction, and that's simply not the case. Not most. Investors don't need to see revenue, they wanna see progress. And what I mean by progress is they want level of validation. Now, validation can come in multiple ways. The way you frame validation is by interpreting user feedback, prospective customer calls, and you turn that into validation. For an example, we've spoken to 50 prospective customers and 80% of that we have said that they would use our product. And we've converted that 60% into five letters of intent. You might not even have a product, but you've described your progress in real tangible terms. So in conclusion, make sure investors stay on board throughout the conversation. And a bonus tip, have a data room ready to answer any additional questions they might have.