Originally written by Matthew Cushen on Small Business
This article will explore how start-ups can create irresistible investment proposals.
Imagine you saw a tinned soup on a supermarket shelf, you might have seen something like it before, but possibly not the exotic flavour. You’re intrigued enough to pick it up and take a closer look. The packaging is poorly lined up, some ingredients are missing, the allergens are unclear and there are some spelling mistakes. It’s unlikely to get into your basket.
So I ask myself why, over 16 years of seed investing, and thousands (upon thousands) of investment decks, have I seen only a small fraction of investment proposals that have been thoughtfully constructed to sell the investment? With the right amount of information to give confidence and the creativity to instil some emotion?
Any pitch document should be aiming to make any investment proposals irresistible, and land in the investor’s ‘basket’ (their portfolio). So the ingredients of a compelling pitch to investors are the same as a compelling offer to consumers — differentiation, distinctiveness and price.
1. Differentiation
• Insight: It is difficult to create new ideas out of the same view of the world that everyone else has. A real innovation is usually