How do you pitch your business idea to an Investor in Zimbabwe? I have been asked this question many times in seminars and on emails. I thought of answering this question metaphorically and tell you the story of my childhood which I know most of you are also familiar with. The story of everyone’s first date or girlfriend. Interesting!
The story of my first love was shrouded in mystery and I spend a lot of time trying to find answers to the question, ‘What do I tell her?’ I would see her everyday but spoke to her on very rare occasions only because I couldn’t find the answer to that one question. I didn’t have the words to say to my soon to be girlfriend. Is your company facing this same dilemma I faced as a little boy? Trying to convince potential investors. Have you done a successful pitch to an investor as yet?
How to pitch to an investor – a childhood perspective
Back then we were four friends, working together like a pack of wolves to fight this same problem. Then Tawanda brought in an interesting perspective. His model was “don’t worry much about what to say to her because chances are she already loves you.” It was an eye opener, and it worked for our first few dates. It did for me as well and I know this model has worked before for some pitches to investors but it’s really a lucky punch. You don’t meet an investor with an ‘I will meet the questions as they come’ mentality. This only worked till I was asked the question, ‘Why do you love me?’ Why do you want the money? What will you do with the money we give you? How much is your company worth? How did you arrive at that value? What’s the payback period? How will I get my money back? How will you fight off competition? What’s your strategy on entrance barriers? These are the typical kind of questions Investors ask and you need to be on your toes and answering precisely.
My failure to address the pain point: ‘Why do you love me?’
This question made us ditch Tawanda’s pitching method to a potential girlfriend. Going to meet a girl blindly and hoping that she will like me made all of us look like fools. It made us realise certain truths about women and today about Investors. There wasn’t only four boys at the school. We were competing. Investors aren’t only looking at you. There are other ideas out there with potentially better returns than your idea so keep that in mind.
Investors aren’t competing for your idea; you are competing with a thousand other ideas for their money.
We couldn’t convince anyone when asked, “Why do you love me?” It was an important question to a girl (investor) were you needed to address her pain points which we had the formula wrong back then. Bravo and reps for us for identifying that this question needed an answer though we addressed it in a wrong way. What we didn’t know was why these girls asked this question. They wanted to know if we addressed their pain points… Was coming into their lives going to be the solution to the problems they had? That’s what Investors want. A product which addresses a real problem faced by real people. A product which addresses a real pain point and turn people’s pain into pleasure. Nomatter how cool your product is, if it doesn’t address any pain people are facing, then you won’t get money from an investor.
Pitching the technical aspects of your product
The four pack of wolves were the best in school during those days. We had taken permanency of the first four grading positions in class and it was known that it rotated amongst ourselves only. We thought the girls we liked would also be motivated by the fact that we did very well in class so much that we would deliberately show them our marks in a bid to buy their love. It worked wonders but only against us. The girls tend to like the guys who performed well out doors than indoors. The sporting guys won the show off battle. I learned two lessons on pitching from this.
Firstly, Investors aren’t interested in the technical aspect of your product but rather on its ability to address a real pain point to society and ability to be converted to cash or a return. Only that just like the girls who weren’t interested in our good grades in class but just a guy who was able to make her laugh.
The second lesson I learnt was Investors are not interested in the product’s performance in the lab or indoor testing but rather how the product has performed in the market. Most investors in Zimbabwe aren’t interested in green projects, but they want a product which has been tested by the market but only needs additional capital to go on full scale. Investors don’t want to hear lab performance of a product but real market testing performance. They want to know the potential of the product out there. Just like the high school girls who weren’t interested in the guy who came number one in class but rather number one in the 100 meter race.
The solution to the problem
The High school question ‘Why do you love me’ was usually followed by ‘So what?’ It was crazy back then but we latter realized why girls asked us this question. We had addressed the pain point why we loved a particular girl but not how we intended to love her, ie, how we intended to proffer the solution. The question usually came in rich shona as ‘unoda kundiitisei?’ When pitching, after addressing the pain point, there is need to address how you intend to solve it – that is your solution. I’ve seen lots of pitches that clearly understood the problem, but not the solution. It could then focus on the solution, but remember a solution on paper (or screen) is not really a solution unless there is strategy to bring it to market.
Researching your audience
With time, my friends and I realized all girls were different besides the fact they wore the same uniform. Before breaking the ‘I love you’ story, we resorted to researching about the girl. The process even went as far as interviewing her friends and other classmates. It worked wonders. In business understand that the real ‘starting point’ of a pitch is not when the presenter opens his/her mouth. The real starting point is the research that goes into understanding what precisely this particular audience wants to know and hear. What are their dispositions and levels of prior knowledge? No two recipients are the same.
The hocus-pocus and closing
The funny part of these childhood lessons is what happened in the closing. After winning the girl’s heart it probably didn’t matter what else we said. Funny, dump whatever you may call it didn’t really matter after she said yes. In pitching your business, after you have won the hearts of the crowd, you can now talk about the technical aspect of your product and every stupid thing you can think of. It rear to affect a good pitch in closings unless it’s really a material fact to the main pitch points. I have tried to add some dramatis personae to really try and give this meaning. I hope you will enjoy reading this and most importantly that this helps improve your pitch.
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