Hello again. Up to now we've been talking about some of the basics of financing a new venture. We've talked about some of the vocab, vocabulary that you will hear if you're talking to a prospective investors. We've discussed what type of investors you're likely to run into over the course of your fundraising exercises. We've talked about some of the vehicles you could use to raise money either through using common stock or preferred stock or convertible notes. And we've talked about the aspects of those. So, now we're going to get to the part that I think is probably the most important part of this, of this entire course. And that is, you know, pitching your company and getting to a close to finance your company. So we're going to talk about in this section of the course, first we'll talk about what do your investors want to see when you're talking to them about your company. And then how do you create a pitch deck which syncs up with what they're looking for. And then, how do you go about telling your story in a personable way so that they are interested in what you're saying, and they're listening to what you're saying. And then some of the things you're supposed to do when you're talking to investors and some of the things that you should not do, those are very important. And then finally, we'll talk about how do you actually get the investor to close. How do you close the round? How do you get them to actually write a check to invest in you? So first we'll talk about, what do investors want to see? So the first thing I always like to tell people is, investors invest in things that they know. If you, if you talk to investors or you look on a website, if they have one, they'll generally have an investment profile that says here are the various things that we like to invest in. And if you are trying to talk to an investor who doesn't understand your industry. Even if they agree to take your, your meeting, which most of them won't, but if you, if they do, you're wasting your time and wasting their time, because they don't know the industry and they don't invest in it. So, make sure that when you're deciding who you want to talk to, that they are the type of investor who invests in the type of company that you are. Another important aspect of what investors want to see is that they don't really care the intricacies of how your product works. I mean, you may show a demo, but they don't need to understand the underlying details of how it works. They assume it's going to work. But they assume it already does. So don't get too tied up in explaining the details of your product. What they do care about is your market, and that you know about it. That it's big enough to make it interesting. And that, how your solution addresses a problem in the market and how it solves that problem. And is a big enough problem that it's going to be an interesting market to, for them to invest in. And then, finally, why do all the customers that have those problems buy your product? Remember that, as I have said in previous lectures, the investors are investing in you, the management team. Do you have a track record, do you have the experience that, that gives them confidence that you can execute your strategy and make your companies successful, and use their money wisely. Do you have a team which has holes in it? You know, every team is not completely filled out. Some of the discussion you may have around your fundraising may be that you want to bring in one or two people to actually fill those gaps. So, talk about your team be honest about your strengths. Be honest about your, your gaps and, and be willing to address those discussions during your pitch. And then what they're also interested in knowing is, is the team diverse enough to bring complementary skills to the table. You know, the worst thing you could do is put together a team of everyone who looks exactly like you. Meaning, looks meaning experience you know, your functional capabilities, you know, your functional expertise. So make sure that you have a team of people that complement each other. I'll cover this a bit more later in the discussion about do's and don'ts, but one of the things that you should never say when you're talking to an investor is, there is no competition for what I'm doing. When an investor hears that, they only have two possible thoughts. Both of them are, are bad. The first thought is, okay, this is not an interesting enough market to make other people go and build something to solve problems in it. So they're going to look at you and say okay if it's no, if there's no competitors, that means the market must not be very interesting. Or that they'll just think well he doesn't really understand or she doesn't understand our market. Because if, if the market's big enough and interesting enough, there'll be competitors. And they also want to see financial projections, even though you may be starting from essentially zero, they want to have a, an understanding of what your projections are, based upon reasonable assumptions. And that are simple and well put together. And when I do projections, or when I have done them in the past, one of the things you really want to do is do a base case. And use the numbers which are reasonable and supportable based upon market factors and your prior experience. But you all want to, you also want to have what if analysis on those projections. Because they'll always ask you that question. What if this happens, what if that happens. So you, you want to have ready to discuss if they ask you, you know, how will things be worse if certain things don't happen, how can things be better? Let's say that, they may say to you, okay you want to raise 3 million, what if I gave you 5? How much better could you do with 5 million versus 3? So be prepared to have a base case financial projection along with some what if analysis. And you know, they are always cash basis type projections. And they, they should have supportable assumptions that you can discuss with the investor and explain how you built your numbers up from the bottom. So in summary the, what an investor really wants to see are the three aspects of what we talked about earlier, which was the three Cs of the business plan. Competent management, a Compelling idea, and then yet, you want to, they want to see your Cash flow projections to make sure that this is a market that's going to be interesting and profitable. And finally, you want to understand your investor. What compels them, what is their motivation for their investments? You must understand that in order to be successful.
