1) Make me dream
2) Make me laugh
3) Show me vision
4) When pitching remember to develop three important vectors: Ethos (show your credibility, trustworthiness, integrity), Pathos (weave a story, pull me in, make me believe) and Logos (demonstrate that your logic is grounded in facts, sound reasoning)
5) Clearly define what is the REAL problem you are solving
6) Clearly articulate the value proposition
7) Clearly define the market, the immediately addressable market, and where both are going
8) Clearly present unit level economics (cost of customer acquisition, churn, life time value, gross margin…)
9) Don’t be coy and let me know about the competition
10) Don’t be shy and tell me why you are better than the competition, now and over time
11) Show me your team and how you see it grow
12) Show me what type of leader you are and what type of innovation you are tackling, see my previous post here.
13) Earn a competitive advantage and read about my first principles in a previous post here.
14) If you have reached out to me, send me a deck I can digest. I will be in a better position to respond to you with our level of interest
15) Don’t reach out and ask me to email or phone you back, see 14
16) Work on your deck. Work on you verbal pitch. Better be crisp
17) Have detailed presentations and financial projections ready to be shared. Be ready to dive in should I be interested
18) Be yourself, see 22
19) Be very clear about your own rules of engagement. See my previous post here. I will respect them and will let you know if I can work with them or not. Be respectful of my own rules of engagement.
20) Do your homework, research our firm and what I do
21) Leave your ego at the door. I want someone who I can brainstorm with and challenge with little psychological damage
22) Be truthful, see 18