Life’s a pitch

Your pitch is your most important asset. If you’ve got a good pitch, you can easily communicate the value of your idea to anyone. And that means you’ll have a good chance of receiving funding.

Here’s our best tips to developing a strong pitch.

Clarity

If you keep it simple, it’ll probably be clear. Try to distill your idea into one thought. Take a look at these pitch archetypes http://www.jasonshen.com/2012/eleven-compelling-startup-pitch-archetypes-with-examples-from-yc-companies/ and see if they fit your idea.

What are the most important points?

A word of warning—it’s probably not endless pages of data. Start with the value to your customers on a human level, and work from there.

What’s the market opportunity?

If there are already others in your intended market, how will you do it differently? If it’s a new market, how can you guarantee customers?

What’s your plan?

What’s your customer acquisition strategy? How much is it going to cost? Where will the funds be spent? What are the timelines around the release?

Who are you?

What have you done and why does it matter? What are the strengths of all your team members? What makes you stand out from the rest?

Listen to Paul Graham and Peter Thiel.

And if all else fails, read what Y-Combinator’s Paul Graham has to say about how to present to investors  or Blake Master’s brilliant essays he took from Peter Thiel’s Spring 2012 Stanford Startup class notes.

Image courtesy of Clayton Hauck for Tech Cocktail