Joseph Patterson

How Not To Pitch: What I’ve Learned From Viewing Over 200 Pitch Decks

From 2015 to 2017, I worked part-time for a Venture Capital Fund where I reviewed over 200 pitch decks from startups, entrepreneurs, and businesses looking for VC funding. I usually only reacted favorably to about 5% of these pitches and do to the exposure I gathered from this experience, I’ve learned how to pitch and how not to pitch. In this article, I’ll talk about, “How Not to Pitch.”

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1. Do not pitch 100 investors at once. When you send your email to 100 investors all at once, or do a copy and paste with minor customization, investors can see through this within a second. Always remember, one pitch at a time is the way to go.

2. Do not make it about you. When you want someone to invest in your startup, show them how doing so will benefit them. Do not pitch a story about yourself. Instead, give value before expecting it.

3. Do not tell me you’re special. You’ve got a great startup that does great things for people? Let me guess, your startup is innovative, revolutionary, and disruptive, right? Yeah, that’s exactly what the other startups said.

4. Do not make it long or detailed. The longer your email, the more likely it will be ignored or marked for follow up.

5. Do not follow up too much. Day 1: “Perhaps you didn’t receive my email yesterday, please get back to me soon.” Day 2: “Perhaps you didn’t receive my email yesterday, please get back to me soon.” Day 3: “You probably missed the first two emails I sent, but I’d really like you to read my pitch deck.” This type of pitch will be ignored, or marked as spam, I promise you.

6. Do not act as though you’re doing the investor a favor. Investors aren’t sitting around wondering what to do. They are not disparate, they understand the market and they have plenty of options.

7. Do not use pitch templates. Or if you do, don’t use one anyone else has. There are lists of pitch templates out there. 90% of the pitches I receive are using these templates, so they become recognizable very quickly, and just as quickly they get filtered out. Anything that looks the least bit like a template gets deleted immediately.

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