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Pitch Philosophy
The Lion Lookout: Volume 2
We Speak In Pitch Decks, Literally.
We’ve seen a lot of pitch decks, and we’ve made a lot of pitch decks.
The honest truth: Pitch decks are tricky. Condensing big ideas into pretty slides isn’t as simple as it sounds.
So, to help make the process less overwhelming, we compiled some high-level advice for how we approach an investment pitch deck.
Your Deck Is The Handshake
As founders, we all struggle from wanting to share every piece of information with prospective investors. But the first interaction that an investor has with you needs to convey several things:
You know how to communicate clearly and effectively.
You see how an aesthetically pleasing deck indicates you care about your company’s professional image.
You understand how to frame the problem you are solving, explain how your solution addresses it, and demonstrate why your team is the right fit to tackle it.
Pitch decks are typically your first interaction with an investor you have been introduced to whether you’re sending it over email or pitching it live. In both contexts, it’s 100% a marketing document.
It’s not a McKinsey report. It is not a way to cram every fact and figure that you have projected over the previous 12 months into a presentation.
It’s the introduction that will set the tone for the rest of the engagement and will be one of the biggest deciding factors in evaluating your fit, professionalism, and the investability of your company.
Identify Your Gaps
Before you even start building your pitch deck, you need to identify gaps in information and narrative.
Just like an onion has layers, so does your business. We like to think of these gaps as ‘layers of risk,’ and as a founder, you’re peeling back those layers (with hopefully fewer tears) to address what’s missing.
Most of the time, we notice these gaps appear in slides like competitive analysis and go-to-market strategy.
We say it all the time: “Output is only as good as the input.” So take a moment to poke around and see where your strategy might be a bit thin before diving into crafting your slides.
Think With The End In Mind
Okay, you’re preparing to hit send— your goal isn’t to secure a term sheet right away but to spark interest and build a relationship.
Make sure the context you add when dropping that deck in their inbox reflects the excitement and professionalism you bring to the table.
Investors get tons of these emails every day. Personalize as much as you can to them and the context surrounding the exchange.
It Isn’t Over Once You Hit Send
For exchanges where you’re sending your deck asynchronously via email and waiting for a response back, the job isn’t done.
Measure, analyze, adapt— Utilizing a data room tool with embedded anlaytics can provide insights into how your deck is being received.
Are investors spending time on specific slides? Are they skipping others? Have they even opened it yet?
As part of our Phase 3 package, we set up our clients' data room to ensure everything is traceable, providing analytics that enable them to adapt based on feedback.
Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings
If you contact more investors, you’ll get more meetings.
But there is no correlation between the number of investors contacted and the amount of money raised (DocSend)
If you are targeting firms that are aligned with your company and still not seeing that translate to funds, it's time to get some more direct feedback, or rethink your strategy and potentially pivot.
Client Spotlight: Omnivers.ai
We’re super excited to spotlight Omnivers.ai, who just crushed it with their latest funding round! We had the pleasure of helping them share their incredible story about uniting fragmented Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) into one powerful platform.
Hear more about our work with Omnivers.ai:
Investors clearly see the potential we do, and we can’t wait to see where they go next!
Huge congratulations to the Omnivers.ai team on this milestone.
To connect with them, reach out to Zeesh at [email protected] or visit omnivers.ai.
Are you interested in working with LionRun?
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Until next time— we’ll be on the lookout!