6 Tips On Pitching Your Startup Idea To Angel Investors

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1. Put in sweat equity BEFORE you go after investors.

99% of investors have been in your shoes. Never forget that. They put in incredible time, effort and focus to become successful and now have the ability to help startups. If they don’t see themselves in you, the chances of them backing your company go down immensely.

2. Have real interaction with your target customers BEFORE you go pitch to investors.

So often startup founders get so tied up in their idea (and fear of it being stolen) all of their research is done in secret. No human interaction. Get out, talk to friends, co-workers and family. Call up people in your projected demographic and get their feedback on the idea. It’s amazing the insight and FREE feedback you will get that can help you answer questions from investors you never could have anticipated.

3. Do your homework and determine which investors are the right fit for your startup.

So many startup founders only focus on their pitch, not on who they are pitching to. Remember that you’re talking to a fellow human. While at the end of the day it may strictly come down to how good your idea is, most investors will tell you that it’s their faith in YOU as an entrepreneur that is the biggest factor.

4. Make sure to focus on the value proposition of your idea as a solution. Not just a how much money it can make.

No matter what your startup idea is, at the end of the day you have to appeal to investors as potential customers and paint a picture of how it solves a problem for the end user. If you are truly solving a problem, it then comes down to execution and marketing to gain success. If convince potential investors that your value proposition is realistic, they will pay attention to your valuation in much more detail.

5. Limit your pitch deck to 10 slides or less, have a short explainer video produced.

The investors get 30, 40, 50 ideas presented to them each month. Not to mention all of the companies they own and have invested in. Complex business plans and pitch decks often cause them to tune out of your presentation. Start your presentation with a well done video that explains your business and the value proposition. Then dive into your pitch deck. Video is a powerful way to gain attention, and also shows more dedication to your business idea than just a PowerPoint presentation.

6. Be prepared to fail over and over before you find an investor.

It’s amazing how many entrepreneurs become depressed after getting turned down on their first pitch and never do it again. Remember that gaining an investor is just like selling a potential customer. Not everyone will buy or believe in your product or service, so why would all investors? Make sure to walk in to your pitch confident that you will win investment capital. If you don’t…try try again.

How to Start Your Own Business While on the Job

Dan Schwabel, Guest Post YEC, Sartup TipsBecoming an intrapreneur isn’t something people typically fall into. If you want it to happen, you’re going to have to get out there and make it happen. And to do that, you’ll need a plan.

Item number one on your list is to master your job. This is actually a two-parter. First, become an expert in your current role. Second, you’ll need to hit certain milestones if you want to pull this off. The first one is being at your job long enough for you to learn your role and feel that you could teach everything you do to another person. You need to prove your worth and demonstrate that you can handle the responsibilities you were hired to do. You’ll also want to build in enough time on the job to make your boss look like a rock star and gain his trust before you venture outside your role. Otherwise, you’re going to have a really tough time getting him to buy into and support your ideas (and to support you in your desire to expand your role in the company). In my experience, it usually takes six months to get to this point. Of course, if you can do it in less time, great! But don’t rush things. It’s better to take a little more time than to try to make a move when you’re really not ready.

Throughout this process — and throughout your entire career — it’s important to think in terms of how you can best leverage your strengths and weaknesses to help your company succeed. What are some things your company does really well? What does it do less well? What should it be doing to improve? How can your strengths and intrapreneurship goals get your company where it needs to go? With that in the back of your mind, you’ll be better able to articulate to your manager how your intrapreneurial idea will benefit the company.

You’ll also need to be able to clearly define your objectives and metrics.

In other words, what does success look like and how can you measure it? Be absolutely sure that your project aligns with the corporation’s mission and values.

If you want your company to support your idea, you’ll need heavy hitters behind you. Start with your manager. Sit down with them and talk about the potential opportunity you see. They’ve worked at the company longer than you have and they know the path to making a project successful, including how to assemble a team and how to get decision makers to buy in. Have a presentation that describes the opportunity, how it benefits your company, and what resources you’ll need to execute (people, materials, funding). Once your manager is solidly backing you, ask for their help in lining up a senior executive or major decision-maker inside your company to put his or her name on the project. That will help you get the resources you’ll need to give you the greatest chance of succeeding.

Remember, this is your project, and you want to be the center of attention, right? But don’t try to do everything — you’re going to need help. In addition, trying to do it all makes you seem either like you can’t get others to work with you, you can’t delegate, or you’re trying to hog all the glory. Instead, surround yourself with people who have skills you don’t but who can make your idea even better. Look for people who are passionate about the idea you want to develop. Some will come from inside your organization, but others may come from outside.

Optimism and self-confidence are great qualities for intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs alike. But they can easily turn into naïveté if you don’t have a backup plan. Having a great idea, a great team, strong backing, and deep resources significantly increase your chances of success. But even with all that, sometimes things don’t work out the way you’d hoped. Life can be awfully unpredictable, and it doesn’t pay to be overconfident. There are too many factors beyond your control, such as your company’s health, management changes, and corporate mergers. So you’ll want to have a backup plan — at the very least so you can salvage the work you’ve done and have something to show for it. Not having a contingency plan is just plain foolish (and it’ll be interpreted by people you’re trying to turn into allies as amateurish and immature).

You also want to have a contingency plan because intrapreneurship, just like entrepreneurship (and everything else in life, for that matter) is risky. You could get laid off tomorrow. You could get hit by a bus on the way into the office. Likewise, there’s no guarantee of success in business — most ideas fail.

Taking risks is what builds successful careers. Those who don’t, get stuck (in fact, I’d argue that not taking risks at work will be more harmful to your career than failure, because your company needs new ideas in order to grow. So if you’re holding back on proposing a new internal business opportunity, don’t. And keep in mind that you could benefit even if your project doesn’t get funded.

Two final things and then we’ll move on. First: As you go through the process, check in with your team to learn what’s working and what isn’t, what you’d need to do to improve. How could you prevent mistakes in the future and repeat your success? Intrapreneurship is all about experimenting/testing ideas, measuring the results, and improving on them. It can sometimes take a few tries to figure out whether or not something is right for your company. Finally, as soon as your project is up and running, start thinking about your next one and what kinds of people, backing, and resources you’ll need to build it out.

This post is an excerpt adapted from the author’s book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success.

Dan Schawbel is a Gen Y career and workplace expert, the Founder of Millennial Branding and the author of the new book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press). He made the Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 in 2010 and the Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 in 2012.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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