How to pitch your startup to investors: Get the timing right

Before you decide what belongs in a three-minute or five-minute pitch, think about its purpose. You are trying to create enough interest that someone wants a one-on-one meeting, where you can discuss the company in greater depth. You should not build your presentation around the expectation that an investor will write a check as soon as you finish.

I often compare this to looking for a job. When you send a résumé, you hope it gets you an interview. You want the employer to see enough relevant experience and potential to say, “Let's talk.” The interview gives you room to explain more, answer questions, and find out whether there is a fit. Pitching a startup is a similar process. Each conversation should give the other person a reason to continue.

Of course, there are exceptions. In the early days of Bay Angels, a founder who had not registered to pitch arrived on an electric scooter. He had no deck, no formal analysis, and barely a business plan, but the product and his informal presentation made enough of an impression that he left with a check that day.

That is a memorable story, and it is an unusual one. You cannot plan your fundraising around being the exception. What you can prepare for is the chance to help an investor understand the opportunity and want to know more.

Keeping that goal in mind makes editing easier. A short pitch should give investors enough information to recognize a promising business, with room for a deeper conversation afterward.

Give me your name and the company's name, then get into the business. In your opening sentences, explain the problem, your solution, and what makes your approach different from the alternatives. By the time you begin expanding on those ideas, the room should have a clear understanding of what you are building.

Founders often spend too long establishing that a problem exists. I understand why. They may have lived with that problem for years, and they know every frustration it creates. But once the audience understands it, you need to move into the solution and explain why your company has a credible answer.

If you claim there is no competition, you have more homework to do. Customers are addressing the problem somehow, even if their current approach is manual, inefficient, or expensive. Explain what they do today and why your solution gives them a reason to change.

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There's no such thing as no competition.

Roger King

I once coached a founder whose deck was essentially a product sales presentation. It went through feature after feature, demonstrating what the product could do without making a clear case for the business. We changed the focus to the questions an investor needed answered: What does it do? Why is that significant? How does the company make money?

The detailed features were still there for a later conversation. The initial pitch gave them a context. That change also helped the founder use the available time on information that could generate investor interest.

Market size matters, but a product does not have to be useful to everyone to support a valuable business. A focused market can be significant, underserved, and willing to pay for a solution. Your task is to show the audience why that is true.

At a Bay Angels event hosted at Nordic Innovation House, one of the presenting companies was DorySign. Its product is an e-paper digital sign. If you only looked at the object, you might wonder how much opportunity there could be in another small display.

The pitch explained a practical hospitality problem. Hotels want to make each guest's experience feel personal, but handwritten welcome cards and manually replaced signs require staff time. DorySign's approach lets businesses change the message on a display without repeatedly producing and replacing printed materials. The company's business offering describes personalized guest information and uses across rooms, shared spaces, and events.

That gives the product a different significance. The opportunity comes into focus when you understand the customer's repeated task, the work involved, and the value of making that process easier. Similar needs can arise in other businesses, including venues that regularly change their menus or specials.

We also heard a pitch for software that works with electric vehicle charging stations. A software layer for charging operators might initially sound like a specialized technical product. The company explained how remote maintenance and managing electricity consumption during peak hours could save operators money. Once the presentation showed the financial significance, the opportunity became much easier to understand.

These examples are a reason to spend your pitch time carefully. Explain the customer's problem clearly, then use the solution and the business case to show why the market is worth serving. A broad market claim needs evidence, and a focused market deserves a fair explanation of its value.

My son Philip, who now leads Bay Angels, makes a useful point about pitching to a mixed audience: build the explanation so someone unfamiliar with your industry can follow it. At our events, there may be considerable expertise in the room, but the investor who ultimately writes a check may have little direct experience in your field.

That person can still understand the market opportunity, recognize a business model, and feel a connection with you as a founder. Investors are evaluating the person who will build the company as well as the company itself. How you explain an unfamiliar subject gives them a chance to see how you think and communicate.

Have two descriptions ready. One should explain the company in everyday language. The other can go deeper for an investor who understands the technology or the industry. In a meeting with a highly technical investor, there may be good reason to discuss the architecture, patents, or engineering. In a mixed room, begin with an explanation everyone can understand and make the specialist detail available when it is useful.

Clarity gives your expertise a foundation. Once investors understand what you are doing and why it matters, they can ask more informed questions about how it works.

You should be able to explain your company in under a minute and still be prepared to spend hours discussing the details. Both abilities matter. One gets the conversation started; the other allows it to go somewhere.

At Bay Angels, founders have five minutes to pitch and five minutes for questions. Those two periods serve different purposes, and you should prepare for both.

The initial five minutes should introduce the important aspects of the company: the problem and solution, market opportunity, team, technology, traction, business model, and path to growth. Investors need enough context to understand how these pieces fit together. They also need to hear how much you are raising and what that money is expected to accomplish.

The next five minutes give you room to expand on details you could not fully explore. An investor may want to understand a technical advantage, examine your customer progress, or ask why you expect a particular route to market to work. That is a useful discussion when the basic business is already clear.

It is less useful when the room spends the question period trying to find out what the product does or how the company plans to make money. Those basics should have been covered in the pitch. You want questions that build on what you said, rather than questions that have to reconstruct the opportunity from the beginning.

This is also why the funding request needs a proper place in the presentation. The amount matters, but I want to know where it takes you. Does it fund a launch, get you to break-even, or support a path to profitability? Explain the milestone so I can understand what you intend to accomplish with the money.

Every event has its own format, so check the time allowance and how questions will be handled. If someone interrupts with a useful question in an individual meeting, be ready to pause and answer it, or explain when you will address it. Keep track of the time while responding to the person in front of you.

The answer to most timing problems is rehearsal. Practice the pitch aloud with the actual slides and a timer. For a three-minute event, work toward a complete presentation that finishes close to the limit without going over or forcing you to rush through the closing information.

Reading silently through the deck does not tell you how long the spoken presentation takes. You need to hear yourself explain the ideas, move between slides, and make the funding request. If the pitch is consistently too long, decide what information belongs in the next conversation and edit accordingly.

Practice with your team, but also find someone who has heard nothing about the company. Your team knows the background and can fill in gaps without realizing it. A new listener gives you a better test of whether your explanation works on its own.

Afterward, ask whether they understand what you are building, why it is important, and why it matters. Let them describe what they heard before you add more explanation. If their understanding is different from what you intended, you have found something to improve before an investor hears it.

Recording yourself is useful too. Listen for the sections where you spend time repeating a point, the transitions that feel awkward, and the places where the pace suddenly accelerates. Those are opportunities to make the presentation more comfortable for you and easier for the audience to follow.

Geoff Ralston offers sound advice in Y Combinator's guide to demo day presentations: “Practice in front of people who will give you honest, unvarnished feedback.”

The goal is to sound like someone having a conversation about a business they know well. We can all read slides. Add something to them, and let your interest in the company come through. If you are not passionate about what you are building, how can I be passionate about it?

You should be equally comfortable giving a short elevator pitch, a three-minute event pitch, a five-minute presentation, or a longer explanation in an individual meeting. Each version needs to suit its audience and available time. Extra time gives you room for case studies, technical papers, patents, and deeper discussion of the business.

When you shorten a pitch, make deliberate choices about the content. Keep the opening clear and preserve enough information about the business for an investor to understand the opportunity. The funding request and the milestone it supports need to survive the editing.

If you do fall behind during a live pitch, move past the technical detail and get to the ask, what the money will accomplish, and how an interested investor can reach you. Practicing that ending makes it easier to deliver clearly when there is pressure on the clock.

Finishing a little early is fine when you have made a complete presentation. A good three-minute pitch delivered in two minutes and forty seconds does not bother me. Where the format permits it, that may leave more time for questions.

I have also seen a founder in a four-minute contest stop after two minutes and have nothing more to offer. The audience was stunned. Knowing your company deeply should give you plenty to discuss; preparing the pitch helps you choose what to say within the time available.

Take every opportunity seriously. You never know who is in the room, which part of the opportunity will interest them, or where a thoughtful follow-up conversation might lead.

Experienced founders can benefit from another set of ears. I worked with a founder who had built four startups and had three successful exits. Simple changes to her deck still made a meaningful difference to her presentation, and she was grateful for the advice.

At Pitch an Angel, I ask you to pitch to me as though you are presenting to a room of investors. I listen to the explanation and the delivery, then tell you where you did well, where the pitch needs work, and what to change. The aim is to help you use the time you have to give investors a clear reason to continue the conversation.

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We can all read slides. Add something to it.

Roger King

If you would like feedback on your pitch's timing, clarity, and delivery, visit Pitch an Angel to arrange a conversation with me.