August 2019 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / 63GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS | BREAKING DOWN A GOOD PITCH FOR FUNDSAntigone Christofides is the founder and Managing Director of Agga Consulting, a Dubai-based strategy and management consulting firm
whose value proposition lays into offering affordable and easy-to-apply business advisory to small and medium enterprises and startups.
Antigone holds over 18 years of international experience in marketing and strategy consulting, having worked for major FMCG, retail, telcos,
and financial services companies across Greece, Italy, Spain and the UAE. She holds an MBA in Corporate Strategy from ESADE Business
School in Barcelona and a BSc. in Business Studies from CASS Business School in London. agga-consulting.comINVESTORS WANT TO PUT THEIR MONEY
INTO A MARKET THAT IS GROWING, NOT
SATURATED, AND LOOKS HEALTHY OVERALL.
WWW.AGGA-CONSULTING.COM
- Skills and experience
It is important to demonstrate that the
right skillset is present in your organiza-
tion to make the idea happen. Here is
where your team needs to be introduced,
highlighting the relevant skills and experi-
ence they hold to make you realize your
idea. - Ambition
Investors not only want to invest in a
promising market, but also in companies
that they know how to evolve. Showcase
your ambition, how you are planning to
evolve the company at later stages. If you
find it hard, here is a trick. Think about
evolution in terms of new products/ser-
vices, in terms of growth in new markets,
in terms of new partnerships, etc. - Business operation and planning skills
Ideas don’t bring money, business does.
Thus, it is important to demonstrate that
you understand what is the complexity
behind making your idea a reality (i.e.
activities that need to be performed,
resources that need to be onboarded,
etc.), but also that you know how to make
that happen in a reasonable, but not very
lengthy, timeframe. - Investment
If you have done your exercise extensively,
by now, you should have a good idea of the
total investment you will need to make
your idea reality. Although you may be
planning to finance partially from your
own funds (which is actually also what we
recommend), potential investors would
like to also see this information in order
to understand better whether your feet
are on the ground. If you have a finance
or accounting person in your team, this is
where they should shine. - Gains
Although it is reasonable to state that
profits are rarely evidenced from day one
of operations, investors expect you to be
very specific by when you are foreseeing
this to happen. Projected income state-
ments, cash flows and balance sheets, or
even metrics calculations such as net pre-
sent value, break-even, etc. may be useful
here in order to demonstrate to potential
investors that profits will be made, and
relatively soon. Again, this is an exercise
to be driven by your finance or accounting
expert.- Funding
Once all of the aforementioned elements
have been addressed, it is the time to ask
the core question to your investor, which
is the funding you are actually looking
from them. - Alignment
Last, although it may not apply in any
situation, it is worth trying to understand
before your meeting with a potential
investor if there are any elements that
provide you a common ground. This could
be, operating in a market in which the
investor has demonstrated a particular
interest in, similar background, etc. The
identification of such elements will make
the investor see you from a different angle,
and thus could give you an extra bonus
over other entrepreneurs looking to get
access to the funds of that investor.
To further support our clients and stay
inline with what we preach as Agga
Consulting, which is that we are the af-
fordable business advisory that provides
“#SimpleAs123” methodologies to some
of the most common questions in the
minds of entrepreneurs, we have created
a generic storyline that can be used across
businesses, across pitches and encom-
passes the identified 10 core elements. So,
the next time you try to pitch your idea
to a potential investor you can tell him/
her that:- It is a great idea...
- ... with enormous potential...
- ... with evidence that we are
implementing it in the right way... - ... and with the right people onboard
- We have a clear vision of how this could
evolve to... - ... and we have clarity on the actions
required to get there reasonably fast... - It will cost us X dollars...
- ... but we expect to generate profits
very soon - We are looking for X dollars of external
funding... - ... and a partner that can be a catalyst
to this journey.
Good luck with your pitches!