Investor deck

0:03 Welcome to business purpose and clarity with petri I'm your host we talk about startup life insights practical tips mistakes failures and everything between is it time to update things and get some new investor money this episode talks about who is your customer who should you target your deck I have a spoiler alert in the beginning investors are not your end users please don't make the deck for them they're not your customers if you please your investors because that's the way you think to get the money I think that's a terrible idea you may get some investors and emphasis is really on the some investors but are those really the investors you want to get another topic for another day I.

1:08 Understand that sometimes you have to sell a story always you need to tell a in order to get the funds and it should be a great story it should be a story you are actually delivering and not just a story because if you have too many stories one for the investors one you actually doing and maybe a third one you are in trouble because you are not consistent if you confused everybody is confused I would not worry about making it look pretty for the investors because they are professionals or at least some of them are and those are the ones you should target so you should focus on the end users the customers and explain your business case to value what is what you provide why it's important and so on and so forth investors will get the major points from because they're really after the returns.

2:14 Is this investment for me do I believe on this market do I believe on this company do I believe on the business case do I believe on the product do I believe on the team what are the biggest risks how likely it is that this will become a successful company these are things on the investor's mind they are not really about the product I remember one occasion there was a product it was a hardware product this this is many years back they were angel investors some had already done many deals others and the product was something which was targeted well let's put it this way the investor who was looking at the product was listening to bits the first comment was I don't really see myself using this and he didn't finish the sentence or the.

3:17 Implicit message was because I don't understand this I'm not in the target I don't think there's a market for this and was that obviously he was not in the target group but it doesn't mean that he's not a great product he just couldn't think that anything which he could use is of any value so yes there are investors there are people who don't really get what you're doing and it's probably looking the numbers and trying to figure out whether to make the bet or not gamble their money with you because they have nothing else to offer if you want to get those type of people feel free it may get you in trouble later on because they don't really understand what's happening what are the dynamics and the drivers in the business.

4:21 Once again when things get rough and they will they may not be supporting you they might stick to the words you said and of course nobody knows what's happening and situations are changing they may become afraid and if they're not really experienced and maybe they don't have that much some other ways they feel threatened and they would really like to get their money back they can start to do some desperate things which may jeopardize your company in more plain language they could shoot on their own left and they don't realize it and that's really sad and I've seen it and it's never fun to explain to someone why they should not do something with just against their own interest it's really frustrating so don't go there's another reason as well why you should not focus on the.

5:23 Investors convincing them of your business case in a language and in a story and in a way which is not really what you're doing it's because it's diverting your focus away from the thing what you're supposed to be doing which is focusing on the solution focusing on the end users getting more customers making it so good product that everybody who is in your target market love it and buy it are distraction yes I know you need money you need to do that but it's away from building the company so keep that in mind as well do you really wanna have a different messages for different because you think that's the way to get the money maybe it works in my case I don't believe on that one more thing explain it to me like I'm five if you can make your deck if you can.

6:27 Make your pitch so easy to understand if you can make the storyline so good so thrilling so exciting that even a five-year-old can understand it I listen to the whole thing and love the idea the storyline then I think you may have a chance with your investors as well.