1.
Intelligent Pitching
A Better Approach to Presentations
Dan Gordon
dan@dangordontech.com
@dangordontech

2.
Intelligent Pitching
• One of three great
lessons about writing
and communication in
general
– Know the mind of
your audience
• Everyone pitches
– You either sell or you
work for someone
who sells

3.
The Virtuous Circle of Intelligent
Pitching
What do
you want
them to
think next?
Persuade
them
What are
They
Thinking?
Know Your
audience
Cast Your
Spell
Assess Your
Impact

4.
Cast Your Spell: Attach to the Highest
Wish(es) You Can
• Convincing them that
you can “save costs”
(Wish #6) is no good if
you may make them
“look like an idiot” (Woe
#3)
• Attachment cannot be
superficial
– “This will make you
look good to your
boss” is a turnoff
remark, not a turn-on
My Daughter’s Braces
Pleasing my Boss
Not Looking Like an
Idiot
Am I a good
person?
Increasing
Revenues
Saving
Costs
World
Peace

5.
Pity the Poor VC
• We listen to lots of
presentations
– 10,000 for me?
• Never had a presenter
ask what’s on my mind
• Most presenters
– Want to “get” me
– Don’t want to “get”
where I’m coming from
• What’s on an investor’s
mind?
• How do you use that in
your pitch?

6.
The Typical non-Solution Pitch
• Starts on “Market Need”
– “World is desperately in need of <x>”
• Stays on “Market Need” for ~30% of pitch
• Superficial Market Size slide
– “If we could get <x>% of <huge market>”
• Very little attention to team
• Very little attention to competition
• Very little attention to financials
• The “ask” is at the end

7.
The PaaP Test
• “Person At a Party”
• “If someone walked up to you
at a party and did <x>, what
would you think”?
• “Party” a good proxy for a
presentation
– The investor(s) and
presenter(s) don’t know one
another
– Establishing context and
connection is key
– Timing of The Ask is important

8.
What’s Wrong with the “Typical”
Pitch?
• PaaP test:
– Someone comes up to you at a party and starts a long
monolog about a “market need”
– E.g.., “Lots of research shows that eating at an Italian
restaurant and going out to a jazz concert is vital to
building relationships”
– Eventually they tell you they’re a “serial dater”
– At the very end, they ask you for a date
• Reaction?
– (with apologies to Forrest Gump)
– “Run Forrest, Run”

9.
What would an Intelligent Pitch for
investors look like?
• Take cognizance of three investor thought
patterns that are essential to understanding a
Solution Pitch
• Fear vs. Greed
• Managing Risk
• Exit Arithmetic

10.
Investor Mind: Fear and Greed
• Investors cycle between
– Fear: “they will lose my money”
• Suspicion is the BFF of Fear
– Greed: “I will miss out on an oppty to make a killing”
• Manic Haste is the BFF of Greed
• Investors flip back and forth between Fear and Greed
with nothing in between
• In fact, the same presentation bullet point can do both
– “Google has shown that the user base for online docs is
huge”
• [Greed] $2.50 x each Google Docs user = $$$
• [Fear] OMG, Google could take this over

11.
Investor Mind: Managing Risk
• Control
– Board representation/control
– Blocking rights, other terms
• Dribs and Drabs
– Tranching
– Milestones
• Due Diligence

12.
Investor Mind: The Exit
Company needs to grow to
$55M in revenues in 4-6 years
Company
needs to sell
for $165M to
get 3.3x
return
Tech
companies
sell for 3x
revenues
$10M buys
20% of
company
Need 4-6x to wow backers
Need 3.33x
return to
break even
70% of
companies
fail
$100 M
Fund

13.
A Better Pitch 1: How to Start
• Be clear about
– Who you are
– What you’re asking for
– What you’re going to do
• Speaks to Fear and Greed
– You’re not asking the investor to buy a pig in a poke
• Speaks to Managing Risk
– You’re offering your bona fides
• Speaks to PaaP Test:
– Introduce yourself
– Say why you’re talking
– Set listener at their ease

14.
A Better Pitch 1: The Framing Slide
Brief, Clear
Statement
of Purpose Bona Fides
of Team
Where
We’re At
The Ask

15.
A Better Pitch 2: Market Need Slide
Gutsy Move:
How Will It
Affect the
Audience?
Paint a
Picture of
Customer’s
#1 Problem
And How
You’ll
Address It

16.
A Better Pitch 3: Market Sizing Slide
Not a Great
Bottom-Up, but
Decent

17.
A Better Pitch 3: Competition
Dividing Competitors
Into Classes Often
Works

18.
A Better Pitch 4: The Hammacher-
Schlemmer Promise

19.
A Better Pitch 5: Are Questions a
Diversion?
• Never!
• The opposite of interest is boredom, not
questions
• Always answer questions
• Never stick to the pitch

20.
A Better Pitch 6: How to Tell When
You’re Losing Your Audience
• Absence of questions
• Playing with tech toys
• Body language
– Crossed arms, etc.
– Lack of eye contact
– Don’t worry about poker faces: VCs love to do ‘em
• Fidgeting

21.
…And What To Do About It
• Let someone else from your team take over
– Good advice generally, btw
• Ask them what questions are on their mind as they
hear what you’ve said so far
– A little better than “any questions” at the end of each slide
• Have some props that are not PowerPoint
– Gadgets
– Mobile app where they have to download the app
– Financials that are not on a slide (so they can see them)
• Ask for a bio break!
– Looks odd, but better than putting them to sleep

22.
A Few Other Tidbits
• Try like hell not to have people on the phone
– Very hard to keep in tune with audience over the
phone
– If must be remote, start with framing slide and then
stop for questions right away, resume pitch mode only
if vibe is good
– Build in pauses and listen really hard for potential
interruptions
• Don’t bring the whole crew
– 2 people (CEO/CFO, CEO/Tech guy, CEO/Sales)
– Let the other person have ½ the prezo, if possible

23.
THANK YOU – QUESTIONS?
Dan Gordon
dan@dangordontech.com
@dangordontech