Pitching a startup to a potential investor is easily one of the biggest and most important moments of a founder’s life.
In a matter of a few minutes or even seconds, startup founders are expected to convince the investors to bet on their business. It’s important to have an answer to all the key questions about your startup at the tip of your tongue. This can be a rather tough task in the current high competition and high-pressure market which is full of amazing startups looking for their next funding.
The easiest way to stand out and make a lasting impression? Create a video pitch for your startup business.
Videos are a powerful way of communicating information. They resonate with people almost instantly and they are fun to watch. Simply put, a video pitch is the best way to engage investors in a considerably short amount of time. In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about creating a video pitch.
WHAT IS A VIDEO PITCH?
A startup pitch is a short presentation that describes the company and the products/ services that it offers. It is an attempt to compel potential investors to successfully invest in the business. While usually, a startup pitch is in the form of a presentation deck, you can also create a video pitch to engage your investors more and stand out among your competition.
Your startup pitch is what gets your business off the ground and knowing how to pitch effectively is crucial for the success of your business. It doesn’t matter how unique, innovative or potentially profitable your business idea is, if you can’t grab the attention of investors, you will face big issues in scaling up your company.
Raising money for your business is easier said than done. Investors are not going to take your word for it when you say that your business will eventually profit a lot. Just as recruiters challenge a candidate applying for a role by asking them “What makes you unique? Why should we work with you?”, similarly investors have that train of thought.
You have to demonstrate through your video pitch how your startup can give investors an ideal return on investment.
Successfully attracting potential investors requires you to put together a compelling, powerful, and strong video pitch that convinces investors to give you the required capital.
BENEFITS OF HAVING A VIDEO PITCH FOR YOUR STARTUP
It grabs attention
You mostly only get a few minutes to grab the attention of investors. In these few minutes you have to impress the investors enough to want to know more about your business — and videos are perfect for that. While presentations can have a lot of information in them, they can often come across as boring and stale. A fun, dynamic video pitch includes both video and audio cues which can help you grab more eyeballs.
In fact, according to a report over 64 percent of people are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it — and the same applies to investor video pitches as well.
It can raise more money for you
Videos make it all the easier for you to tell the story behind your startup and what motivated you to start your own business. They can evoke emotional responses from the audience and allow you to break down even the most complex concepts in a simple way.
Campaigns with videos on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, raise 66 percent more money with a video as compared to campaigns without a video.
It helps share powerful stories
Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways of getting potential investors interested in your startup. Video pitches allow you to employ various storytelling techniques and tell people the true story behind your startup.
It gives more room for creativity
With videos, you get to decide how much time the viewers should spend on each frame. You can also play around and experiment with different video effects, filters, and transitions to turn your otherwise boring startup pitch into a fun, exciting, and engaging video.
It is easily customizable
You can customize your video pitches according to the type of investors you will be pitching them to. Video pitches are easily customizable and convenient as well, giving you a clear edge over your competitors. In fact, you can use an online video editor to edit your video pitches and create video templates that you can quickly customize according to the investor you are planning to pitch.
It adds a human element
The usual pitch decks mostly include information-loaded slides with a few pictures in between. Startup founders are expected to email these pitch decks directly to the investors and only a few get shortlisted to meet investors face to face to explain their deck and business idea.
Videos add a much-needed human element to your startup pitch by putting you on the center stage even when you can’t present your startup idea in person. You can also add a video of you directly speaking on camera to explain your business idea in your startup pitch or incorporate a voiceover to break down the inner workings of your business idea. This can help investors feel more connected to you even if you are not present in person.
EXPERT TIPS FOR TELLING YOUR STARTUP STORY THROUGH A VIDEO PITCH
1. Keep your video pitch simple
The most important thing that you should remember when pitching your startup is to make your entire video pitch as simple and easily understandable as possible. The startup scene has steadily expanded across the globe and that means investors usually have a fair share of options to pick from. This in turn means that not only will you have limited opportunities to impress investors, but you also need to be as succinct as possible to explain your startup idea and business model.
You can start your pitch with a brief rundown of your business along with the main vision as well as the purpose. Go into details about the main problems that are faced by your target audience and how your startup can help solve them. More importantly, avoid getting into too many details because it might end up confusing and distracting the investors. In case you are emailing the pitch directly, you want it to be effective and short enough to get considered for a direct one-on-one meeting with investors.
2. Limit the time of your video pitch
Optimize the time of your video pitch to make it short, simple, and yet very effective. There is nothing more frustrating to people than a video that goes on too long. That is why it is advisable to stay within the time frame suggested by the investors. In case you haven’t been given a time limitation directly, it is advisable to keep your startup video pitch under the 5-minute mark.
You want the video to be engaging without overburdening viewers with too much information, which can eventually bore them. A great way to do that is by speeding up the parts that are less important and slowing down the most important parts of your pitch so that the investors focus on those parts more.
3. Share the story of your startup
Adding numbers, charts, and spreadsheets to your startup pitch is easy, but too much of it can bore your audience. You will eventually fail to grab the attention of your investors if you only add some facts and figures to your video pitch. Even though numbers are important, you shouldn’t go overboard with them
What makes your startup different from the many others is the story behind your business and how it came to be. By sharing the story of your startup, you can make your pitch unique and memorable, which the investors are bound to remember for a long time.
Here are a few ways your can share the story of your startup more effectively:
- Be more expressive and genuine, while still maintaining complete professionalism
- It’s good to tell a few jokes along the way but make sure not to go too far with your jokes. Your focus should always stay on sharing your story
- Make sure to subtly integrate data to support your business story
- Introduce the USP(unique selling point) of your startup — something that makes you stand apart from all the competitors in the same industry as you
4. Always remember your main goal
When developing your video pitch, never lose the focus of your main goal — to impress investors enough so they want to invest their money into your business. Avoid taking your pitch on a different tangent and never lose sight of the core messaging.
It is important to respect the valuable time of the investors. Your pitch should ideally include all the details that they need to know about your business to decide on future funding. If the investors find that the pitch is too confusing or it doesn’t include all the details they need, they may end up not contacting you at all.
HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR VIDEO PITCH?
1. Show your passion, quickly
Most investors are often pressed on time and they hear over a dozen pitches every day. When structuring your video pitch, you should try to pique their curiosity about your business idea from the very beginning.
Start your video pitch with the same passion, devotion, and fervor that you have for your business. The first few minutes of your pitch should be all about your core startup idea — Why are you pursuing it? Why is it worth investing in it? How much traction can the business get once it’s up and running?
Answering these questions in the first part of your pitch will be more than enough to capture the undivided attention of the investors and they will listen to the rest of your pitch too.
2. Lay down your numbers, slowly
Numbers are crucial when you are pitching your business. After all, you don’t want to share a broad and vague business idea with your investors, with no way to back up your big claims. But at the same time, you should avoid dumping all the numbers that you have with you — which can eventually overwhelm the investors and make your pitch lose its focus.
Instead, pick out the specific numbers and statistics, which are crucial for your business and can help capture the investor’s attention in an instant. Try to add metrics that can show clear traction for your business like growth rate, customer acquisition costs, profit margins, and sales figures. In other words, the middle part of your video pitch should convince the investors that you have done enough homework and you know exactly how your business can make money.
3. Close the deal
Use the last 30-60 seconds of your pitch to tell the investors why your startup deserves to get investment for them and close the deal. It’s important to remember that while your idea may be exceptionally great and unique, investors will only be willing to invest in it when they are sure you can execute that idea in the right way.
The truth is, investors aren’t just betting on your business idea but they are also betting on you and your ability to execute your idea.
That is why you should focus on yourself in the last part of the video pitch. To solidify your commitment to your business, show the investors that they can trust you in running your startup. You should also share the sacrifices you have made in the past for your business and the risks that you are willing to take.
FINAL WORDS
By the end of your pitch, your investors should have a clear idea about what your startup is about, who you are as an entrepreneur, and what are your main financial goals. Using a video pitch instead of the usual presentation decks is the perfect way to stand out and leave a lasting impression on investors.
Author bio:
Stewart Barrett is an agile, data-driven digital strategist with over 15 years of experience in building marketing, web and mobile platforms. As the Organic Growth Lead at Clipchamp, he is on a mission to help everyone create awesome video content with the easy-to-use online video editor.
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