How to pitch tips – a wrap

Back in December of 2016, we started the “Perfecting Your Pitch” series in conjunction with finishing our magnum opus “Perfecting Your Pitch: 101 Tips for Pitching to Angel Investors”. This book remains, without doubt, the best 101 pitching tips you can buy from an angel group beginning with V.

Over the last 18 months we have shared most of these tips with you via twitter, our blog, and the book itself.

We’d love to hear what you’ve learned from it and what else you think we should cover.

In exchange, here are a few things we’ve learned.

First, the vast majority of entrepreneurs seeking capital from us have not read it. This remains a puzzle. If you want someone to write you a check, how can you not research what they are looking for? It costs double in gas to drive to our screening pitch than to get the guide to exactly what we want to hear! Principle #2 failed already.

Second, it’s completely obvious when people have read it. It’s shown in small ways: at our April screening meeting, the best pitcher’s second sentence concluded with “…and I’m here today to tell you about the $750,000 angel round we are raising”. Tip #76 digested and executed.

It’s shown in larger ways too: some pitches are really excellent. While we still have the problem of great ideas being poorly delivered, we are increasingly facing the challenge of moderately good ideas being pitched really well. This is a lot more fun.

Third, blogging regularly (and content marketing) is hard – but feedback is gratifying. Thanks David N and Amazon Customer!

Fourth, we covered a lot of ground over the course of those tips. But in almost every pitch since we’ve seen or heard something and thought “that should’ve gone in the book”. Here’s the good news: we wrote most of those down, so look out for some bonus tips this summer.

Lastly, we’ve learned that we still have great respect for most entrepreneurs. Being willing to risk embarrassment, financial hardship, long lonely hours pursuing a dream unappreciated by everyone deserves recognition. We hope the pitches make that challenge a little less challenging and a little more rewarding.

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