Eight Tips When Pitching to Angel Investors

Angel Investors can be a tough crowd but don’t let that intimidate you. Working for an angel investors group gave me a firsthand view of what angel investors like to see when entrepreneurs pitch to them. As a former marketing executive, I also know how to craft your messages to a specific audience and, as I said, this is a tough crowd.  I’m not saying a pitch presentation alone is going to close the deal. A bad idea isn’t going to get any better with a creative slide layout but by following these 8 tips (and the pitch deck template that is above), you’ll have a fighting chance.

First, let’s get on the same page about angel investing. Angel Investors focus on emerging or early stage startups, those who are pre-revenue or with revenues less than $1million. This means an angel investor is taking on more risk than, say, a venture capitalist when you are on the lower side of the range. There is a leap of faith for most angel investors which is why YOU and your management team play such an important factor.

An angel (sometimes referred to as a seed) round is usually between $25,000 and $500,000 and the angel can be a standalone investor or working as part of an angel network. Angel groups can also "syndicate" so that deals can result in much higher rounds, for example, $2 million. Angels can truly be angels as they are high net worth individuals who have amassed wealth and experience as corporate executives, entrepreneurs or successful investors. As a class of investors, they are eager to leverage their expertise to mentor entrepreneurs to increase the probability of a startup’s success. 

So, here we go:
1. You will typically have 20-25 minutes to pitch before Q&A is open to the floor. Practice, practice, practice to stay within that timeframe.  

2. Your sole job in 25 minutes is to convince investors they can make money off you and your idea and they don’t know you from Adam.

3. Be able to describe your idea and its value in 30 seconds. Before pitching, tell everyone you know about your product or service. If it takes you more than 30 seconds or they return a blank stare, keep refining and telling everyone again, repeat as often as needed.

4. Don’t waste precious time only to get to the end and rush through the financials. Investors live for the financials and they will have tons of questions to ask you.

5. Speaking of financials, you don’t have to go into infinite detail in the pitch but have the backup to supply and the justification in your head. Provide handouts of the financials.

6. Don’t read a list of bulleted items verbatim from your slide; an investor can do that. Their eyes should be on you. Create visuals when possible. If you do use bullets to support your points, remember the Rule of 3: no more than 3 of them per slide.

7. Listen and don’t think you know everything. Too many entrepreneurs are so eager to prove to investors that they’ve thought of everything they feel a need to counter investor advice with a “we’ve researched that and we found… “. Just say, thank you, we will take that under consideration and mean it.

8. Last, make sure the font size is big enough. You don’t always know the size of the room or the size of the screen. But you do know your average investor is pushing 50 or more. So make the font size 36 or more. Oh, and maintain contrast. No light grey against a white background.

Christine Caldwell is a former Marketing Executive and Business Owner, now on contract to Bridge Angel Investors, as well as mentor to the founders of SECON (a student-driven Social Entrepreneurship Conference and Incubator), marketing consultant and coach, among other fun stuff. More information is at https://www.christinecaldwellcoaching.com/ and she can be reached at chris@christinecaldwellcoaching.com.