You finally got “the idea that you will turn”? You have developed “the project that sells itself?” Are you ready to “do the business”? What do you miss, then to launch your start-up?
Ah, yes: the money …
Sooner or later every start-up needs to find an investor …
At this point becomes crucial the elevator pitch or simply pitch or presentation, usually very short, of your business idea to a venture capital company, firm or one or more individual investors.
In the space of a few minutes you will be able to present your idea, its medium and long-term developments, the business model, explaining as precisely as possible what resources you need to turn your project into a real start up.
During the pitch, every second counts. You cannot overlook any detail. You’ll be able to respond in a clear, concise and with absolute security to all the questions that will be some so he can convince and win over investors to which you are facing.
Trying to capture the best tips to convince a potential investor we ran into a really fun and useful tool.
Pitchbot: The pitch simulator to prepare for battle
Pitchbot is a simulator pitch, a very well made tool to train yourself to answer questions from potential investors, coming prepared for a meeting that could radically change the fate of your business.
First, you must decide what type of investor: Pitchbot will allow it to simulate a pitch meeting with angel investors, a venture capitalist, an incubator and a seed capital.
Let meanwhile to give a schematic definition of each of these figures …
- Business Angel: Also called “informal investor” is a professional with a large personal fortune, contacts and spirit of adventure, willing to invest in small and medium enterprises participating in venture capital. A sort of patron, then, that seen in the start-up of a possible economic return source in the medium and long term.
- Venture Capitalist: An investor in all respects, ready to financially support the creation or development of companies also high potential risk, provided that operate in sectors with high potential returns. Usually the venture capitalist allocates funds to promising start-ups, taking risks that other financial institutions (e.g. Credit institutions) would not accept.
- Incubator: Often synonymous with “Company Accelerator”, thanks to services such as concession and rental of office buildings or forms of counseling in terms of entrepreneurial training, business plan definition, monitoring of funding, networking and marketing. An incubator generally accepts to manage start-up can propose feasible ideas in development and have a schedule of activities that require timing and acceptable means.
- Seed Capital: They are public funds to which a business owner can access to launch a new business. It is a system spread almost exclusively in the United States, so the public investment fund acquires a significant stake in the business to support the launch, consolidation or economic and commercial development, compared with a prior definition of price out of the share capital.
Despite the obvious differences, the questions to which the various types of investors require rapid and concrete answers are mainly these:
- What good your start-up is able to offer?
- What form you offer this benefit?
- In terms that will quantify the improvement achieved?
- How long will it take to get it?
Through a multiple-choice system, Pitchbot ask you to define your business project, to explain in detail your team of employees, to identify the market to which your start-up is addressed, the type of product or service offering, its growth prospects.
Why should you use it?
For each answer the bot defects evaluates the merits of the project, setting step by step if your ideas are clear and if your business model can be deemed profitable or not.
If with your answers will have demonstrated the ability to present the right way your start-up, you’ll get a facsimile of fund agreement. If you’re an entrepreneur revealed improvised and the unclear ideas, you will be shown the door and the possibility of obtaining a number of tips of the best US investors specifically dedicated to your pitch.
Usually, therefore, an aspiring start-upper presented their idea to someone who knows and feels competent in the matter, and then use his feedback to adjust the pitch and then turn to the true potential investors.
Pitchbot acts as the investor of “friend”, but does it better: in part because being a bot is absolutely “sincere”, and then because its creator, besides being itself a business angel with hundreds of meetings pitch behind.
The questions Pitchbot you addressed in those 10 minutes of “talk” are the same that make the real investors to start-upper knocking at their door, and your answers will be evaluated based on their criteria and the real interest that can stimulate a start-up within the current market optics.
Pitchbot is a useful tool, surprisingly funny, and able to simulate different scenarios that you may find yourself face during a pitch meeting.
Put it to the test. Test yourself. You’ll find a great help to present your business idea with one more arrow in your bow: the knowledge that you have all it takes to make an impression on your investor.