Mistakes to Avoid in Elevator Pitch

How to Make Your Case in 30 Seconds or Less and How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea both cover some good tips on how to make a pitch work. Maybe it’ll help us seal a deal by also looking at the mistakes that we should watch out when pitching an idea.

Cannan Partners, a venture capitalist, warns entrepreneurs of some mistakes not to make. For example, fail to explain clearly what your company does, too arrogant to let your teammates speak during the presentation, avoid questions from investors, insist that your venture is competition proof, not understand and describe the target market, not knowing the numbers of future financials.

They also suggest that during the first meeting, building a relationship with the potential investors is crucial, as it is a long-term relationship. I thought this is very interesting. Sometimes we may be too focused on the pitch itself to forget that we are building a long-term relationship with potential investors. Regardless of how the pitch itself works out, venture capitalists who usually have industry expertise can give us valuable feedback on where opportunity and weakness lie. For Cannan, they said that they are looking for a team that they can trust and work together. Thus they want to find out if both are a good fit for each other during the first meeting.

Back to the mistakes not to make. One was curious to me: avoid questions from investors. The questions may concern about risks or problems that impose challenges to have investors walk away from the venture. Or entrepreneurs do not have an answer for that question, either due to lack of preparation or lack of consideration. Hypothetically, what will you do under these circumstances?

Being a risk-adverse to neutral person and prone to telling the truth just for the sake of future trust, I personally tend to share the real story with investor. But it is a venture that we’ve worked on for so long and we can’t let it go away. Maybe there’s something we can do about it. Bending the rules? But how?

A side note: just came across another article on 10 Questions Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors Are Going to Ask. Hope it’s helpful.
http://www.instigatorblog.com/10-questions-venture-capitalists-and-angel-investors-are-going-to-ask/2007/07/20/