In our lead-up to Pitch Night next week, we invited 4 founders from startups at different stages of their development to share with us, in their dealings with potential investors — ‘How did you pitch?’
Joining us were Yong Xiang, co-founder at Oddle, Zhou Mi, co-founder at 42Race, Sze How, co-founder at SuiteLyfe, and Jake, founder of RateX.
The aim of the event was to allow the audience some insights gleaned from experience by those who have run the gauntlet of grants, angel investments, and venture capital.
What has been your main takeaway in all your experiences with pitching your startup?
Jake: Hi everyone, I’m Jake. RateX was founded in 2015, and so far we’ve gotten funding from the VIP award — and recently just completed funding from Spring. My main takeaways: it’s very useful to make a video! I made a video of how my product works — it basically envisions how my final product will look like. This worked a charm during my VIP pitch. For the Spring investment it was mostly the same pitch that I used, only difference that I refined my financial model — showing how to reach my targets.
Zhou Mi: Our experience involved raising our first sum from an angel investor. From that sum we quickly built our product to validate. My main takeaway is that angel investors look at the team rather than the product.
Sze How: We first raised 10k with the VIP award, with which we built our product. That was lucky — because i.JAM then closed on us! We tried to go for the ACE startup grant — didn’t get it. And at our stage it’s almost impossible to raise money from professional VCs, because we’re all students in my team. My main takeaway is, at least for the industry I’m in, hotels, is to prove with numbers. Show the contracts that you’ve signed with partners. And have a landing page. Show that you have users.
Yong Xiang: My experience at Oddle is pretty similar. We did i.JAM, both 1 and 2. Then we bootstrapped for a year; hit a few walls then, and pivoted a number of times. My main takeaway is that at the initial stage, it’s easy for potential investors to see what your idea is like. But once you reach the later stages, when you’ve been in the market for some time, then investors will require you to show certain other metrics. E.g. How much has your startup grown? Or, how many new users do you have? At the advanced stage, investors want to see more substantial signs, or signs of your plans moving ahead.
Would you pitch differently between angel investors and VCs?
Yong Xiang: You know, pitching to an angel investor is like pitching to friends and families — just pitch the idea, about what you’re deciding to do. More often than not they’re not going to understand your product — that’s why at the initial stages, investors look at the team. If they like you guys, they’ll put money on you. But at the VC stage, liking the team is no longer enough. Things like rapport, vibe, are only at the surface level. That’s when you need something more substantial — that’s the key difference. You have to understand, VCs have their own stakeholders to answer to.
Sze How: It’s a rather different case for me. Our angel investor was someone we’d only met for 3 times before he wrote us a cheque. He’s driven by numbers, and he was very hands-on during our early stages of building the product, as he had the experience of being an entrepreneur before. Once we launched though, it was hands-off for him — he trusts us and expects us to be independent, though he’s always there for us. Whenever I think about how we met him, I can’t believe how lucky we were — he just showed up! And that was really lucky, because our pitch for the ACE grant didn’t work out for us.
Zhou Mi: My experience is similar to Sze How’s — our angel investors are people whom we’ve met before. They really look at the team; they’re interested in things like how long have we known each other in the team, and so on. VC-wise, you definitely need to do more homework.
Author’s note: For the full line-up of grants available to startups, here’s a comprehensive line-up on the NUS Enterprise website.
Most people in the crowd here, if they’re running a startup, are likely to be in the early stage. What would you say are the main components they should include in their pitch and their decks?
Yong Xiang: Well, in your journey you’re going to meet a lot of people, and it’s unlikely for them to really know what you’re doing. You have to convince them firstly, of the problem and secondly, of your solution — that you have a solution to a problem that is worth solving. For my first pitches, it’s always about why Oddle was founded. Then we introduce our potential customers’ points of view. You see, the investors are unlikely to know your customers as well as you do, so let them know what your customers perceive. If you’re talking to an angel investor though, be sure to include your business or industry experience.
Jake: As a student, I have a simple guideline: use the Business Model Canvas (BMC). I know, I know, as entrepreneurs we usually hate the systematic way of doing things, but the BMC can really help you form a very good skeleton. It forces you to think about your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. To investors, your idea is probably pointless if you don’t know how to bring it to the market.
Zhou Mi: Include personal stories. For me, I finished 2 ultra-marathons, and it’s a very useful conversation starter — helped me in a lot of meetings.
Sze How: Build personas. When pitching to investors, we always talk about the hotel’s points of view and the customers’ points of view. Also, show your connections. For me and my team, because we’re still students, unable to commit full-time to our startup, no one really believes in us. To get that belief, we show the connections that we’ve reached out for, and gotten. So in our case that would be the 15 hotels that we’ve signed on as our partners — it allows us to do some name-dropping that helps to grab attention.
How has your pitching style changed over time?
Sze How: It’s definitely changed a little over time, for the sales, hotel, and investor sides. My main takeaway is that you cannot assume what the other person knows about the industry. So before you give your pitch, you should ask the other person how much he or she knows about the industry you’re in, and then proceed to answer directly. On another note, my business proposition didn’t change much.
Jake: For my case, it’s still the same story. It’s Black Friday on Amazon, and why aren’t people in Singapore shopping for themselves, and instead are asking me to help them buy on Amazon?! (I was on NOC New York then). So I narrowed it down to two reasons: logistics, and payment. For the former, there’s not much in my power to do something about, but for the latter, I can do something about — and this goes back to “why am I doing this?” It’s simple — I want my customers to feel the same as me, that is, very frugal!
Zhou Mi: We started a travel app for runners at first, and it started to grow very fast — there was even a point where I was in China to pitch there. Now that we’re back in Southeast Asia, we have to adapt our pitch — we have to think about what investors will think about. It’s important to cater to their needs, what they want to know. And also important to always have your consumers in mind.
As the session meandered to its end, we sought some parting advice from the speakers.
Any good advice?
Jake: Do your homework. If you don’t know, then you must know. A good way to present your case is to dissect your market. Attack your market from many different angles, and you’ll sound convincing — trust me. Also, remember your commitment, your vision. At the end of the day, it’s all about bringing value to people. For those of you taking part in Pitch Night next week, I suggest doing things that the crowd will remember you by. Of course, don’t go overboard! And one more thing: when questioned, never say ‘as mentioned before’ — it makes the enquirer feel slighted. Reach into your brain, replace that phrase with ‘excellent question!’, and you’ll be golden.
Sze How: Be simple, short, and concise. Be clear about the nature of your pitch. Is it a sales pitch? Or is it a pitch for investments? Know how to build your case — before you begin, ask them how much they know about the industry. Reiterate your commitment, your vision, and it always helps to drop some big names.
Zhou Mi: Believe in your dream. Do your homework, and practice. To practice, prepare a long list of ‘smaller’ investors. Pitch to them. Once you get used to pitching to them, you’ll be more prepared for the ‘larger’ investors. But sometimes investors don’t have time to listen to your whole story. So prepare numbers.
Yong Xiang: Be honest. Don’t hide your mistakes when talking to investors — they can always look at your numbers, and numbers cannot lie. Anyway, no one’s going to believe that you don’t make mistakes — you definitely will! But show how you respond. Show investors your thought processes — they want to see how fast you can learn from mistakes, and whether you know how to move forward. Be humble, and always be learning. Oh, and one more thing for Pitch Night participants: when facing questions, don’t ever add on more than you have to.
And that’s a wrap. A big thank-you to Jake, Sze How, Zhou Mi, and Yong Xiang for their sharing on the night.
Next week, Pitch Night.
