Pitching to an angel tomorrow. Any last minute tips

[Blakefolgado]

Hey all,

I am still in the office writing the docs for the meeting tomorrow. This will be my first pitch to an investor and I just want to know what you would recommend to make the pitch as good as possible.

The business is www.venteo.co (busy improving the site, I know the video is shitty)

In overview the app puts all the pictures taken at an event by anyone attending into same album.

We are working with a bunch of event organisers who use Venteo to not only save on photographer cost but to capture the real raw moments and get more engagement.

So whats your thoughts. Will be in the office for the rest of the night.

[l33tbro]

You must listen to this before your pitch, if you haven't all ready :)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/533/i...

Longtime This American Life producer Alex Blumberg decided, a while back, to try and start his own business. He also decided to record the whole process, including investor meetings that go off the rails, and other tense and awkward moments that business reporters usually don’t get access to.

[Blakefolgado]

Listened to this 3x today, this is an amazing insight an helped me with my pitch today. We got an offer: ]

[l33tbro]

Congrats. Great work

[Blakefolgado]

On the train now, will try and listen to this! this looks pretty awesome to listen to!

[techdog]

Hey man, first of all, good luck!

Be ready to do your pitch with or without graphics, with or without white board,, with or without aids of any kind.

If you were pitching to Steve Jobs, rest assured that after your fourth slide, or 30 seconds of video, he would interrupt to say you're full of shit. Chances are, you won't encounter that kind of abruptness. Just saying, be ready for anything.

Most investors are pragmatists. They will want to know HOW you know that customers will come; they'll want to know what your market research consists of; you'll need to provide some kind of market "proof." Do a mock preso with somebody interrupting all the time to say "That's pie in the sky. Prove to me it's not pie in the sky."

How many customers do you need to make this thing fly? How soon? What's the timmetable? Where will those customers come from? How many will come from each channel? How do you KNOW they'll come? What market testing have YOU done already? Those are the types of questions to expect. (Among others, of course.)

If you don't have those kinds of answers, be ready to tell how you'll get them. What are your income milestones? How can you prove you'll hit them? What happens if you don't? How soon will you be able to prove you're on track? What form does the proof take?

Angels see and hear good ideas all the time. What they want to know is why you're the one to do this and how you know it will work; why this is the right time; why no one else can execute on this; why it will succeed if YOU do it.

Best of luck to you. Hope this helps.

[Blakefolgado]

This is great advice :} on the train now

[opless]

Don't "give away" everything of your company.

Remember these people you are pitching to will want to sell it on for a quick buck. They're not your friends or colleagues, and they absolutely will have knee jerk reactions at the first sign of problems to protect their investment.

I'm sure not all investors are like this, but unfortunately you need to know what the bottom line is.

I hope it goes well for you!

[Blakefolgado]

Thanks for this caution, will keep this in my head.

[Delphiki]

I know I'm a bit late, but here's one competitor I know of in your space: http://www.memoryloungeapp.com/

As of this past summer, they had very few users. Their CEO was pretty determined to get a seed round in sometime this Fall/Winter, but who knows how they're doing now.

Hope your pitch went well! Cheers!

[Blakefolgado]

Hey thanks a lot for this, will check them out. Pitch went great!

[peterhunt]

If I were the investor I'd ask you these questions:

1. Why would anyone use Venteo instead of Facebook's shared album feature? http://mashable.com/2013/08/26/facebook-shared-photo-albums/

2. Why don't I know anyone who has used Facebook's shared album feature?

[opless]

Hey Peter,

As a facebook "power user" I tend to make a private group and invite people to that group to upload pictures.

I've never seen the facebook shared album feature. It sounds pretty sucky to me!

[Blakefolgado]

Hey Peter,

1. Facebooks shared albums are limited to 50 users with a max of 200 pics. The average person at a gig takes 20+ pictures as an example. FB shared albums cannot cater for this.

Also with Facebooks shared albums its limited to your own friends, on Venteo its an open platform where people can collaborate in the same album because they are attending the same event.

2. Good point, when I tell people about this they always ask "really, how do I find it". FB have never really marketed it nor ever made significant improvements since day 1.

[peterhunt]

So the first answer is that you are designing for larger scale (# of photos and # contributors). Cool.

2. I think needs to be better. Is there a place people are trying to do this already but they aren't being served well by the product?

[Tomte]

1. So when Facebook raises or lifts those limits you're dead.

2. So when Facebook pushes this feature a little bit more you're dead.

Sounds awfully risky to me, without a big upside.