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How to Make a Fundraising Presentation?

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors.

The fundraising presentation is one of the primary documents essential to any early-stage company fundraising process. The time spent with potential investors becomes most effective if you have an impactful fundraising presentation.

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors and displaying the narrative of the business. Going through a successful pitch deck slide by slide is one of the most effective ways to learn how to build a flow.

There is no single formula for a pitch deck. Otherwise, startup founders wouldn’t spend so much time banging their heads against walls trying to get them just right. However, we have listed some ideas that you can apply immediately so that your next investor presentation leaves you – and your investor – smiling and happy.

The fundraising presentation is one of the primary documents essential to any early-stage company fundraising process.

Know your audience

Knowing your audience is key to good communication. At a startup, you will pitch to multiple audiences: customers, partners, recruits, and investors. Although you may be able to reuse some content between these audiences, you’ll need to make sure you devote time to a slide deck that focuses on the investor perspective.

Ask yourself:

Who exactly is my potential investor – and what do they want?

What do I want to achieve – how will I sell our investment opportunity?

How can I hook people – by grabbing their attention early on?

What is my takeaway message – the one that I want them to remember afterward?

Define and refine your investment story

The way you frame your investment story influences how an investor sees you. Most successful fundraisers craft a compelling story around their strategy and tell it passionately. According to Forbes, the perfect selling story involves being relatable, detailing a conflict, presenting the resolution, and demonstrating results. The investors need to understand why your opportunity is special and what makes it stand out from others.

Structure your presentation like a story

The best fundraising presentations are ones where you take the investors on a journey. A simple structure – with a clear beginning, middle and end – demonstrates the command of your own story. It also helps investors quickly grasp what you do.

But remember, all you’re trying to do with the pitch deck is get their “greed glands” flowing. If you do that, there will be plenty of opportunities to give them more details. If you overwhelm them with too much detail at this point, they may miss the big picture.

Make sure you are ready

The best way to communicate your business to investors is to know your business!

Investors get frustrated by presenters who avoid, second-guess or provide scrambled answers to questions. Remember that it is their job to ask questions and be critical. We recommend that you prepare for the Q&A session as much as you do for the fundraising presentation itself. Prepare your answers and rehearse delivering them confidently together as a team – the last thing you want is your team being surprised by each other’s answers.

Make a good impression

Impressions are everything – investors’ perception of your team when you are with them is what matters.

Apart from preparing the presentation, you should also prepare yourself and the team. Remember that nonverbal communication can be just as important as what is said.

So, do extensive rehearsals on camera with the team so they are investor-ready. During the presentation, pay attention to what you do when your colleagues speak.

Look engaged and interested – show that you are as interested in your investors as you want them to be in you.

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment and some qualities acts as a deciding factor for Funding.

What Do Investors Look For In Startups?

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment. Here are some qualities investors look for in a startup that acts as deciding factors for funding.

Objective and Problem Solving: The offering of any startup should be differentiated to solve a unique customer problem or meet specific customer needs. Ideas or products that are patented show high growth potential for investors.
Management & Team: The passion, experience, and skills of the founders and the management team to drive the company forward are equally crucial deciding factors for investors.
Market Landscape: Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers for the market you plan to target in the funding proposal.
Scalability & Sustainability: Startups should showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. They should also consider barriers to entry, imitation costs, growth rate, and expansion plans.
Customers & Suppliers: In the funding proposal, state a clear identification of your buyers and suppliers. Consider customer relationships, stickiness to your product, vendor terms, and existing vendors.
Competitive Analysis: Highlight the true picture of competition and other players in the market working on similar things in the proposal. There can never be an apple-to-apple comparison but highlighting the service or product offerings of similar players in the industry is important.
Sales & Marketing: No matter how good your product or service may be, if it does not find any end-use, it is no good. Consider things like a sales forecast, targeted audiences, product mix, conversion and retention ratio, etc.
Financial Assessment: A detailed financial business model that showcases cash inflows over the years, investments required key milestones, break-even points, and growth rates. Assumptions used at this stage should be reasonable and mentioned in the proposal.
Exit Avenues: A startup showcasing potential future acquirers or alliance partners becomes a valuable decision parameter for the investor. Initial public offerings, acquisitions, and subsequent rounds of funding are all examples of exit options.

How to Make a Funding Proposal?

Whether you are a startup founder, business owner, or corporate entrepreneur, your funding proposal is very important. After all, it captures your rationale for why people should invest in your idea and give you a lot of money.

In this guide, we explore what a startup funding proposal is and how you can leverage it to build momentum in your fundraising.

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

What is Startup Funding?

Funding refers to the money required to start and run a business. It is a financial investment in a company for product development, manufacturing, expansion, sales and marketing, office spaces, and inventory. Many startups choose not to raise funding from third parties and are funded by their founders only (to prevent debts and equity dilution). However, most startups raise funding, especially as they grow and scale their operations. This page shall be your virtual guide to Startup funding.

Why Do Startups Require Funding?

A startup might require funding for one, a few, or all of the following purposes. An entrepreneur must be clear about why they are raising funds. Founders should have a detailed financial and business plan before they approach investors.

1. Prototype Creation

2. Product Development

3. Team Hiring

4. Working Capital

5. Legal and Consulting Services

6. Raw Materials and Equipment

7. Licenses and Certifications

8. Marketing and Sales

9. Office Space

10. Admin Expenses

What Is a Startup Funding Proposal?

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

Simply put, it is a text document, PDF, or slideshow presentation which gives a complete overview of the company and its goals. Through the proposal, investors can understand the what, why, and how of the company and get a better idea of why you are looking to raise a certain amount of money. It also helps investors who like to remain actively involved understand whether the company is worth their effort or not.

How To Make a Funding Proposal?

There is a basic structure to every business proposal. Here are the four parts, in order:

Introduce yourself
Show that you understand your customers/clients and their needs
Describe how your goods and services meet those needs and present your expected expenses and profits
Persuade the bank or committee that you have the integrity to be trusted with the money.

You don’t need to start with blank pages, either. You can speed up the proposal writing process using pre-designed templates and samples.

Here is a short list of all the different points an investment proposal should touch upon:

1. Summary of your project:

Start the document with an abstract of your project and its purpose. It is the part that most investors will use to determine if they wish to continue reading. In it, make sure you discuss the key points that offer clarity to investors. You can include details of what your company does and how is it different from existing solutions to pressing problems. You may also emphasize the importance of your product in your industry and how it improves the industry.

2. Current performance of your company:

Here, you give a more in-depth overview of your company. Point out what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what you are building. List your current assets and liabilities to help investors understand your startup’s strengths and weaknesses. If your company is still at its ideation stage, pair the proposal with an MVP presentation. If you are at a later funding stage, it is also important to add a paragraph where investors can find out more about your financial reports.

3. Details of existing investors, partners, and team:

Briefly introduce existing business partners (including investors), their background, and the amount you have managed to raise from them. If applicable, enter the number of funding rounds your company has already been through and the amount raised. At this stage, you should also briefly introduce the existing team members, their background and skill set, and a link for those who wish to see their complete CV and LinkedIn profile.

4. Information related to the product market:

Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers of the market you plan to target in the funding proposal. Briefly describe the results of your market potential analysis and showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. If your business is already generating income, make sure you indicate and break down your revenue numbers.

5. Operational feasibility:

Create an overview of the projected operating costs by splitting them into different categories of expenditures. Describe the assumed operational costs of your biggest competitors and how these translate into their growth (if applicable). Further, describe the challenges and limitations related to the technical aspects of your company and the team’s skillset.

6. Company’s current valuation, investment requirements, and expected returns:

Start by pointing out the current valuation of your company and list the sources that derive this conclusion. Make sure to get your company’s valuation done by a trusted third party. Based on the company valuation, describe the amount and type of funding you are looking to acquire and the amount of equity you are willing to give up. Now, give an overview of how the funds will be utilized by creating a generic overview of the next steps. Spend a lot of time on this one as it is the most important subchapter for investors.

How to Approach Product Design?

When it comes to the product design process, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

When it comes to the product design process, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. An entrepreneur must tailor the process to fit the business and functional needs of the project.

This article explores the concept of product design and outlines four widely used approaches to product designing.

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.” – designer, educator and author Victor Papanek

What is Product Design?

Product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem, and validating the solution with real users.

In simple words, product designing is creating and designing products that address a specific requirement and solve a problem. It provides a comprehensive understanding of what the final product would look and feel like and what problem it will solve.

Who are Product Designers?

Product designers are creative design professionals who use their abilities to develop digital products that address the unmet demands of users.

A product designer gets to wear multiple hats, which means your day-to-day will never look the same. As a product designer, you play the role of a problem solver, researcher, designer, product manager, data analyst, and marketer.

To create useful products, a designer experiment with and tests multiple versions of the same product. It helps a product designer identify improvements. Also, they understand the company’s products, user requirements, and production costs to execute high-quality product designs at an affordable rate. Usually, product designers work in smaller groups or independently to conduct market research and gather the information required to design a digital product.

Four Approaches to Successful Product Design

Designing a great product doesn’t happen overnight. An entrepreneur can take many product development strategies to reach a breakthrough design. Here are the different approaches to designing a new product.

Traditional Business Approach

The traditional business approach considers two factors when designing a product — Will the product be viable, i.e., how does it benefit the business? What is the operational and technical feasibility of the product design? Using the traditional business approach to design, a company would identify a problem (or a set of problems) and then derive what the company thought it could offer as a profitable solution.

The traditional business approach to product development strategy seems straightforward but doesn’t always bring success. It focuses on the how and what rather than the why. It doesn’t answer a key question, i.e., why does a customer need a product? The metrics for product design emphasized in the traditional business approach, namely viability and feasibility, are company-centric and inconsiderate of the consumer needs.

Design Thinking Approach

Design thinking incorporates the user experience into the design process, moving beyond the simple look and feel of product design. IDEO founder Tim Brown popularized design thinking. He describes it as a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

One of the aspects of design thinking that makes it successful is the prototyping phase. Designers can help lower the risk of launching a new product by testing the product design with small groups of users throughout the development process. A prototype helps validate that the product is something a customer can understand and use and that the design is appealing before the product goes to mass production.

Lean UX Approach

The Lean Start-up and Lean UX approaches take design thinking further, putting the prototyping process front and center. Lean start-up is an approach to starting a business venture that takes an idea, translates it into a product or service, measures how customers respond, and then takes the learnings to pivot or iterate. Lean UX takes that same approach and applies it specifically to design.

This approach focuses on the human experience behind the design. The deliverables of the entire product development strategy are less important than the learnings the design process delivers. The core objective is to obtain feedback as early as possible to make quick decisions and improve. It’s a collaborative approach – as if the customer is designing the product alongside the company. The drawback is that this approach to design can ignore other factors related to development; Lean UX can lead to somewhat of a product design bubble.

Good design is good business.” – retired IBM CEO Thomas Watson, Junior

Design Sprint Approach

The design sprint is a subset of the design thinking approach. There are five phases to the design sprint process that takes place on five separate days: Map, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Test.

Design sprints focus on a small part of the problem, or one aspect of the design, rather than building a completely new product. The process allows designers to work with their customers in the prototyping and testing phases and to learn quickly – within five days – to continue to design a winning product. Design sprints integrate elements from the other approaches but with a more focused, disciplined aspect to product design.

Conclusion

The most important thing to remember when designing products is that design is for people. You must deliver the right features with the right user experience for the right people to achieve great product designs. Thus, define your target audience, then research their problems, and, finally, focus on building a product that solves those problems!

How to Make a Fundraising Presentation?

The flow of the presentation is vital for striking a chord with investors.

Know your audience

Ask yourself:

Who exactly is my potential investor – and what do they want?

What do I want to achieve – how will I sell our investment opportunity?

How can I hook people – by grabbing their attention early on?

What is my takeaway message – the one that I want them to remember afterward?

Define and refine your investment story

Structure your presentation like a story

Make sure you are ready

The best way to communicate your business to investors is to know your business!

Fundraising Donations Charity Foundation Support Concept

Make a good impression

Impressions are everything – investors’ perception of your team when you are with them is what matters.

Apart from preparing the presentation, you should also prepare yourself and the team. Remember that nonverbal communication can be just as important as what is said.

So, do extensive rehearsals on camera with the team so they are investor-ready. During the presentation, pay attention to what you do when your colleagues speak.

Look engaged and interested – show that you are as interested in your investors as you want them to be in you.

What Do Investors Look For In Startups?

Investors essentially buy a piece of the company with their investment. Here are some qualities investors look for in a startup that acts as deciding factors for funding.

Objective and Problem Solving: The offering of any startup should be differentiated to solve a unique customer problem or meet specific customer needs. Ideas or products that are patented show high growth potential for investors.
Management & Team: The passion, experience, and skills of the founders and the management team to drive the company forward are equally crucial deciding factors for investors.
Market Landscape: Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers for the market you plan to target in the funding proposal.
Scalability & Sustainability: Startups should showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. They should also consider barriers to entry, imitation costs, growth rate, and expansion plans.
Customers & Suppliers: In the funding proposal, state a clear identification of your buyers and suppliers. Consider customer relationships, stickiness to your product, vendor terms, and existing vendors.
Competitive Analysis: Highlight the true picture of competition and other players in the market working on similar things in the proposal. There can never be an apple-to-apple comparison but highlighting the service or product offerings of similar players in the industry is important.
Sales & Marketing: No matter how good your product or service may be, if it does not find any end-use, it is no good. Consider things like a sales forecast, targeted audiences, product mix, conversion and retention ratio, etc.
Financial Assessment: A detailed financial business model that showcases cash inflows over the years, investments required key milestones, break-even points, and growth rates. Assumptions used at this stage should be reasonable and mentioned in the proposal.
Exit Avenues: A startup showcasing potential future acquirers or alliance partners becomes a valuable decision parameter for the investor. Initial public offerings, acquisitions, and subsequent rounds of funding are all examples of exit options.

Five Steps to a Successful Product Launch

A well-planned product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation.

So you have aced the task of identifying and developing a product you believe in. So, what’s next? Do you want to launch it to market? Well, launching a new product is no easy feat!

Countless new product and service ideas are conceived every year. But most ideas fail to succeed because they’re not brought to the market properly.

If you think having a recognizable brand name guarantees the success of a product, you’re most certainly mistaken. Many highly recognized companies failed the product launch step, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and Amazon Fire Phone.

On the contrary, other well-known brands have been a raving success with product launches, including Apple, Google, and Under Armour. Then there are brands we had never heard of before but suddenly became household names due to successful product launches. These include Magnum Icecream and FiberOne.

*Planned Product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation*

Product Development Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

The six stages outlined above will get your team through all steps of the process, from initial idea screening to the development phase.

Bringing your vision for an original new product to life is frequently one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs.

However, it has become crucial for businesses to keep updating their products to conform to current trends. The business environment is dynamic and competitive, and new product development is one of the best ways to withstand competition.

What Is the Product Development Process?

Product development encompasses all steps to take a product from concept to market availability. It is the overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and marketing plan creation and evaluation, and commercialization of a new product.

Product development requires the work and input of many teams across a business, including Development, Design, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Testing. Product managers act as the strategic directors of the development process and oversee the progress.

Bringing your vision for an original new product to life is frequently one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs.

How to Conduct a Market Survey?

Whether you are starting a new product and want to estimate demand or changing an existing product and want to find out acceptance in the market for this product, a market survey is the best way forward.

You may have a great idea for a product or service, but before you go any further, first make sure there’s a market for it.

Quite simply, you must conduct a market survey.

Market surveys collect data about a target market such as pricing trends, customer requirements, competitor analysis, and other details.

Most marketing managers depend on market surveys to collect information that would catalyze the market research process. Also, the feedback received from these surveys can be contributory to product marketing and feature enhancement.

In this article, we explore the concept of a market survey and enlist the steps you need to take to conduct a market survey for your product/business.

Whether you are starting a new product and want to estimate demand or changing an existing product and want to find out acceptance in the market for this product, a market survey is the best way forward.

Conducting Market Research: A Guide

Today, we live in a consumer-driven world, and businesses face cut-throat competition to survive and succeed in the market.

A company cannot succeed without understanding the consumer’s needs and behavior, so it relies on intensive backend market research. Market research not only tells a company what to produce, but it also tells how to present the product to the consumer. Work doesn’t end here. Once the product is out in the market, market research is conducted to gather information about customer feedback so that the company can make necessary changes to increase its reach.

If you’re new to market research, this guide will provide a blueprint for conducting a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more.

How to Get Funding for a Startup?

Diversifying your sources of financing will allow your startup to meet your specific needs.

Introduction

To grow a startup business, it is inevitable that you will need funding. Launching any business requires capital investment. There’s a need to purchase equipment, rent offices, hire staff, and, most importantly, grow. So unless you’re independently wealthy, you will require outside capital to do these things.

If you’re wondering how to raise money for a business, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide to startup funding, we’ve compiled a list of some business fundraising channels you can take advantage of.

About Funding

Without startup funding, the vast majority of startups will die. A startup here means a company that is built to grow fast, and a high-growth company almost always needs to burn capital to sustain its growth before achieving profitability. There are, of course, exceptions who successfully bootstrap (self-fund) themselves.

An entrepreneur without funding is a musician without an instrument.”

The 8 Stages of Startup Funding

Acquiring funds for a startup can be done with the help of an eight-step funding process.

The information age has introduced a rapid increase in the number of startup companies. The brains behind these startups are either young graduates from schools and colleges or someone who left their corporate job to pursue their dream (well, majorly). Whoever it may be, funding a startup is a difficult task. Many people try to fund their ideas themselves, while others rely on external funding to satisfy their needs.

Acquiring funds for a startup can be done with the help of an eight-step funding process which involves different stages of startup funding. These startup funding stages are: