JumpStart: IdeaExchange Blog

Any entrepreneur looking to grow their business is always thinking (or should be) about how to improve their investor pitch. Once you have an opportunity to get in front of an investor, you want to do everything you can to make your pitch successful. I offered some tips I’ve learned during my years coaching entrepreneurs in my post, ‘Things NOT to Do When Presenting to Potential Investors‘. Last week, a fellow blogger, Timothy Hay posted ‘Entrepreneurs’ Most Common Mistakes When Pitching VCs‘, offering some great builds on the ideas I’d shared.

Some of the key mistakes he shares, and my thoughts on each:

1. Not at least considering the potential of taking your company public someday. - Although IPOs are about as common as Browns playoff appearances these days, shaping your company so that it could conceivably go public is a great way to ensure that you are touching all the bases and thinking big enough. And… you never know… the Browns might make the playoffs, and you could be a candidate for an IPO.

2. Being overconfident. - If you remember, I said in my post that ‘Not Bragging’ is a mistake. You DO need to be confident, knowledgeable and sell yourself and your team. You shouldn’t be overconfident, and act like you have all the answers, however — the VC knows that you don’t. And besides, VCs have big egos — if anyone has all the answers, it will be them! Be sure to be willing to say that you “don’t know” or that you are “unsure” to certain questions, while accepting suggestions from the investors — they have seen a lot of companies, and have a lot of knowledge to bring to the table. The trick is to be thought of as “confident”, but not “overconfident”.

3. Never being audited. - This is directly related to my mention of having your detailed financials prepared - and going a step further to have them audited. This shows potential investors that someone else has validated your books, and mitigates their risk and questions in this area. Despite that, do NOT put the detailed financials into your investor presentation — they don’t care at that point. When I was raising money for my company, Ion Optics, we handed interested investors a CD that had all of our slides, our more detailed business plan, audited financials, articles on the company and technology, and other tidbits. This showed attention to detail, and made the investor’s life a little easier.

Read Timothy’s full post - and share your questions and additions so we can continue to share the knowledge gained through our collective experiences.

Chris Mather is the President of JumpStart TechLift Advisors. Previously, he managed a number of technology initiatives in Northeast Ohio for NorTech. Before entering the economic development world, Chris ran a number of technology companies in Northeast Ohio and New England, including Ion Optics Inc., where he raised $6.7 million in venture capital, and Apsco Inc. and Gould Instrument Systems. Prior to that, he spent 13 years in sales, marketing and management roles with Hewlett Packard after graduating from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a BS in Electrical Engineering.

When I was a kid growing up in the ‘70s, my environmentalist parents would take my sister and me on vacation trips to various national parks across the country, mostly in the West. How embarrassing to admit I was less than impressed by these trips, because I was a smarmy 8 or 9 year old and really just wanted to be at my friend’s pool. At this time, I think one of the badges of honor of folks like my parents was to wear a t-shirt, available at each of these parks, with language that followed a standard structure : “Follow me to…” with the name of the park or its biggest landmark on there (”Follow me to Old Faithful”, “Follow me to Glacier”, etc.) At the time, I could barely imagine wanting to follow anyone to any of these places, and I also couldn’t imagine being confident enough to ask someone else - visibly — to follow me anywhere!

But here I am, asking you to follow me. Or rather, follow us, JumpStart. Not to a national park (although I’d love to be able to visit one of those parks now), but in the 2009 use of the term, to follow our 140 character communications on Twitter. Just sign on, search JumpStartInc, and click follow. Easy as pie.

I’ve written a few posts in the past about Twitter, whether it was sticking around, and whether it’s the right place for various activities to occur (such as pitching investors). You’ll also notice that JumpStart didn’t jump into the game as fast as some other organizations. This wasn’t because we didn’t value it, or think that it couldn’t have any good uses. On the contrary: we wanted to make sure that if you gave us the honor of following us, we’d pay it back with valuable, helpful content, delivered at the right time. We’d also work to spread your messages. That activity takes time, so we wanted to make sure we had a resource plan in place so that you aren’t disappointed by a start/stop approach, or frankly, overall lameness.

So now we are ready and going! And I think you will find @JumpStartInc to be the right place to get the news right now from the entrepreneurial, investing, and Northeast Ohio communities. So it’s not a t-shirt, but I’m asking anyway — follow me to @JumpStartInc, and start following JumpStart today.

Cathy Belk is the Chief Marketing Officer of JumpStart. She specializes in branding, marketing communications, and business management. She brings 16+ years of experience in a variety of marketing and business roles, but gets her energy from working daily with entrepreneurs and their growing companies.

Have you heard about 3 Rivers Venture Fair? The venture fair where past featured companies have gone on to raise over $292 million dollars? The one where last year, 44% of the presenting companies raised capital as a result of the fair?

Whether you have or haven’t, I’m guessing that if you are looking for funding for your high growth company, you are intrigued. Good! Now turn that interest into action today by applying to present. While applications are being accepted on a rolling basis, we have heard that they’re pouring in and 30% of the spots are already taken! If you want to be considered to present your company to more than 500 A-list venture capitalists, private investors, I-bankers, and other business leaders, I’d be sure to fill out the application online no later than Friday May 29. I think after that, there will be very few (if any) spots left.

A few other things to note:

• If accepted, you’ll need to attend a mandatory Bootcamp from 12 - 5 pm on Thurs Aug. 13 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
• Also, you’ll need to pay ~$600 for your attendance, which gives you the chance to exhibit for the entire conference. (Remember, last year, at least 44% of companies got a payback on those investments!)
• The fair itself is Sept. 15 and 16, also at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Finding out more about 3 Rivers Venture Fair is easy, so put this on your list of things to do today.

Cathy Belk is the Chief Marketing Officer of JumpStart. She specializes in branding, marketing communications, and business management. She brings 16+ years of experience in a variety of marketing and business roles, but gets her energy from working daily with entrepreneurs and their growing companies.