Pillar 4. Introduction to Investment Materials
What are investment materials?
Buckle up, this pillar is a big one! As a good place to kick off, your investment materials are external facing documents that investors will use to learn about, probe into, kick the tyres on and get an overall feel for your business. They range from pitch decks, to financial models and the backbone of them all which is your business plan. These come in all shapes and sizes and there is no hard and fast rule for what you must present, but there are best practices we’ll help you to understand to create a set of investor materials to make you shine brightly and make an investor smile inside as they open your first set of introductory materials!
First impressions
One chance to impress, putting your best foot forward, or whichever analogy you can think of, it’s no exaggeration when people say your materials can be make or break when an investor makes an initial quick gut decision if they want to exert any effort in learning more about you, let alone even considering investing in you at this stage.
Think of yourself as the shopkeeper and your investment materials as your shop window. A large % of your outreach will be with a brief introduction and you sending them something to learn more. If you can’t entice customers to look at your shop window then you are already making life very hard to sell them your investment opportunity. So, if you step back and remember that Investors receive hundreds of decks and models, and therefore if yours looks cheap, poorly formatted and under prepared then there are plenty of much shinier, better looking opportunities to catch their eye.
Your materials reflect your business
These are table stakes. They represent you, how you represent yourself to customers and are all potential early indicators of what type of founder you are and how strong a business you can create. If you can’t get to this point then go back and come back when you can. It’s no longer difficult or expensive to provide well presented materials given the volume of pitch decks and financial model templates online that are either free or cheap. So despite how compelling your business opportunity is, probability is that if you can’t present it well, you’re off to a bad start and even the best ideas will be subject to the delete button just because your materials don’t meet the mark presentationally.
Your investment materials reflect you & your business. You may only get one chance to grab attention and impress and the reality is that the aesthetics of your materials go a long way in sparking interest as investors may see hundreds of decks a week.
The underprepared founder
The common investor intro killer is when a founder clicks an attachment on their investor materials and the unfortunate destiny of the delete button is already a foregone conclusion:
- Pitch decks that are 20+ pages and cluttered, trying to cram everything in
- Financial models that are at best two to three tabs on an excel spreadsheet that represent some crude sales estimates and a handful of costs
- An incoherent business plan with no structure, focus or understanding for what creating a business actually involves.
These mistakes aren’t limited to first time founders, even people who have raised previously are often equally as underprepared. The commons struggles creating a subscint pitch deck, financials looking like a horror show with just a collection of numbers thrown into Excel and then their business plans range from 2 pages of their brain dump to 100 pages plus of over the top information. It’s not easy when you don’t know how.
The art of KISS
Keep It Simple Stupid is the mantra to follow! Simplicity and clarity rule. Your fundraising materials need to pique initial interest, stimulate some engagement by them being read and then stimulating an intro chat. They often mean the difference between success and failure, that’s why it’s so important to invest some time into their creating;
- A deck for the right purpose. Is it a short form teaser to grab attention, a pitch deck to give the headline pitch or a more detailed investor deck for the more sophisticated investor who may want more information.
- A clear financial model so your numbers paint an immediate investment opportunity
- A business plan in the background to show you’re prepared and can referenced if needed
So, as a minimum your materials need to be cohesive, create a structured information flow by drip feeding information and give an investor the chance to see you have credibility in the first few interactions.
Early introduction investment materials only need to pique interest and provide a gentle introduction to drip feed information. Commonly decks are crammed with too much and the investors ability to grasp you business is being impacted by information overload. Less is more.
Marvellous materials
Then when you try to find ways to really stand out from the crowd and impress investors, consider alternative simple presentation formats that investors will fall over thanking you for making their life easier, with powerful infographics, FundingHero canvases or even simple pitch videos. Any medium that showcases you compared to the 99% of other founders that send a bland pitch deck off the boring bus and a flimsy financial model can only be an advantage.
Infographics slides are a great example where you can buy hundreds of brilliantly formatted designs really cost effectively to create real impact moments. Check out companies like Choladeck, infographic and many more with vast ranges of easy to use and customise templates to suite your needs and budget!
If you can nail all of these elements in your investment materials, you’ll be putting your best foot forward to get your round off the ground and securing those initial investor meetings. As you look to create or refine your investment materials the key things to remember are;
Objectives from your raise materials
- Grab attention
- Easy to understand
- Provide materials for the situation
- Appear professional & provide confidence
Risks with getting it wrong
- Investors side swipe the opportunity at first glance
- Appear underprepared and inexperienced
- Create friction points with confusing materials
- Suck time away from them trying to find the key information
What materials you need
To make it simple, within our platform we have broken this area down, with guides on how & what you need and when and how to create them. There are some easy to use tools and templates so you can deliver the perfect materials to an investors inbox, ensure they understand them at first glance and then want to learn more with a meeting after their initial review.
- We have several pitch templates covering basic: one pager, teaser, pitch deck & personas.
- We then have several canvas templates
- We can also supply an investor ready B2B SaaS financial model, which is investor ready and set to impress.
Our canvases provide a mix of internal preparation tools and also for useful presentation materials for investors. They act as useful prompts and flag useful considerations before you finalise your most important materials that will land in potential investors hands.
Fundraising shouldn’t have a 99% failure rate…
FundingHero is your all in one platform for tech founders looking to raise their early stage funding. We teach you the rules of fundraising to help you to Learn, Prepare & Raise.
Our platform gives you access to:
- Online canvases & templates
- Detailed Fundraising library
- Fundraising dashboard & raise trackers
- Simple investment tools
- Large investor directory
If you need help, then contact us on [email protected] or sign up to our freemium version now to sample how easy our canvases are to use and take your first steps to smashing your fundraising goals and becoming a FundingHero today!
