{"id":45362,"date":"2023-10-20T15:42:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/preparation-practice-and-persistence-the-perfect-pitch-recipe-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:42:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:42:53","slug":"preparation-practice-and-persistence-the-perfect-pitch-recipe-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/preparation-practice-and-persistence-the-perfect-pitch-recipe-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparation, practice and persistence \u2013 the perfect pitch recipe – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Edrolo co-founder Duncan Anderson says he\u2019s doesn\u2019t think the startup\u2019s team would have been able to raise money from investors without the help of mentors.<\/p>\n

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Edrolo is a graduate of the Startmate accelerator program, but differs from many Startmate startups in that none of its three co-founders had tech backgrounds.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe were very, very green,\u201d Anderson says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNone of us had done (a startup) before. I don\u2019t believe we would have been able to raise money, if we didn\u2019t go through Startmate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anderson and co-founders Ben Sze and Jeremy Cox aren\u2019t green anymore, since graduating Startmate in 2013 Edrolo has gone on to raise $4 million in two investment rounds. It wasn\u2019t easy and Anderson says they\u2019ve learnt plenty along the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Research what investors want<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u201cLearn about raising money. The terms investors would normally ask for and why. The data points they\u2019re looking for when startups are raising money,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLook for questions investors ask normally. Plenty of people look at the questions Y Combinator ask. I would go through them and, we did this, come up with answers to all of those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/b><\/p>\n

Traction<\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Many of those questions will revolve around traction, Anderson says, especially if, like the Edrolo team, it\u2019s a group of founders working on their first startup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always exceptions, but you must have traction, it\u2019s the proof for what you\u2019re saying,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tell a story<\/b><\/h2>\n

While numbers are important, Anderson says founders must also be able to articulate their vision.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYou must have a story, don\u2019t just talk about the numbers, incorporate both. There are some great pitch deck templates out there, Sequoia has one. Building a pitch deck with that framework will help make sure you haven\u2019t forgotten something,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t pitch your top targets first<\/b><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s important to hone your pitch initially with investors that you aren\u2019t relying on. Anderson says the Edrolo team made a list of investors to target, and didn\u2019t start pitching to their top targets until late in the process, when they felt comfortable with the standard of their pitch.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou need learning investors. People you can cut your teeth on,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe person you really need to close shouldn\u2019t be the first person you speak to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be persistent, hungry and don\u2019t burn bridges<\/b><\/h2>\n

The Edrolo team met with 110 investors when they were raising their seed round, 12 of those individuals ended up investing. Anderson says founders should never take a \u201cno\u201d personally, and continue to build long-term relationships.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPlenty of (founders) aren\u2019t hungry enough. You\u2019ve got to hustle. If an investor doesn\u2019t respond after two emails, keep trying,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGet to a yes or no. You can normally find our pretty quickly with a seed round. There\u2019s no way they can know whether or not the business is going to work. They\u2019re just taking a punt.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a position echoed by Airtasker founder Tim Fung, who has raised $10 million.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMeet as many people as you can, and keep those conversations open,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d speak to someone and they\u2019d intro us to other people, so on and so forth. Build relationships and maintain those relationships. Use the network you\u2019ve got and build outwards. Cold calling is always going to be very, very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Need help?<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Let<\/i> BlueChilli<\/i> chief growth hacker,<\/i> Startmate<\/i> mentor, and angel investor Alan Jones help you through your first investment round. Get his advice at our StartupSchool workshops in<\/i> Melbourne on August 17<\/i> or Sydney on<\/i> August 25<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edrolo co-founder Duncan Anderson says he\u2019s doesn\u2019t think the startup\u2019s team would have been able to raise money from investors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}