Pitching

Haseeb Qureshi

Here’s how I’ll break it
down:
Before the meeting
1.
2.
3.

Preparing your deck andmaterials

Theactualpitch
4.
Pulling a round together

Before the Meeting•Ideally, don’t have a fundraising conversation be our first interaction!
•Always get a warm intro•Crypto investors rarely take cold meetings•The industry is full of noise, bad actors, bullshit artists•Some social proof goes a long way to getting past a filter

This is what my cold email
inbox looks like.

It’s going to be hard forme to find you in here.

Before the Meeting• If you must go cold…
• Twitter or some other form of engagement works better than cold email• Give enough personalization so I know it’s not a mass email• Canvas all the funds that could be a fit for your startup• Have an idea of what your prospective investor is into
• If you’re a gaming company, seek out gaming investors

Before the Meeting•Practice pitching on your friends/advisors•Get honest feedback from them (most people won’t give you this)•Pitch on video / self-Zoom, critique yourself (wait a day!)Deck and Materials•Tell a story in your deck. In seed, narrative is everything.
•Keep it short. Shorter than you think.
•Keep slides simple and uncluttered.
•No math on your slides unless it’s extremely simple.
•Craft your deck as though your audience is stupid and easily distracted.
•This means each slide can stand on its own.

Deck and Materials•Don’t spend half the deck explaining how cool crypto is or how crypto is going tochange the world.

•There are five key things I want to know in your pitch:
1. Who you are
2. What you do
3. Why your startup will work
4. Why it’ll change everything
5. What you want from meDeck and Materials• Things you don’t need:• A monetization plan or token model• It’s nice to see you’ve thought about this, but don’t need a concreteanswer yet• A valuation• You need to know how much you’re raising, but the market usually
determines the valuation• A TAMDeck and Materials•Use Docsend•Use Docsend•Use Docsend•If you have a cool demo, include it. If your demo looks terrible,don’t.

•Use your judgment!

The 7 Slide YCombinator Template
1.

Intro

2.

Problem3.

Product / customer

4.

Opportunity (TAM)

5.

Traction

6.

TeamPitching• Please, don’t just read through your deck!
• I want to get to know you, understand how you think.
• I’m backing you more than I’m backing your pitch deck.
• Your deck is a visual aid for our conversation, not a script to read.
• Feel free to skip slides, run through it quickly, or just ignore the deck if it’s not useful for thisconversation.

• The point of a pitch is to persuade the investor, not to complete a pitch.

Pitching•Don’t try to impress me with technical jargon.
•This is common in emerging technology—being obtuse and overcomplicated to dazzle
investors.

•If you use charts or diagrams, make them simple.
•They should be comprehensible at a glance.
•Make your pitch as lucid and clear as possible.
•Teach me, don’t just try to impress me.
•Sell your vision!

Pitching• Be mindful of time.
• Sound excited!
• Ask me questions. I’m qualifying you, so you should qualify me too.
• Curiosity and choosiness about investors is a sign of strength andconfidence.

• Get to know me. Plumb what I think about the world.
• The best deals get done between people who like each other.

How 2 talk gud•Speak slowly. Slower than you think. Enunciate.
•Make eye contact!
•If you’re going to make jokes, do it with confidence.
•Kill your “likes” and “ums.”•Be concise. Use simple words.
•Give direct answers. No evasion ever.
•Speak with descending tonality.

Pulling your round together• Look busy and in high demand. Signaling is half the game.
• Build the impression of scarcity.
• Be choosey with who you let invest.
• A lack of choosiness projects a lack of demand or lack ofexperience—neither are good signals.

• If you promise someone something, your word should be ironclad.
• That said, unless you explicitly make a promise or sign a term sheet,Pulling your round together•Reach out to investors you’re less excited about first to get some pitching reps in.
•Then go after the dream team.
•Contact slower-moving investors first (bigger, older firms)•Be timely in your communication, even if it’s just to say “I can’t give you a responseright now, but will be able to in X days.”•Pursue a strong lead.
•Strong leads are pretty much always better than “party rounds”

Pulling your round together• Know how much you need to raise and what you’ll spend it on.
• Valuation is a tool to get the capital and partners you want.
• First-time founders rarely understand this, but serial entrepreneurs almost always do.
• Once terms are in sight, introduce deadlines and get things moving.
• Otherwise investors will assume they can wait.
• Investors are lazy. It’s up to you, not them, to get things closed quickly.

Example slide deck & pitch(By Haseeb, GPT-3, and Stable Diffusion)DataCoinYour data, your choice.

Today, large
companies control
and abuse theiruser’s data.
DataCoin gives thatpower back tousers.

How DataCoin Works• Users will be able to monetize their data and control their privacy.
DataCoin is the token used to access their data.

• The token will be used to reward users for sharing their data.
• The more data a user shares, the more tokens they will earn.
• We’ll also have a marketplace where users can buy and sell data.

The Opportunity•There are over 3 billion internet users
who generate data that can bemonetized.

•The global data market is expected to
grow from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $3.0
billion by 2021.

•DataCoin will enable users to monetize
their data in a way that is convenient,safe, and secure.

Traction•DataCoin has been featured in TechCrunch, Mashable, andVentureBeat.

•DataCoin has a strong web3 community on Discord, Twitter.

Team
CEO: Sasha Koprivnikar
Serial entrepreneur with experience in web3 technologies
and data science. He has a degree in computer sciencefrom Stanford University and has worked as a software
engineer at Google and Facebook.

CTO: Anastasia Kravchuk
Anastasia is a data scientist with experience in web3
technologies and data mining. She has a degree in data
science from Stanford University and has worked as adata scientist at Google and Facebook.

Our Ask•We're raising $1 million from VCs.
•The money will be used to build theplatform, hire talent, and market theplatform.

Why we’ll win•We're solving a real problem that affects
billions of people.

•We have a strong team with the experienceand expertise to build a successful platform.

•We have a clear path to monetization.
•We have a strong advisory board.
•We're based in Silicon Valley.

OK! Now you should be a pitchingmachine, thanks to GPT-3. 👍Questions?