Don’t expect to convince an investor to give you money at your very first meeting. Your task at this stage is to initially interest the other party and persuade him or her to continue your communication at a higher level. To achieve such a goal, use the startup’s elevator pitch.
Table of Content
- Present your startup’s elevator pitch
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What is an Elevator pitch?
Elevator pitch is a short (no longer than 2 minutes) story about the benefits of your project. What does the elevator have to do with it, you may ask? The fact is, in the middle of the 20th century in the United States, young businessmen used to catch potential investors in elevators. While the elevator was moving, they had the opportunity to discuss their startup and ask for financial help.
What to consider when preparing your app’s elevator pitch?
- you cannot be 100% sure that at the first meeting you’ll have a chance to demonstrate colorful graphs and illustrated statistics. You have to be convincing in words;
- show your enthusiasm and speak in a positive way;
- just in case, prepare all materials in electronic and paper forms (who knows what you might need?).
How to Pitch Your App Idea to Investors?
Suppose the first meeting with the future investor was successful. It’s time to discuss your project in more detail.
What do you need to do to get the startup funding you want?
Prepare a pitch deck
The pitch deck answers various questions about your project and explains to the reader what your product is, why customers would use it, whom you plan to compete with, and so on. The visual part is important too: your presentation should look appealing and convincing. It’s not enough to add beautiful pictures and motivating quotes. You need real business indicators.
We have a detailed article on the pitch deck. Trust us, it’s worth your time and reading!
The tasks of the presentation (which, in fact, is an extended version of the foregoing app’s elevator pitch) include:
- promoting your project;
- visualizing the benefits of a startup;
- profit forecasting (yours and investors).
A perfect pitch deck (able to interest investors for app development) must have the following points:
- The problem. Explain why your digital product is needed. You have to point out the existence of a certain problem (or desire). And any problem leads to demand for its solution.
- Let’s say, if you decided to create an analog of Viber, the problem would be the difficulty of remote communication.
- The solution to the above problem. So, the problem exists, but what do you propose to do to solve it? It’s high time to mention your product. Don’t go into all the details yet, limit yourself to a few of the brightest facts to impress the investor.
- Figures and statistics. Your chances of getting investors for your mobile app idea would be better if you prove your point. We hope, you’ve already conducted a market analysis earlier (as we suggested you do), so share with the reader the results obtained and your conclusions made:
- target audience analysis: who will actively use your product (website or application)? What are these people like?
- user demand in numbers (to finally convince investors that your idea is promising);
- competitors and their disadvantages. You probably already mentioned them in an earlier discussion (remember the startup’s elevator pitch?). Now you need to make even more compelling and forceful arguments in your favor.
- any other useful data, which you managed to find during market research.
- Product benefits. Highlight the main benefits of your product and dedicate a colorful description to each. Spare no effort and imagination when doing so: too much depends on your persuasiveness at this pitch deck stage.
- Road map. Be sure to add a paragraph to your document where you outline your action plan step by step. What and when do you intend to do and what resources are you going to use to achieve your goal?
- The money you hope to get from investors also belongs to these resources, so feel free to mention them too.
- Profits. How to get mobile application investors? The easiest way to attract and interest them is with the promise of high returns. Naturally, it’s too early to talk about real profit, but you should already understand when to expect a payback on the project.
- Your team. And of course, don’t forget to tell investors about the people who will be working on the application. It is important to prove the expertise and experience of each team member.
Perfect pitch deck rules
- Don’t be too wordy. Impress investors with convincing data, not a number of facts, some of which are inherently useless.
- Don’t break the logic of the text. Think over the structure of your presentation and follow the plan. Earlier, we described how to find investors for an app. Also, we explained to you the best way to get them to finance your project using a pitch deck. So just take our advice (which is based on experience).
- Adapt your pitch deck wisely. You should determine what audience your presentation is going to target. Who is likely to read it? Adapt your pitch deck to specific readers. At the end of the day, something that you and your other team members understand may be hazy to potential investors.
You’ll find more information on effective pitch deck design in our article here.
Create an MVP
If you want to bring your startup or app idea to investors and convince them of its promise, offer them more than just an appealing description. You need to give them the opportunity to really feel your product, so to speak.
When it comes to an application, the MVP model is a great solution. Being a simplified version of the future full-fledged mobile platform, it is quite suitable as a first approximation. Usually, such a model has only basic functionality and a minimalistic interface. The task is to create a product with must-have features in a short time and test it on end-users.
MVP has a wonderful added bonus. Namely, you’ll be able to visit investors for app development, having a specific example of a working application with you. Therefore, you’ll be much more convincing in your argumentation.
If you can’t create an MVP before talking to investors, find another way to let them know what it means to use your product.
What will Mobile App Investors Pay Attention to?
- Your enthusiasm. You, as a founder, are the driving force of the whole team, the success of a mobile app development startup depends on you in many ways. So get ready to show the investor that you are passionate about your idea and ready to work hard to make it happen.
- Thorough knowledge of the market. As the initiator of the whole venture, you should have a good understanding of your market, its main players (your competitors), and other important indicators (such as the number of potential users interested in the product).
- Project’s special appeal. Almost every investor studies a huge number of startups on a daily basis. Why should he choose you and your team to finance? Be creative! In other words, add a certain highlight to your project. This would increase your chances of getting investors for your mobile app idea.
- Buzzwords. Don’t flaunt buzzwords unless you know their exact meaning and can explain how a particular technology works. Also, of course, you should be completely honest. If your product doesn’t actually use blockchain or machine learning mechanisms, don’t say otherwise. The lie will be exposed sooner or later.
- Financial forecast. You’ll definitely be asked to provide all financial indicators and assess your company’s prospects in this regard. Among other things, be prepared to name the customer acquisition cost.
- Hot niche. It’s not a prerequisite and doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to find app investors for your project. However, belonging to a hot niche does make your startup more inviting.
- Today on-demand services are especially popular in the app market. They’re really in great request right now.
- Your professionalism. Investors should understand that your team is not just enthusiasts, but real professionals. Hire experienced experts who know their stuff.
Why would investors turn you down?
We’ve explained to you how to get mobile application investors interested. But there is still a risk of being rejected, because, according to statistics, only one out of a hundred startups succeeds in obtaining funding.
Here are the three most popular reasons to explain investor rejection:
- The unconvincing, inexpressive idea of the project;
- Incomprehensible financial projections along with obvious monetary risks;
- Disbelief in the founder’s ability to organize and effectively conduct business.