By Martin Soorjoo
This is a guest post from investment coach Martin Soorjoo. We welcome your comments.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail
– Benjamin Franklin
There are three undisputed truths:
- Delivering a winning pitch will often determine the survival and success of a business.
- People create their best work when they have time, space, and silence.
- Proper rehearsal is critical to delivering a professional, persuasive performance.
Yet despite these truths, most sales and investor pitch preparation takes place at the 11th hour, amid constant distraction and noise with minimal, if any, rehearsal. It’s a small wonder that most pitches are weak and ineffective and consequently fail.
The first draft of anything is shit.
– Ernest Hemingway
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This is a guest post from investment coach Martin Soorjoo. We welcome your comments.
By Martin Soorjoo
During the course of writing a book on pitching, I reminded myself of the magical presentation skills of Steve Jobs. I watched his mesmerizing Macworld presentations from start to finish, and read and re-read the text of his insightful and inspirational 2005 Stanford commencement address.
It therefore came as a deep shock to me to find out that, within hours of sending the completed manuscript to my publishers, Jobs had passed away. Having watched his presentations so many times on video recently, he was, in my mind, very much alive.
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked investment coach Martin Soorjoo to share his thoughts on how startups can overcome the challenges of securing early-stage financing. This is the first of his commentaries and we welcome your comments.
By Martin Soorjoo
This is the true story of “Ryan” (not his real name), a serial entrepreneur with no qualifications and a very limited understanding of financials or launching a startup. Ryan, however, is an entrepreneur with a deep understanding of people, who consistently and easily raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from savvy, experienced investors.
I first came across Ryan six years ago when he approached me to help him create some pitch materials. He explained that he had persuaded two investors (both bankers) to invest $500,000 in his IDEA (no prototype, company or team) but that one of the investors had asked to see details of his business model and financial projections.
Initially, I was skeptical as to whether the potential investors had, in fact, actually committed or had simply expressed an interest in learning more about Ryan’s idea.
Sensing my skepticism, Ryan called one of the bankers on his cell phone, explained that I was helping him put together the information that had been requested and asked the banker to confirm for me that he was investing. Sure enough, banker X confirmed that both he and banker Y were investing but would appreciate understanding a bit more detail. About a month later, Ryan received the investment.
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