What Is Pitching, or How to Present Your Business to an Investor. Tips from Burner

Every founder considering raising investment needs to be prepared for a stage called pitching. Some find it intimidating, others find it exciting — but the fact remains: without a quality business presentation, closing an investment deal is impossible.

In this article, together with investment fund Burner, we'll explain what pitching is and how to prepare for it. 

Pitching in plain terms

Pitching in investment is a presentation or story about a company or a new project idea. It's not some strange formality — it's your opportunity to "sell" your business or idea to a potential partner. The pitch itself can be written (an email or a project description deck) or verbal (a call, a quick conversation at an event, etc.).

Think of this process as your moment in the spotlight. Have you built — or do you have a clear plan to build — a successful company? Then what could be more rewarding than talking about your achievements and presenting a well-developed idea?

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Yaroslav Svyrydiuk

Managing Partner at Burner investment fund

Preparing for a pitch

1. Think about first impressions
   Before you start building the actual presentation, think about what impression and feelings you want the investor to walk away with after your pitch. In business, as in life, you only get one first impression.
   
   What are you like? Confident? Structured? With a deep understanding of the project and the niche?
   What is your business like? Does it have proven results? A clear growth plan?
2. Set yourself a framework
   It's important to understand from the outset that an investor's time is limited. So you need to deliver information clearly, quickly, and effectively. When preparing, we recommend using the "elevator pitch" concept. The idea is that you should be able to present your idea or project in the time it takes to ride an elevator together with an investor — roughly 30 seconds. This immediately helps you identify what truly needs to be said and what is secondary information.
3. Don't forget about business metrics
   Nothing demonstrates the effectiveness of your business better than your achievements and numbers. So prepare this information thoroughly.

My advice — put yourself in the investor's shoes. If you, as an investor, were considering buying a similar business, what information would you want to hear first? That's exactly what needs to go into the pitch.

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Yevhenii Dudarenko

Investment Manager at Burner

More on numbers and metrics below.

The most important metrics

What an investor expects to hear depends on the stage your business is at.

If your company is already operating, in addition to basic financial information (P&L, Cash Flow), prepare key operational data:

• for media buying teams — monthly spend, ROAS, number of leads and their breakdown by GEO, traffic structure by channel, traffic distribution by niche;
• for SEO review businesses — list of websites, number of new users, leads and their breakdown by GEO;
• for affiliate programs — number of partners, top-10 advertisers and webmasters along with cooperation terms, average commission %, traffic distribution by niche;
• for subscription-based businesses — monthly spend, LTV, CAC, ROAS, ROI, etc. 

A general tip — regardless of your business type, show the metrics you track yourself every single day. 

In addition to the above, it's also highly valuable to include information about:

• business model;
• market size, where relevant;
• the project team and their experience;
• investment objectives (use of funds) — for example, working capital replenishment, team expansion, launching new business verticals, etc. This, by the way, is a must-have. 

But what should you do if your project is still at the idea or development stage, with no actual results yet? Logically, the pitch format should differ in that case.
The best approach is to provide a detailed overview of your previous experience. It's also important to highlight your team and showcase the results of competitors you're benchmarking against.

If you're pitching a "breakthrough" idea — a project with no competitors yet — you need to validate it as thoroughly as possible: conduct interviews with stakeholders, find out whether they're ready to engage with your product, and present the research findings.

Effective Pitching Checklist

To sum up. A good pitch should be:

1. Concise.
2. Accessible — information must be presented in plain language and be understandable to people who aren't experts in the niche.
3. Comprehensive. No "blind spots" should remain after the presentation.
4. Transparent. Don't "sugarcoat" or withhold important information — sooner or later, the investor will find out anyway. 

What's Next?  

Pitching is the first step, and if you've handled it successfully, equally exciting stages lie ahead.

At the next stage, the investor will thoroughly examine all operational information, conduct interviews with key team members, and — after reviewing the investment opportunity and aligning on key terms with you — the legal and financial due diligence process will be initiated.

We covered the investment process and how to find investors in more detail together with Burner in this article. 

And if you're ready to take your business to the next level — try pitching your project and raising investment from Burner. Head to their website and fill out the pitch form.