Sitemaps
Does Startup Success Validate Us Personally?
How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?
The Case Against Full Transparency
Should I Feel Guilty for Failing?

How to Pitch Angel Investors

The Startups Team

How to Pitch Angel Investors

It’s not that hard to figure out how to pitch angel investors properly. Most of it comes down to common sense and just treating angel investors the way you would want to be treated.

Despite what you may think, if you want to pitch angel investors you’re not expected to go through some elaborate sales routine. It’s a matter of presenting great information in a compelling way, but doing so honestly and with compassion.

Start with the Elevator Pitch

The first thing you’re going to send to angel investors is your elevator pitch. Your elevator pitch isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a short, well-crafted explanation of the problem you solve, how you solve it, and how big of a market there is for that solution. That’s it. You don’t need to “sell” the angel investor in the introduction. Your opportunity should speak for itself.

We’ve spent a lot of time and effort putting together “How to Create the Perfect Email Pitch” which you can review here. This will include your elevator pitch but basically makes sure you cover all the high points in your email that will get an angel investor’s attention right out of the gates. It also helps make sure you don’t come across like a cheeseball (hey, it happens to the best of us).

Have Your Pitch Profile Ready

These days just about everything is done through email, which means just about everything is also available on the Web.

Sending your elevator pitch along with a 20 megabyte PDF document is a sure fire way to never even make it past an investor’s spam filters. Instead, you should send a link to your pitch profile, which is an online profile that explains a little bit about your deal and provides a way for the investor request more information.

(You can create a funding profile on Fundable.com. It only takes a little while and is an easier way to provide a reference back to your company profile than messing with attachments.)

Your First Response

When and if the angel investor responds to your email, you’ll either get a short “no” or a request for more information.

Most angels will request either an executive summary or a pitch deck which are pretty similar (we’ll explain in a minute). The angel investor isn’t interested in finding out as much information as possible about your deal at this point. In fact they are looking to find out as little information about your deal in order to determine whether or not they want to spend more time with you.

Don’t inundate the investor with every last piece of information you’ve ever collected for fear of them “not seeing everything.” They are likely reviewing a dozen other deals at the same time so they couldn’t review your tome of knowledge even if they wanted to (which again, they don’t). Simply let them know that more information is available upon request.

Executive Summary

The more traditional request from an investor is to ask for an executive summary. Over the past decade this has become less and less common, with most preferring a pitch deck.

The executive summary is a 2 – 3 page synopsis of the business plan that covers things like the problem, solution, market size, competition, management team and financials. It is typically in narrative format and covers a paragraph or two about each section.

You can expect the angel investor to jump to the one section he’s most concerned about, read a couple paragraphs, and then maybe look a little deeper. He figures you’ll answer most of these questions in your pitch meeting, so he’s not going to spend too much time on your docs.

Pitch Deck

A more likely request is that you send over a pitch deck. A pitch deck is essentially your business plan or executive summary spread across 10 – 20 slides in a PowerPoint document.

Investors like pitch decks because they force the entrepreneur to be brief, and hopefully use visuals instead of an endless list of bullet points. The pitch deck is your friend and most trusted ally in the angel investor pitch process. You’ll use it as your main collateral item to get meetings, it will be the focus point of your meetings, and it will be what investors peruse after your meetings.

The Pitch Meeting

Once the angel investor has reviewed your materials and determined they are interested in meeting you, you’ll obviously put together a time to go in for a pitch meeting.

Your pitch meeting is more about the investor liking you as a person than it is just pitching your idea. Take a little bit of time to try to establish some rapport. Investors will more often invest in an entrepreneur they like with an idea they have some reservations about than an idea they like and an entrepreneur they think is a jerk.

During the pitch you’ll run through your pitch deck and answer questions. The goal isn’t to get to the end of the pitch deck in 60 minutes or less. The goal should be to find an aspect of the business that the investor actually cares about and zero in on that point. If the investor wants to spend 60 minutes talking about the first slide, don’t rush them. You don’t get points for presenting the 20th slide. Focus on the conversation.

The Goal of the Pitch Process

The goal of your first few meetings isn’t to “close” the angel investor, it’s to establish a relationship that will naturally lead to a close. The investor isn’t someone looking to buy a car that you have to provide a great deal to. Be yourself. Represent the opportunity and your passion for business. That is all you need to convince someone to do a deal.

The beauty of pitching an angel investor versus a larger organization like a venture capital firm is that you’ve typically only got one person to convince. If you can build this one relationship, you’re on the right path.

Find this article helpful?

This is just a small sample! Register to unlock our in-depth courses, hundreds of video courses, and a library of playbooks and articles to grow your startup fast. Let us Let us show you!

Submission confirms agreement to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Already a member? Login

No comments yet.

Register to join the discussion.

Already a member? Login

Create Free Account