Deliver your pitch with energy - 5 presentation tips for VC meetings (2/5)

Welcome to the second lesson in this section of the module. In the previous one we discussed the benefits that using numbers when you talk has on how investors perceive you. In this instalment, we’re going to cover how important it is to deliver your pitch energetically.

To show you just how important delivery is, let’s start with a story from back when I was a baby VC:

During my first ever VC internship, we were looking at a company in the Fintech space. Our first three calls with the team were great, they were growing really fast, the due diligence came back perfectly, we had even demoed the product and liked it. So the partner leading the deal and I decided to take it to committee.

At committee, the startup would present to the entire fund and then everyone would vote on whether to invest or not. We expected this to be a box ticking exercise – we were sure the rest of the team would be just as convinced as we were.

Unfortunately, committee didn’t go to plan. The founder flew into London and gave the same pitch we had seen in the first meeting. But this time it was off. The content was the same, but he just seemed so tired, like he was operating at half speed. He left and the whole team voted… we wouldn’t be investing. One low-energy presentation had killed the deal just before the finish line.

A few years later, my boss and the founder had the chance to catch up at an event. He asked him what had happened – “Why was his pitch so much worse in front of the committee?”. The answer we got has stuck with me for years. The founder told us that, on that fateful day, he was suffering from an absolutely atrocious cold…

Let that sink in, $2m of investment lost because a terrible cold sucked all the excitement out of an otherwise perfect pitch. Ridiculous.

While this seems like a very specific, depressing story, there’s a huge lesson we can draw from it. It’s about how important it is to be high energy when you’re face to face with VCs. If you don’t sound excited, VCs won’t be either. On the other hand, when you do sound excited, two really positive things happen.

The chance that VCs get bored reduces
Investors perceive you as more likely to succeed

Let’s unpack these some more, starting with our point about boredom.

Benefit #1 → High energy stops VCs from getting bored

When it comes to boredom, VCs are one of the toughest audiences. While you think your new AI tool is exciting, they’ve seen 20 similar products this week. Their job is to literally hear about new ideas, businesses and technology, so the bar for what’s interesting is really high.

This is dangerous for founders, because a bored VC is a VC about to send a rejection email. In light of this, the least you can do when you're face to face with them is sound excited. If you don’t seem to care about your startup, how can you expect them to?

Benefit #2 → High energy makes you seem more likely to succeed

Aside from fighting off VC boredom, being high energy actually has a positive effect on how VCs perceive you. As discussed in our lesson on scrappiness, VCs love to back teams that feel like they’ll run through walls to win. When you present energetically, it creates the image (whether right or wrong) that you’ll do everything in your power to turn your idea into reality. And VCs want to invest in people with that type of drive.

How to present more energetically

All this talk about the importance of high energy presentation would be pointless without advice on how to sound more energetic. So here are some practical things you can do to improve:

Vary your tone and pace as you speak
Use gestures when you talk (yes even in video meetings)
Map the things that are most exciting about your business and practice talking about them emphatically
Record yourself pitching and listen back to it (while doing this, pay special attention to your delivery)
Practice!

None of this stuff is easy but you can improve. I’ve seen tons of founders do it.

For the next presentation tip, head to the next lesson.