Startup pitch essentials

You are on stage to pitch your startup. The timer starts and off you go. You have three minutes to share what you have been working on day and night. Only a few minutes to convince investors that your startup idea is worth their time and money. And you won’t be the only one pitching to them. There are so many more startups that are meeting with them and that are looking for funding. So how are you going to do this? Let’s guide you through it with some essentials for pitching.

If you have ever been to a pitch competition, you know that there are very passionate startups on stage who are convinced that their idea is the next big solution. On the other side is the audience: easily bored and distracted. Your mistake is to assume that they will be giving you their full attention for three minutes.

You will need great presentation skills which you can only obtain by practicing a lot. You will need great content and an outstanding pitch presentation. Let’s discuss the last two. How are you going to structure that pitch? What do you include in that pitch?

Problem/solution
All pitch decks have at least one slide dedicated to the problem and the solution the startup is offering. The problem describes how relevant the issue is and how annoying it is for the target group. The solution is the way the startup proposes to solve the problem. This is very crucial to the pitch deck. In the end no one is looking to fund startups that are not solving any problem.

A good way of introducing your problem and your solution:

1. Talk to your audience with ‘you’. This way your audience feels involved.

2. How is the situation today?

3. How it could be tomorrow when they apply your solution.

If you start your presentation convincingly with the problem and your solution, you could catch the audience with a relevant problem and convince them that you have the best solution to it, you already have done most of the work in the very beginning of your presentation.

Market opportunity
Include the market potential for your solution in your pitch deck. Your audience might be wondering if there is any market for your business, so you need to include the potential to convince them. Include a slide in your pitch deck which describes how many people could potentially adopt your solution.

Competition
It is always good to show that you are aware of the market, but also of the competition. Don’t be scared to the main competition and differentiate your idea. This way you’ll avoid awkward questions about competitors you might not know. Tell the audience about your killer strategy and why it will succeed.

Business model
How do you make money? Make sure your business model is always present in your pitch deck. You might be asking for money so you will need to prove that you will give back more money to investors in the future. Make sure you present the business model in a way that is easily understandable to anyone so your audience can immediately understand how you will be making money.

Team
Team is everything. Show the faces of your team members and name the specific skills they have. This way you prove that you have the minimum requirements to succeed. Show why each team member was chosen to be part of your startup.

Fundraising request
Are you actively looking for funding? Then it is also important to mention how much funding you are looking for. Make it crystal clear how much you are seeking to raise and what you will be using the money for.

With these tips, you can structure your pitch well. Do you want to learn how to pitch like a pro? Apply now for Present Your Startup! Applications are open until September 1st.

Financial planning for startups: A quick guide

You have recently started a startup or you are in the process of creating a new business. A financial plan is of extreme importance to also include in the plans you create for your business. Why? First of all, it helps you determine short-term and long-term financial goals. This is very important in order to create a economically viable business. In this article, we highlight the do’s and don’ts when it comes to financial planning.

Getting to a financial plan is probably not the hardest. Online you can find enough excel templates and some excel-savvy can always help you to get around. The hard part, however, is how do you get to the numbers? How do you forecast sales? What is the size of your target group and your market? And what will you invest in your business to grow. Below we will discuss two methods to forecast your financials.

Top down forecasting

You can forecast your finances by using a so-called top down approach. This means that you take the industry estimates as a starting point and then you narrow it down into targets that fit your company. This method helps you to define a forecast based on the market share you would like to capture.

You could use the TAM SAM SOM model in order to estimate your market share.

• TAM or Total Available Market is the total market demand for a product or service.

• SAM or Serviceable Available Market is the segment of the TAM targeted by your products and services which is within your geographical reach.

• SOM or Serviceable Obtainable Market is the portion of SAM that you can capture.

For example, your company has created an app. You look at the number of the consumers who have purchased apps for their phones. If there are 100 million active users of phones and half of them buy at least one app per month, you can extrapolate from there. You could estimate that of the 50 million active users who purchase apps, 1% of these consumers will purchase your app. That would give you 500K new customers.

But be careful using this model! Entrepreneurs generally tend to be too optimistic while putting this into numbers. So base your numbers on facts and create realistic projections.

Bottom up forecasting

The bottom up approach is less dependent on external factors.  bottom-up forecast is a detailed budget with spending plans by department. Hiring plans and revenue projections are based on actual sales forecast. Contrary to the top down approach, the bottom up approach starts with an inside/micro view and builds out to the macro view. This approach is a more strategic approach where you look at your current situation, your capabilities and you see where you can reasonably expect to go from there.

Instead of looking at the market potential, you need to look at your own market (existing customers or social media followers) and map out how you can turn your current standings into new sales.

Since you will be looking at the real numbers it is harder to get unrealistic projections with bottom up forecasting.

No matter what approach you will probably build some numbers on assumptions. As a startup, you probably have no historic data available so you will probably use one of the above mentioned methods plus assumptions to present the proof behind your numbers. Assumptions can be anything that validate your numbers ranging from market research, contracts with suppliers, pricing validation to conversion rates and website traffic.

Using this also helps you when you discuss with investors as they are interested in the reasoning behind your numbers.

Good luck with creating your financial model.

Do you want to receive training on financial planning, business model, legal framework, marketing and pitching? Apply now for Present Your Startup Netherlands

Applications Present Your Startup Netherlands 2019 are open!

Startup entrepreneurs, this is your chance!

The applications of Present Your Startup Netherlands 2019 are open again. Startups from all over Europe are invited to apply for this unique program. Are you a startup entrepreneur with an innovative idea or product? Would you like to have professional support scaling your business? In short, would you like to take your business to the next level? Then our program could be a great fit to you.

The program

You have applied for Present Your Startup Netherlands 2019. What happens now? On the 23rd of September, we organize an introduction meeting where you can meet us and our team and where you will also have the opportunity to pitch. After the meeting, we will shortlist a limited amount of startups based on their pitch, business model and motivation.

These startups will be invited to participate in the Prepare Your Startup Hotel which is a one-week intensive training. The training takes place in a hotel where you and other startup entrepreneurs will stay as well. During the week, you receive training on business model, finance, pitching, the legal aspects of a startup and on marketing. During the training, you will also get time to put the things you’ve learned in practice.

After the Prepare Your Startup Hotel, five startups will be shortlisted based on motivation, business model and pitch. The five selected startups will get the opportunity to pitch during the finals of the program on December 4th. In anticipation to the finals, finalists will be introduced to our investors from our network during an exclusive dinner and finalists will receive extra training just before the finals.

At the end of the finale, our jury panel will announce the winner of Present Your Startup Netherlands 2019.

How to apply?

1. You apply at our website by filling out the application form.

2. You will receive an opt-in confirmation email.

3. By September 5th, we will let you know whether you are shortlisted and if we will invite you for our introduction meeting on September 23rd.

4. After the Introduction Meeting on September 23rd, we will shortlist a limited amount of startups by September 30th to participate in the exclusive Prepare Your Startup Bootcamp. For the Prepare Your Startup Hotel program, we ask a fee of €795,-. per person. This includes 4 nights in a shared hotel room, 4 lunches and 5 dinners.

Present Your Startup New York won by Lab141

NEW YORK - New York based startup Lab141, pitched by Andrea Madho, is announced winner of Present Your Startup New York. The event took place on Monday April 8 at the headquarters of partner Silicon Harlem, the partner organization for Present Your Startup New York. Winner Lab141 stood out because of its innovative solution for a process for consumers to purchase new designer women’s clothing in a made-to-fit format. The startup manufactures clothes in 48 hours for premium direct-to-consumer fashion brands with robotics, analytics and logistics so brands can sell to any body shape with no inventory commitment.

“Lab141 has set a new standard for the yearly competition.” Said Mike Rijkers, director of the Netherlands of Innovate Today, the party that created the Present Your Startup foundation. “This prize is a testament of skill, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Among the pitching startups were last year’s winner of Present Your Startup Lolo’s Bites, winner of Present Your Startup Caribbean Le Grand Voyages and New York based startups See Thru, Skinno, Wino and Gutandflip.

About Present Your Startup
Present Your Startup is a yearly accelerator and startup competition that connects startups to investors and experts in New York, the Netherlands and the Caribbean. Shortlisted startups follow a program of multiple training days, which is followed by a pitch competition. Throughout the whole program, the participants get to know investors, other businesses and potential customers of the Present Your Startup network.

On a yearly base, Present Your Startup takes place in New York. The New York version is however a shorter version of the Dutch and Caribbean version and consists of only a pitch competition between three New York based startups and three startups that are based in the Netherlands.

St. Martin Startup Le Grand Voyages wins Present Your Startup Caribbean 2019

Entrepreneur Cristal Legrand from St. Martin of Le Grand Voyages is announced winner of the finals of Present Your Startup Caribbean 2019 during the third edition of the startup pitch competition on Curacao. The finals took place during the closing session of The Road to GES2019 Caribbean, a pre event of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) that takes place in the Netherlands in June. 

Cristal wins a trip to the GES and a trip to Miami during the takeover of Curacao at Venture Cafe. Runner up Gridspan Energy from the United States also wins a trip to Miami.

 During the finals, the startups Gridspan Energy, INFORMAMI, Seam Social Labs, CaribAlgea and Le Grand Voyages pitched their ideas to an audience of government officials, investors, experts and entrepreneurs.

Present Your Startup is a yearly accelerator and startup competition that connects startups to investors and experts. Shortlisted startups follow a program of multiple training days, which is followed by a pitch competition. Throughout the whole program, the participants get to know investors, other businesses and potential customers of the Present Your Startup network.