Reports indicate that it doesn’t matter how innovative, creative or potentially profitable a product is if it can’t attract an investor to the entrepreneur’s start-up. This is why it’s important to have a solid pitch for it’s what ensures success when seeking out investment-consequently raising capital for your business. Business owners hence need to understand that creating an outstanding pitch starts with certain skills and hence need to master the basics. Keep the pitch simple Considering that investors will be inundated with investment proposals during a pitch exercise, James Ndekezi, founder of Kwaanda Labs is of the view that the single most important thing to remember when pitching is to remain precise and simple. Keep the pitch precise and brief. Net photo. “The secret is to keep it precise and brief. Because I know that by the time you get to pitch, you are likely going to panic. This is where most of them (entrepreneurs) fail,” he says. “I would advise that an entrepreneur starts with a brief explanation of their business start-up that immediately conveys purpose.” Define the problem After a brief description of the problem, Olivier Minani, IT expert advises that the entrepreneur should then define the problem they are trying to solve. “You can then choose to prove to investors that your start-up is trying to solve a real problem which could be hard for other companies,” he says. “At this point you are expected to define your target audience and describe its pain points and problems as precisely as possible. Investors should see it clearly that there is a demand for the product you are working on.” Solution description According to Ndekezi, when presenting a certain solution of any product, the entrepreneur will need to explain how their product works, and also how it will meet customers’ needs. “For the solution description, I would personally want to describe how unique my product is,” he says. Ndekezi gave an example of KwBot, one of the products of Kwaanda Labs which recently won a prize worth Rwf1.5 million at the Youth Enterprise Award. “KwBot is an autonomous robot that can efficiently pick and replace things from an industry to warehouses hence reducing the production cost,” he explains. Investments and returns Robert Mutsinzi, an entrepreneur, notes that investors want an entrepreneur to talk about money. However he advises, before they can talk about money, “You need to calculate how much investment you will need to launch the project and grow it during the first year.” “You should also specify how much money you will spend on equipment, marketing, salaries, and other purposes,” he adds. On the side of returns, Mutsinzi noted that “We (entrepreneurs) should estimate the returns that a start-up can bring and show investors how much money they can make. This part is the normally the most important one.” Build a ‘rock’ team According to Mutsinzi, investors will ordinarily invest in people and then ideas come second. “This means that you need to have a team of people and you should be able to explain why they are the right people to lead the start-up. One of the challenges faced by most start-up teams is that sometimes they are missing some key talent.” Wrapping it up It is true that pitching a business start-up for the first time is a challenging experience, says Ndekezi. “But a well-crafted pitch will help you attract investors and bring all your innovative ideas and dreams to life,” he asserts.
