MBA1683 Guest Teacher – Kyle York – How to Pitch to Investors

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Setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals. Hey, welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, the business podcast that keeps giving you more every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online. And today's episode is a guest teacher episode. On our guest teacher episodes we bring on an expert to teach their area of expertise. Today we have Kyle York and he'll be teaching you how to pitch to investors. If you're looking to raise money. If you're looking to raise capital for your business, whether it's a seed round, a series A or B, you're going to need to perfect your pitch to investors. Many people focus on the wrong things when they're pitching and they come up short when it comes to the results they need to secure funding. So in today's episode, our guest teacher Kyle York is going to walk us through the most important things to focus on when it comes to pitching to investors. How to be prepared, how to make sure it's a win win for both you and the investors as well as getting crystal clear about what you want out of this negotiation. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's guest teacher, Kyle York is the co founder, CEO and managing partner at Yorkie, where he helps entrepreneurs and investors work together so they can both get the most out of that relationship. He's going to lay out what are the five most important pillars you need to cover in your pitch. What do investors want to hear? He knows because he's an investor himself and helps other entrepreneurs get investment. Even if you're not thinking about raising capital right now, this is a great lesson to keep in your back pocket. This is a great lesson to listen to and just keep your mind open because maybe down the line it will make sense. It will be the right time. These are fundamental principles that don't change. So I'm going to pass it on to Kyle to teach his guest teacher lesson, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give my takeaways as well. But for now, take it away Kyle.

Hi everyone. Entrepreneur and investor Kyle York here, CEO of Yorkie. Thanks for joining me today for my $100 MBA lesson and how to pitch investors. First off, it's important for entrepreneurs to understand that investors want to hear about five key pillars in every single corporate overview they ever hear. These pillars must be answered confidently by founders and executives. To frame any good presentation, you must first cover the vision and market opportunity. Then the product, platform and technology, your differentiation. Then you must cover go to market plans, sales and marketing plans and or attraction today, including case studies in key vertical industries. You then need to cover the team. Why are you uniquely suited to take on this market opportunity and challenge and how are you going to deliver a great return to these investors? Lastly, the financials. You need to be able to cover the past, the current and the future long term model for your business and how you'll spend the money that will be invested in you and your dream. With that, there are seven critical steps required to pitch investors and I want to walk you through them now. First, be prepared. Get to the meeting a few minutes early. Understand the connection issues. If you're presenting slides, there's nothing worse than wasting 5 to 10 minutes getting set up on a new system. Also be prepared by knowing who you are in the room with. Know what investments they like, know their investment ethos, know their interest. Study. Be prepared. That will go a long way in instantly building your own credibility. Number two, own the agenda. You are here to pitch. Lead the meeting. Start with introductions of course to establish context, but don't let the investor ramble and steal your airtime. This is an opportunity for you to show how you can command a room. But of course don't be a jerk or a know it all. Be collaborative, but again, own the agenda. It's your time to shine. Number three, have a big vision but also have a path to execution Some entrepreneurs just think way too small. They're playing in two niche of markets. With too small of a total addressable market, they might have a great plan how to execute that vision. But if it's too small, why do they even need capital at all? Bootstrap. Others have a massive vision but have literally no idea how to get there. You must nail this and the rest of your pitch will be taken seriously. Number four, know your market. Many founders know their product, but they don't understand the market they're playing in. We call this the market in view. Only by knowing the rest of your market can you know where profitable areas of growth are and who your competitors are and what they are doing. Only at that point can you actually know what your differentiation can be, what your moat can be, and how you can build your company. 5. You have to know what you're going to do with the money. There is a reason why you're raising money in the first place. Why are you in the room? Articulate what you'll do with the money and how far this money will take you. This is called Runway. Will you need to raise again in 12 months, 18 months? Is this the last time you'll ever need to raise? As in six months from now or 12 months from now, you might be cash flow positive and profiting. These are the questions that you must answer. They'll also lead to knowing what kind of business you're actually building in the long run and what the ROI of this investment will be. Number six, listen and take feedback. Write down notes. At an early stage in an investment pitch. The investor is investing in as much in you as they are the startup. You need to convince them that there is a large enough market opportunity to go after and that you are the one who is the right person, the right team to lead the company to that promised land. Number seven. And lastly, remember this is a two way pitch. There is lots of money out there, never more than there has been in the history of our time. You need to make sure you're getting the right money. So just as much as the investor is evaluating you, evaluate them. Beyond the check, what other value do they offer? Network, market, Expertise, Scaling expertise, Experience. Do they have a complimentary skill set? Too often new entrepreneurs forget that they have leverage and power too. Make sure to use it. So to recap, the major steps here were, Number one, be prepared. Number two, own the agenda. Number three, have a big vision. Number four, know your market. Number five, know what you're going to do with the money. Number six, listen and take feedback. And number seven, remember this is a two way pitch. So in closing, it's really critical for entrepreneurs these days to remember to be the most prepared person in the room. They must do their research, whether it's a business development meeting for a major partnership opportunity, whether you're recruiting a key hire, whether you're pitching to investors. These principles of public speaking, of presentation, of how to pitch investors are things you can carry with you along the way. It's critical you keep your energy. You have some pithy and some bravado. You exude confidence but not ego. And you pitch these investors with the long game view in mind. Be loyal and always play the long game. If you want to continue to learn more about how to scale your startup, how to grow to new heights, how to take it to the next level and reshape the way startups are built, scaled and monetized, please visit our website@www.york.ie or if you'd like to go a level deeper, you can also download our free ebook on our website, how to become the CEO of youf Career at www.york.ie CEO eBook. Thanks again for joining me today. I really had a great time. And now back to Omar.

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We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon but forget about it and suddenly it's expired.

Expired in 2012.

Dang it.

Fortunately, by switching to Geico, you could save about $900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

It feels good to save big it feel to Geico. What a solid practical lesson from Kyle York. One of the things I have found that a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs forget to do or don't do enough of when they're pitching to investors is really Painting a clear picture of your vision of the company. Even if you've been in business for years now, investors want to know, what's the future of this company? What is it going to look like in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 years from now? They're really investing in your ability to think big, to think beyond today. They want to make sure that if they give you money that you're going for gold, that you're going big time. So displaying a large vision backed by your knowledge of the market and the possibilities is a winning combination. Another thing that Kyle mentioned is having a clear plan for what you will do with your investor's money. I recommend you actually go through this exercise right now. Even if you're not looking for investors, even if. If you don't have investors lined up or you have meetings lined up, I want you to sit down and think about how much money would you need to take your business to where you want to go. Let's say, for example, somebody gave you a million dollars right now as a seed round. How would you spend that million dollars? And don't give yourself a general answer. Don't say, oh, just dump it in marketing. No, how exactly would you spend that? Because that's the answer that they're going to be looking for. Specifics, what kind of marketing are you going to be doing? Affiliate marketing. What's your strategy there? What about social media marketing? Are you going to be hiring people that specialize in this? Maybe content marketing, you'll hire great writers. How much is that going to cost? Get really clear about how you're going to spend that money. A lot of us, we don't even go through this experiment and we find out, I don't even know what I would do with the money. Which begs the question, do you need the money? Do you even have problems to solve? So it's a great thought experiment to go through right now. What would you do with the money? And get specific as possible and how to pitch to investors. If you're just getting started with your business and you want to know what are the steps you need to take to build a successful one, head on over to 100mpa.net and you can download our business roadmap. It's called the breakout business roadmap. Actually, it's absolutely free. We just released it, so go ahead and download it now. Again, that's 100 MBA net. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Remember that question, what would you do with the money? Another good thing to ask yourself is how much money do you really need? Sometimes we don't even go through that exercise. We just say we need money. Okay, but how much do you need? $50,000? $100,000? Maybe you could benefit from investors, but maybe you just need some what's called debt financing, where it's just a loan from the bank and you keep 100% of your equity. Getting money from investors is a good option, but understand how much you actually need is actually as important as getting the investment itself. You have to know how much equity you're going to give up in regards to that money. So the less money you need, the less equity you have to give up. And of course, by deciding on a number, it forces you to get resourceful. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show that wraps up today's lesson. Thanks so much to Kyle Yorko. Just head on over to Apple Podcasts and search for our show. Leave us a rating and a review. And guess what? By doing that, you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Every Friday we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. It's our way to say thanks for showing us love on Apple Podcasts. Alright, that's it for me today guys, but I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon but forget about it and suddenly it's Expired.

Expired in 2012.

Dang it.

Fortunately, by switching to Geico, you could save about 900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

It feels good to save big. It feels good to geico.