Essential Pitching Skills for Founders with Thea Sokolowski

I think the unfortunate reality is we're all human. And so if an investor is presented with decks of two companies that are in all their ways pretty much the same or similar, but one is much better designed than the other, naturally they may lean toward that one. So I think you always wanna put your best foot forward and always wanna make sure that what you're presenting is clean, that it's, you know, like well done and graphically thought through. And there's a ton of tools online that can help you with this. Hi everyone, it's great to meet you all. My name is Thea, I'm based in Nairobi, Kenya. I'm originally from the US, you can tell by my accent, but I've been working in African markets for about 11 years, primarily with startups. So I'm going to share my screen. I apologize that I can't see the chat and present at the same time. So let's see how this goes. But yeah, I have worked in primarily in marketing. So my background is in sort of marketing and communications, but the work that I've done with startups over the past 11 or so years has been everything from building their brand and creating their marketing strategies and sales strategies to enabling them to craft their story and connect with investors. And actually raise funding. So I've worked with a few different organizations. So you can see here at the moment, my full-time job is with a payments startup called Stitch. We're headquartered in South Africa and we are a payments infrastructure company building sort of payment solutions for large businesses across Africa. I've been with them for about 2.5 years. So since really since the beginning, and I work on everything from, you know, building the brand and working on, you know, marketing and getting, customers in top of funnel to working with the product team on our language and how we talk about the solution, to working closely with our CEO on investor relations. And I've been with him through the last few fundraisers as well. Previously, I was with an organization called Catalyst Fund, which is an accelerator for individuals. Well, at the time was an accelerator for inclusive fintech companies across emerging markets. Today, Catalyst Fund has shifted a bit and they are actually a climate-focused fund working with early-stage companies in Africa. Previously, I was with a few companies called Meltwater and MEST. So MEST is the nonprofit arm of Meltwater, which is a global software company. At Meltwater, I was the head of marketing for a division, but MEST is based in Ghana, and that's where I first landed when I came to Africa. And I was— MEST is a training program for people that want to become tech entrepreneurs on the continent. So I worked there teaching business, teaching marketing strategies, teaching storytelling, pitching, et cetera. Et cetera. That's really where I got my start in the space. And then in my spare time, I actually have two organizations, one called Venture for Africa, which is a talent community for startups in Africa, and one called Women Who Build Africa. And this is a community for women just working across the tech and investment space on the continent, really creating a place for them to sort of come together and find mentors, find colleagues, and share experiences. So, you know, a lot of the work that I do sort of on the side is also helping the women that are part of the organization prepare their own stories and their storytelling. So that's a bit about me. If you have a question, maybe if Amelia can just chat, 'cause I can't see, unfortunately, the chat, but I will leave time for Q&A after the presentation. But yeah, today I'm here to talk to you a bit about how you can position yourself and tell your story for investment. So I imagine there's quite a few people in the room today. I imagine that you're at all different stages of your business, but I can focus today more on the primarily early stages. So when you're first, you know, having an idea and going for your first few rounds of funding. I think an important thing to keep in mind when you're looking at investment is that, you know, at the pre-seed and pre-seed levels, what investors are looking for is quite different than what they're looking for at later in growth stages, right? Because at this point you don't have a ton of traction to show, you haven't been doing this a long time. You're really selling them on who you are and the experience and knowledge and talent that you and your team bring to the table. And particularly, the adaptability. As you all might know, in the startup space, things change very, very quickly. And so very, very often, probably more often than not, the particular idea or business or business model that you start out with is probably not gonna be what it looks like a year or two years down the road, right? So the investors really just wanna know, do you have the propensity to understand your market well enough to make those adaptations and make those pivots as and when it's needed? And do you have an understanding of the target market you're trying to reach and what you're actually trying to offer them enough to be able to hear that feedback and continually optimize the business that you're building to really create a solution that meets their, their needs. And of course, you and your team, right? So why are you in particular best placed to build this business in this market right now? And something that I'll talk about a little bit further down the road is also this question of why now, which I think is probably one of the most important parts of any sort of pitch or conversation with investors. You know, you could, you could be the right fit to be a really successful entrepreneur and have a really great idea, but the market you're going after at this point in time may not be ready or right for that, right? So the understanding of like the sort of pieces of the world that have met at this particular point in time that make it optimal for you to be solving this problem and building this business right now is something that they wanna understand. And then of course, a compelling mission and business model and unique selling proposition. So at the end of the day, investors, are running a business, right? Their business is to make returns on the investments that they make. And so they want to understand, is this something that's actually going to be able to make money? That's gonna be able to make returns? Does it have a compelling business model that will be able to sort of get to a point of say profitability relatively quickly? And are you inspiring? I think, you know, at the end of the day, we all wanna follow people to follow and be part of something that, that really drives us, right? And is meeting a particular mission or touching on a piece of, um, or the world's problems that means something to us. So if you're able to inspire an investor to believe in your mission and your vision enough to invest in the company, then there's also a good chance you're going to be able to inspire talented people to join your team, or businesses or customers to buy your product, right? So you, you as a leader also need to be compelling and inspiring yourself. So like these are the things that investors are really looking for at that early stage. When you get to growth stages and later stages, obviously then the traction becomes very important. I think that we all understand or are aware of the sort of downturn that the global fundraising economy has taken or venture economy has taken over the past few years. I think back in 2021, it was a different story. People were able to raise money on a lot of ideas and inspiration. I think, and today it's very much about where is the profitability, where is the path to revenue, where is the traction, where is the growth? Because, and I think it's a little bit more realistic, but because that's really what's gonna make the company successful down the road. So yeah, as the business goes to different stages, there's different things that you wanna put forward. One thing that I always try to emphasize is this idea that investors are people too, right? We all know them. I have many friends that are investors in the VC space. I think to the extent that in this startup culture has really created this world where I feel like a lot of founders, especially at the early stage, feel like they're always on. We have demo days and we have speed dating opportunities with investors and we have conferences and we have all these opportunities for you to pitch or to be in pitch mode, which is fantastic. And that's where a lot of these things happen. But I think Equally important to remember is that as much as you probably don't wanna be pitching at someone all day and reciting, you know, these practice lines all day, they probably don't wanna be pitched at all day. So I think something we need to think about when you're thinking of fundraising is like longer term, right? You're trying to build a relationship with this person. If you're successful and you raise funding, this person is gonna be a very important part of your company, right? Imagine even on the board. So if that's the case, then you wanna know that you get along with this person, that you can have a coffee or a beer with this person, that you, you have things in common beyond just wanting your company to be successful, because it, it is a long-term relationship, right? That, that you get into. And so I think being able to suss that out early on and, and start to form those connections and find meaningful ways to connect with investors, um, both at the point where they may be looking to invest, but also for the future is super important. Um, you know, and I can speak a little bit about, The company that I'm working at now, so Stitch, we've raised $52 million in total over 3 rounds essentially. So we're a Series A company. We came out of stealth in February 2021 with $4 million in seed funding, later got us a $2 million extension, and we raised our first Series A beginning of 2022 and actually raised an A extension at the end of last year, which is Amazing in this economy and quite unheard of, but it's because my CEO is particularly talented at this relationship building. He has all these investors and everyone on WhatsApp and he'll chat about the latest sleep tracking innovations or this and that and find ways to really connect with them on a personal level. And through that, he's also been able to sort of weed out because it's a two-way street. He's been able to weed out as well, you know, these aren't the type of people I want to have on my cap table because, you know, money's great and we need money and that's important, but it's actually equally important that the people that are contributing or part of your company are able to bring more value to the table. So, you know, as you can get to know someone, you can get to know, for example, their network, the type of people that they can connect you to, their willingness to also sell you to potentially other investors or to, clients, for example. And I'll say that I think some of our angel investors that we have at Stitch have been by and large way more valuable than some of the larger institutional investors just because of the network that they bring and the support that they offer. And then I'll talk about this a little down the road too, but it's very important to continue to cultivate those relationships from the point when you first meet a potential investor through to when they potentially invest in you, but also after. right? Because you wanna continue to get as much value as you can out of them. And so it's super important that you keep up the communications that you have with investors from start to finish. So I always say is almost like always be selling, always be raising, or always be closing, always be raising, right? A fundraise, especially in the startup world, does not necessarily have a start and an end. Your actual round will, right? You're gonna have a limited amount of time, hopefully that you have an open round and you'll have a close date, but those relationships and that cultivation of those relationships and your willingness to connect with investors should be an ongoing thing that you're doing, you know, all the time, even if you've just closed. And the reason for that is because you never know what happens in the future, right? You know, we didn't foresee actually opening in an extension, but because of a serendipitous opportunity, we had stayed in touch with a lot of warm lead investors. They were very impressed with our growth and they came back after seeing our numbers and said, hey, this is something I wanna part of. And so, and so, you know, that's why I say like, keep, keep warm leads almost. You should have a CRM of potential investors the way that you have customers. So all the people that you've interacted with, whether through conferences or something like this, or, you know, that you've reached out to, even if the response was, was a not right now, for example, you wanna just keep them informed and keep them in touch. And so, you can do that in a very light touch way. So what we do, for example, is we send quarterly or even biannual updates on your progress so they can see how you're doing. And maybe, you know, 6 months ago you were too small for them, but maybe now they're interested. Or perhaps a year ago they had a different investment thesis, but now they've raised a second fund and, you know, that has changed and now you fit it. You never know, right? Or potentially they can think of someone that is, a good fit for you. So we send these updates and you can use your own discretion to determine how much you're actually willing to share in these depending on how close you are to these investors. But getting them excited, sharing about your growth and your major accomplishments is a good way to do that. And I always say never decline a relevant meeting. I think the other side of that is there's potentially going to be a lot of people that may waste your time as well. And so, you know, you get better and better with more experience as a founder kind of determining what's worth you spending your time on or not. But I always say, like, again, even if you're not raising right now, um, never say no to a meeting with someone who could potentially be helpful in the future. Um, so, you know, always be open to building those relationships. And then for your existing investors, once once you do raise a round, investor updates are very helpful tools. And I'll say it's not just for their benefit, right? So again, on the one hand, it's a way for you to constantly be top of mind and they could think of someone else they wanna introduce you to, what have you. But I think the other part of it is, so for example, we send these a little bit less than monthly depending on how quickly we can get it out. But we always include things like asks and challenges. So we'll say to them, hey, my ask this month is I, my customer support team is really struggling with scaling the support function as our business grows. Can anybody in our investor network connect us with successful fintech companies that have done this, right? And connect us with a customer success person. And, you know, we get in 5, 6, 7 people. And so I think just those little things are super, super valuable and something I think is not talked about enough. To founders when they're going through this process at the early stage. But like, that's really the value add that an investor gives you, especially the angel network, to be honest, beyond just like the cash itself. So this is an example of a page that we used to have. It's a little bit outdated and we don't use this quite as much anymore, but in the early days, this was very, very helpful for us. So Stitch and Starters was essentially a Notion page where we kept all of our past investor updates, for example, all of our past marketing newsletters, like a directory of the team, a directory of our major clients, a directory of other investors, and also these kind of fun, they're like essays that our founders wrote early on that was them kind of dreaming about what Stitch could be. And to me as a potential employee, I also saw this and I said, I wanna work with these people. This is what was exciting to me. It was inspiring to sort of read their vision and hear from the individuals how they were seeing this fold out. And so I think this was a super, super helpful tool that they would share with any really solid prospects that really gave them a full flavor and taste of who we are and what we were trying to do. Yeah. In terms of the pitch and the story itself, so that's sort of like investor relations. So let's move on to the pitch and the story itself. Again, let me just quickly check because I can't see this chat if there are any questions, but if not, I will continue and then we could do questions at the end. Cool. So yeah, there is this very cool— I can't take credit for this. There's this very cool Medium article and I'll find the link and share it on the chat. After this, but someone wrote back in 2017 about the greatest pitch of all time, or the greatest pitch in the world, I think it was called. And it was this company in the US called Zuora that's like a data company. But what was so compelling about the way that they told their story, and this could be, by the way, for a potential client and customer conversation or for an investor conversation. In both cases, you're trying to win this person over, right? You're trying to convince them to invest in what it is that you're selling, whether monetarily or by buying the solution. So from an investor perspective, what you really wanna do is try to understand, first of all, who's in the room, who's on the other side of the table, who is it that you're talking to? Where does their understanding of your market or your customer or your particular solution start and end? Where is there opportunity for you to educate a little bit? And where do they already have an understanding in which you could dive a little bit deeper, right? So that's like the first thing you wanna get into your, to your mindset. It's just like, okay, for example, you know, I live in Africa. I've lived in Africa for 11 years. I work in fintech, I work in payments. So already, if you're a fintech company working in Africa, you know that I have a very good baseline understanding of that market and the nuances and what makes it unique. But if you're talking to an American investor who has never really been to the continent before, maybe not in the payment space or even in the payment space, You know that you have to start with a little bit of background education around, hey, this is why this particular market that I'm working in, say it's Kenya, is unique, right? We have things like mobile money, we have low banking penetration, all of these things that are fundamentally the baseline they will need to understand to see why your solution is necessary, right? So kind of just starting there, but the way that you tell the story, I like to say in this sort of greatest pitch, there's this like old world, new world paradox, where you essentially want to, in a way that is not too dramatic, make this statement that, hey, the world is changing, right? Something about the world has fundamentally changed. So the old world is the way that it was working before, and this new world is approaching, and we are at this point, right? This intersection of that old world and new world. And things are gonna be very different from the way that they were before. And if you investor or you, you know, business that I'm trying to sell to, or customer trying to sell to, does not understand that, or is not taking advantage of that and jumping in with these innovative thinkers who are, you know, sort of ahead of the game in what that new world looks like, then you're gonna be left behind and you're gonna be losing out. Right. And for this company Zora, who, you know, they used as an example in the article, They, the change that they were talking about was the subscription economy. So this is again, back in 2017, but it's like, hey, you know, there's, people are not just purchasing one-offs in e-commerce anymore. There is this whole new world of a subscription economy where people like to have things coming to them. They like to subscribe. They don't wanna think about having to make a decision about a purchase every single time. For example, with something like, you know, fashion, with these fashion subscription companies were becoming popular in the US. The old world is this once-off e-commerce economy. The new world is like subscription-based. And the solution that Zora was selling was data tools and e-commerce tools for subscription-based businesses. And so it was kind of this no-brainer of like, hey, the world is shifting this way. More and more and more and more businesses are going to become subscription-based businesses. Businesses. So don't you wanna be in on, you know, the infrastructure, the tool that's going to facilitate the growth of those businesses. You know, the world is changing. And so obviously you wanna have other data points sort of backing that up to say, well, what has changed about the world? But this idea of being able to say fundamentally and without doubt that like there's a change happening here is how you sort of hook people in. So like this is an example of one of the slides in Zora's deck, right? We now live in a subscription economy. I think one mistake that maybe people make too is it being not decisive enough. So you see a lot of things like the world is evolving, you know, and we're increasingly seeing, you know, a shift toward XYZ. And I think when you're really trying to make a statement and get someone's attention, that's a lot less effective than something that you can definitively say has changed. And so there's just, is sort of, I'm thinking around how you can maybe craft a statement around what that global shift is. But the whole idea is that it is significant enough that it necessitates an innovation that is coming essentially in the form of what you're selling. The rules of the game have changed in a very permanent way and there's no going back. And so a few tips they give are things like making sure that you make it clear there's going to be winners and losers in this situation. So because the world has changed, somebody is going to lose out and somebody else is gonna become more profitable, is gonna become a winner. So you have to make it clear to them who that is and how you are facilitating the growth of the ultimate winners. It needs to be not incremental. It needs to be stated as done and permanent, and it has happened. And disregard conventional wisdom. And you have to talk a bit about how that change has happened that necessitates, again, the need for this new innovation. So yeah, again, this is from this article, Great Pitches Start with Change. Highly recommend you check that out. But one other piece of this is, and this is what I kind of mentioned before, that shift or that story that you're telling is also predicated on this thesis that you must have around why now. So why now speaks to the need for this innovation, the need for it to be happening in this market for the target that you're trying to reach and why you are the team that is set to make this happen, right? And so this is like a cool graph again from a few years back, but the pages of a slide deck, for example, when investors, see a slide deck that they spend the most time on. So obviously financials, very important. We need to make returns. Team, again, especially at the early stage, super, super, super important. Who are you and why are you the persons to build this? Yeah, competition. And then why now is like one of the slides that I think a lot of founders almost forget, right, to include, but it's super important thing to have in there. And then you go through the other kind of standard things. And again, depending on time, I'm happy to talk through like a few other standard like slides that you have to have, but I think that's more or less common knowledge at this point. But yeah, I mean, I think it's important to again, put yourself always in the mindset of the investors that you're trying to reach and speak with. They also have it quite challenging, right? So there's a quote from a very famous hedge fund investor called Dan Loeb says, To be an investor is to live constantly at the intersection of story and uncertainty. The story piece comes from the fact that, again, as early stage founders, you kind of don't have much to go off of except your story, right? So if you can tell a compelling story and you can make people believe in this idea and this vision and this thing that you're trying to build and have some data points to back that up, you have a very good chance of winning people over. But of course, The other side of it is an investor kind of knows, well, in a portfolio of 10 companies, we only really need one to succeed. We know 9 will probably fail. So the uncertainty is there, right? And so you have to kind of, your job is to convince them to kind of pass that line of uncertainty and start to really believe in your story. And one other quote here is, I liked that there are always Two sides to every investment, the number and the story. Every investment price, every market valuation is just a number from today multiplied by a story from tomorrow. Again, to me, this also speaks to the fact that there needs to be numbers. There needs to be data. There needs to be a compelling reason for them to invest in this business. But there's going to be a lot of businesses that have more or less compelling numbers because At the very early stages, you're kind of making it up anyway, right? Like you think that you can reach this many people and you think that you can make this much money from the business and the investor gets to decide whether or not they think that's true. But what can really turn the tables for you or get them over the ledge is the story that you tell. And so if you have them really believing in the possibilities of tomorrow and you have the numbers to back that up, then you're in good shape. Okay, so I'm gonna stop there for now because I realized it's about 30 minutes and I have pitch deck basics if you wanted me to go through it, but I think maybe we just start with the Q&A. Emilia, what do you think?

Hi, so let's— Hi, how is my connection now?

Can everybody— Much better.

Perfect. Sorry, apologies for earlier. So yes, thanks a lot for your presentation. It was very interesting, everything that you shared. And we have some questions. Let's just start with that. So I will put it on the stage. This question is from Ahmad. Curious about your thoughts on reaching out to VCs or angel investors for advice, As someone working on their first startup that is at a pre-MVP stage, I sometimes reach out to VCs for advice and worry it would affect future relationships. Hmm.

Great question. Um, no, you know, I think it couldn't hurt. Like the, the, I think the main thing here is A, you want to be genuine in your asks. So, you know, they can probably smell a mile away if you're really just fishing to try to get investment or If you actually want their advice, if you seem genuine, you actually want their advice. And it's someone that's like super relevant, right? They're working in your field or in your space. Obviously don't start with, hey, I know you're an angel investor, but like, hey, I know that you have worked with a lot of companies in this space or you're an expert in this space. I'm just starting out. I would love to pick your brain for 30 minutes if you have time. I think the other part of it is to come with a clear agenda. So these are the 3 things that I need help with that I would love your thoughts on, as opposed to just, hey, I'd love to talk to you for a half hour. I get a few of those and it's really hard to answer them because I don't have a lot of time. So if I'm gonna give you time, I wanna see clearly the value I can offer and potentially think about what you can offer that person in return. Who knows? I think never underestimate the exchange of value that you can offer as well.

Great answer, thank you. And our next question about the why now, the why now part of the pitch. I find that it tends to be quite subjective, even if backed by evidence. Is it okay? It's the part of the pitch that feels less factual and more the founder's interpretation of the current market state.

Yeah, it is, is the reality, right? So I think the data that you use or that you choose to draw connections between also shows that you are aware of what's going on in the market, right? So like, again, an investor has seen a million decks, right? So if they can see that your logic doesn't make sense and you're just kind of pulling things out of thin air to try to tell a story, they can They can see that. But if what you're saying really shows that you've thought this through and you can foresee trends that are coming in the future, you've learned from what's been happening in the market previously and you really see the need for this and why the timing kind of makes sense, then it just further underscores your value. I think most of a pitch, again, at a very early stage is subjective because you haven't done the thing yet. So, you know, even, even your financials, it's just a guess, right? And so I think all that does is show that you know how to think about the market and that you can kind of do almost a SWOT analysis to see, okay, well, these are the reasons that this could be successful. And then that links to also, you know, when you talk about potentially competition or challenges that you foresee in the market, right? Like they just wanna know that you've sort of done that thinking. Because that's what's required as a founder.

Awesome, thanks, hopefully it helps. And another question, Andrew is very glad that you are here. The company Barba Games based in, out of Atlanta, esports capital, with focus on Kenya, East Africa. What touchpoints are investors you have come across fix their interest in the Kenyan market?

Uh, oh wow. Uh, it depends on the, it depends on the industry, I guess. I actually know a few people working in, in the gaming space. Um, the gaming space is cool in Africa because it's super popular. Uh, I think the, the biggest thing with something like that is volumes, right? And that's why like fintech and payments businesses tend to be so compelling because you can really see a path toward revenue and profitability when you're talking about very, very large volumes. I think especially for something like gaming, it's not a huge cost, right? So there's enough people that have disposable income that can participate in these types of things that pay for them. That makes it really interesting. And there's not a ton going on in these markets, right? So if you can really create something that captures attention and gets a lot of people involved, then you have a very captive audience. At a high volume that has a lot of potential. So yeah, I think that space is cool. That's what I would talk about is like the interest that Kenyans have in online games, the volumes, that sort of thing.

Yeah, that was quite specific. And a few people are asking if you could share a little bit more about pitch tech space Sure, sure.

Yeah, I'm happy to take them through that. Do you want me to do that now?

Briefly. Okay, that's fine. Where was I? Here.

Okay. Yeah. So I'll try to go through this a little bit quickly. Yeah. So I think, you know, as I said before, something you want to start with, and maybe this isn't part of your typical pitch deck, but like, what is this undeniable shift in the world that has happened? Like, what are you gonna grab these people's attention with in the first few seconds that you're speaking with them so that they're interested, they're curious, and they're agreeing with you, right? This is an example from Spotify actually in their original, one of their original pitch decks. That is a quote from David Bowie, obviously, but music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. It's going to become so ubiquitous that everybody is going to need it. And so if you aren't investing in us, the company that's going to bring people this music infrastructure, then you're going to miss out, right, on essentially funding the next water, electricity. So it's like those types of things. But then obviously, okay, your basics, your clear problem statement, right? What is it that you're solving? And what about the shift you've mentioned is going to create winners and losers? Which makes, you know, which creates this problem that needs you or your innovation to solve. So this is an example from Dropbox, again, way back in the day. Visuals, by the way, always a helpful aid. Storage at the time, this is computer storage is a mess. That's all they needed to say. And then these are the pain points, right? In 2007, it was still a pain to work on multiple computers, share files, et cetera, et cetera, right? This is why a company like Dropbox needs to exist. The businesses that are still operating on this system are going to lose out to any businesses that adopt a new storage system, right? Who can save all these time and resources, et cetera, dealing with all of this stuff. This is an example from Sitch, from my company. This is a problem we talk about. So connecting businesses to the financial system is difficult, slow, and expensive. And once connected, businesses face challenges with scale and efficiency, and ultimately it limits their, their customer reach and creates a bad experience for their customers. So we are solving this problem by building a better, more efficient, more scalable payments infrastructure. Great. So again, the clear solution and the solution has to then address all the pain points or elements that you identified in the problem statement so that it makes sense as to why this is the solution. For that problem, right? So again, going back to Dropbox, Dropbox was created to keep files in sync, backed up, accessible, and it just works. Stitch, this is, this is how we talk about our solution, but we're a PSP, we're a payment service provider, and we are essentially creating that connection that we mentioned is difficult to create, right, between between customers and between the financial infrastructure. Don't forget also to show the product. I think again, especially for like a tech company, but it doesn't matter what, you know, they almost won't believe that it's real if they can't actually see it, right? So dashboards or this is a cool example that we use to help people visualize because with payments infrastructure, it's very difficult to visualize. Technical. You can't see a lot, right? You can see dashboards, you can see like what the flow looks like, but otherwise it's really just backend infrastructure. So when we were pitching clients a few back during the World Cup, actually, these are like a, I mean, a rendering of supposedly what Messi's cleats look like. And so the way that we were trying to explain how precisely engineered our solution is, to help make sure that payments are reliable and come through efficiently, et cetera, is we kind of compared it to the way that a cleat is designed, where every single angle, every, you know, the fabric that's used, the shape of the toe, the material used to create the toe, and combined with the angle at which Messi kicks, all have a slight impact on the direction that the ball goes, right? And the speed that the ball goes, and therefore his ability to score. And so comparing this to payments infrastructure, it's like any small tweak that you make the engineering in the backend when you're talking about lots and lots and lots of payments at scale can make a huge difference in your acceptance rates and your reliability and stuff like that. So always helpful to use some sort of familiar of the time analogy to help people understand how you're really thinking about some of your unique selling proposition. Positions, right? Another example, Airbnb, easy one, right? Just like show them what it looks like. The why now slide, which we talked about. This is another example. All companies are turning into digital product businesses, so you don't wanna be left behind. This is the time to sort of jump on this bandwagon. This is a why now slide from Dropbox. Why now? Because there's a lot of devices that are being created, which have bigger files and more and more and more content. They're increasingly distributed and remote teams, bandwidth is a challenge. Online storage is basically, at the time it was like a wide open opportunity. There were no real competitors in this space. And so they're saying we could be like the Google, right, of storage. And then you have your competition and other current solutions. So again, I think we always think of the typical competition side of like, like, you know, your business and like all the ones doing exactly the same thing. And we have this, they don't have this, et cetera, et cetera. And that's fine. But I would encourage you to think about competition as, as a lot broader. So it's not just exact businesses doing the exact thing you do, but rather what are your target customers doing right now to solve this problem? So what are the other solutions that may not even be tech solutions or, or, you know, or, or startup solutions? How are they solving this problem right now? Because that's also what you're competing with. And a lot of times back in the day with, you know, things like inventory management solutions or, you know, solutions for small businesses, uh, one of the competitors was always like Excel. Like people are still, you know, tracking transactions and inventory on Excel, um, CRM solutions, et cetera. So, um, that's not a direct competitor, but it is certainly a solution people are using. So just, you know, always important to keep that in mind. Again, example from Square. And this is sort of the value to the user. They're comparing themselves to traditional card processing firms because that's essentially what they are versus online card processing companies. Yeah. And then talking about defensibility, and then this is them versus, you know, direct competitors versus competitors that are kind of coming into this space, right? Back when Apple and Google were building Apple Pay and Google Pay that, that they foresaw could become potential competition. And this is an example, so presentation I did in Tunisia, but this is an example of a company called Swivel. It's, you know, ride sharing. And so this, this is again at a later stage because this is at the growth stage, how they compare to others in the market. And then target audience, size of target audience. So showing that you have an understanding of, How many of these types of customers exist in your market, who they are and what their needs are that you think you can address, but also like use cases. So this is an example from, I mean, Uber, it's been a little bit diluted, I think, but these are all the use cases that when Uber was originally pitching itself, it, it thought, you know, could, could make sense. So, okay. You know, your target market is essentially anybody that ever needs to go anywhere, right? So that's really hard to talk about. So you can say things like, okay, probably younger people, more tech savvy, et cetera. But like to help them visualize all the ways in which this product could be used, it was, okay, let's talk about trips to and from restaurants, trips to the airport, local transport, et cetera. Right? So use cases are super important. Then of course market size and opportunity. I think this slide sometimes also often gets forgotten, but I like to put this just before, just after your, your business model slide where you talk about how you're gonna make revenue. So are you a subscription business? How much are you charging? How much is each customer potentially gonna pay you? Because investor can kind of very quickly do the math in their head to say, okay, well, based on the market size that you told me you have and the number of businesses that you can reach, a number of customers you can reach with this, and this is how much you're gonna make per customer. I can kind of start to visualize, okay, well, this is how much you could potentially make in first, you know, year, et cetera. And so this is an example from Airbnb. Again, if there's almost 2 billion trips booked worldwide, um, half a million of them are our budget or online. Um, and then this is how much we think we can take up that market type of thing. Um, then of course, again, business model and financials. Um, so this was very simple. They take a 10% commission on each transaction. And by the way, here is what the average size of those transactions looks like, right? So an average fee that they would take, again, this is way back in the day, on an $80 a night stay, um, at an average of 3 nights is $25. So they have that data because they already had some customers at this point. And so they can show this is how much projected revenue we have. Um, and then of course, very important, your team and your team strengths. I think it's not necessary to write a full life bio of your team on the slide for sure, but like pick out the pieces of who you are in your experience that are super relevant to what it is that you're building. And if you have, you know, logos of places that you've worked before, you can put those on there type of thing. But I think this is where you really wanna show, hey, we have like all the skill sets necessary to bring this to life. And then depending on how, you know, late the business is, do you have any traction that you can show? Do you have endorsements, for example? Client testimonials, et cetera, that, that of people that have already used the product that you can show. So again, quick example here, Airbnb, I think, or yeah, Airbnb, which was at the time called Airbed and Breakfast. Yeah. Like what can you show to, to, to help these people understand that like, hey, people really like this thing and we're already making waves here. Right. And then finally, like your, your roadmap. So what's happening next? And I think a roadmap can be looked at from two perspectives. The product roadmap of like, here are the next few things we're gonna build, or the next maybe geographies we're gonna expand into. And your business or business model roadmap of like, here are the new revenue streams that we foresee, or the new target markets that we think we can enter, or target segments we think we can enter. And yeah, this example of cream, but You kind of get the idea, right? Where first we're going to start in this market, do a land grab, then we're going to launch a consumer product, then we're going to start to scale regionally, and then we're going to grow in other verticals, et cetera. Oh, yeah. And then your mission and vision, of course, how are you going to get people inspired to join? So this is our mission at Stitch. Our overarching goal is to build a financial system that works for everyone. And this is something that is true and will be true in our current market, in future markets when we build more payment solutions, right? It's sort of like the overarching thing that drives us totally as a business. And I think that's it.

Wow, that was pretty detailed. Thank you for taking the extra mile to add this to your presentation, and everybody is loving it. The reactions, uh, so it's almost the top of the hour, so I think we have time for just a couple more questions. And just a quick reminder for everyone, uh, you will receive the recording within 48 hours, and you can find also Tia's contact, connect to her and learn more about her company stitch. So last two questions, they are also in that line of thinking. How important are the graphics? You mentioned that, but not the box in particular. Um, new generation pitch decks tend to be image-based.

Yeah, so I would say what you should do is you should actually have two versions of your deck always. So there's a version of your deck that you present when you're there in person and you're speaking. And then there's a version of your deck that you'll send afterward. The version that you send afterward should have more explanation, more text, more information, because this is something that an investor will come back and look at later or share with other people who maybe weren't there when you were presenting. So that's important. But when you're actually presenting, you want them to be paying attention to you, right? And a little bit less to the deck itself. I think the unfortunate reality is like we're all human. And so if if an investor is presented with decks of two companies that are in all their ways pretty much the same or similar, but one is like much better designed than the other, naturally they may lean toward that one. So I think you always wanna put your best foot forward and always wanna make sure that what you're presenting is clean, that it's like well done and graphically thought through. And there's a ton of tools online that can you with this. But I'd say like don't underestimate the power of good and solid design and graphics to help you with this because it just kind of makes you look that much more professional.

Ah, yes. So there are like a few versions and there was one more question. Okay, yes. Also please vote when you're adding questions please vote for the questions so we know, uh, which ones to ask, more people want to know. Uh, okay, so let's just pick one last. Um, okay, um, let's do this one. If investors judge you for asking for advice, great disqualifying test if you don't want that investor. Investors are human, but so are founders. So if you find arrogance or dismissiveness from the investors, that is a real reason to say next, but that's not really a question. Maybe you can add your comment.

No, but it's true, right? Like I said, it's a two-way street. So you are essentially interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you because if successful, they'll be part of your business and part of your company for a long time. So I'd say, yeah, I completely agree with this. You know, also kind of think about the fact that investors probably do get a ton of requests and things sent at them all the time. So if they decline a meeting, it may not necessarily be because they're not a good investor. So kind of just suss out the situation and the tone, but agree that you should always be also considering who they are as a person.

Yes, so fair enough. And Tia, before we jump into the networking lounge, is there something that we didn't ask you and you would like to add for the final of today's event?

Yeah, I think a lot was said. I know it's a tough environment out there these days, but, but definitely worth it. There's a lot of problems left to be solved. So, you know, if you, if you hear a few nos, don't get discouraged. And actually, forums like this are super important for you to connect also with other people that are kind of going through the same thing. And so always be willing to sort of share your experience and help out another founder because it could make a big difference for them.

Thank you. Thanks again for joining us. And everybody's welcome in the networking. You will see in the networking tables. And also, we expect to see you at our next events. You can check them out on our website and sign up for the newsletter. So thanks again and see you soon. Bye everyone.

Bye.