By Nathan Beckord
Each superhero wants an origin story. Robbie Crabtree’s is only a bit extra Atticus Finch than Spider-Man.
Earlier than he launched Founder Fundraising, Robbie spent seven years within the courtroom—litigating every part from gang and cartel violence to capital murders and youngster abuse. That’s when he started utilizing the time period “aggressive storytelling,” which is now the title of Founder Fundraising’s father or mother firm. As any courtroom drama fan can attest, attorneys on either side want to steer with info and likewise make emotional appeals.
With a mission to empower startup founders alongside their fundraising journeys, Founder Fundraising trains entrepreneurs to turn out to be “chief storytelling officers,” by honing their potential to speak and join with buyers.
Learn on for Robbie’s takes on making a memorable opening hook, shaping a story, and drafting a pitch deck, whereas staying grounded all through the method.
Sharing your journey with buyers
Your founder story
First issues first: the “founder story” (a private narrative) and the “imaginative and prescient story” (the “what” and “why” about an organization) are two various things, says Robbie.
Robbie’s personal founder story coalesced when he realized that courtroom litigation expertise could possibly be taught and polished public talking could make all of the distinction when closing a deal. “As a substitute of dwelling on the earth of nightmares, which is the place attorneys are likely to dwell, I mentioned, Why do not we dwell sooner or later the place goals are being constructed?” he explains, including that founders and enterprise capitalists are each large dreamers. In 2020 he started sharing his hard-won insights with different entrepreneurs, and Founder Fundraising was born.
In his expertise, Robbie has noticed that founders don’t leverage their very own journeys practically sufficient. That’s an enormous mistake, as a result of most buyers wager on the founders themselves, not simply the merchandise or firms. He sees a compelling origin story as a solution to join with buyers and start constructing sturdy, trust-based relationships.
Robbie advises starting your founder story by figuring out what makes you particular. How did you get to the place you at the moment are? Why do you care concerning the specific drawback your product solves?
“These appear to be quite simple questions, however they permit a founder to do actually deep and significant work,” he says. Finally, the founder story illustrates three sides of a person’s persona and background: how they assume, how they see the world and their coronary heart, and “how they really feel and who they are surely,” Robbie explains. “It creates a degree of belief between the founder and the investor.”
Should you’re not sure the place to start, “begin once you had been ten,” he suggests. (Ten is the age that evokes childhood most to Robbie.) “Do not sort it; activate a recorder, whether or not it is video or an audio recorder, and simply converse out your reply.” This tactic usually nets 20 to 60 minutes of content material that may turn out to be a concise, evocative, and unforgettable private historical past.
Your imaginative and prescient story
Your second story is the “imaginative and prescient story,” which ought to be targeted on what Robbie calls emotional storytelling. “The imaginative and prescient story paints the large image,” he says. “A founder mustn’t attempt to show they’re proper.” As a substitute, Robbie explains, founders ought to pique buyers’ curiosity and recommend one thing extra profound: “What if I am proper?”
Ideally, you need a potential funder to think about themselves in a robust place: On the best facet of historical past. The one who noticed it coming. The one who gambled and gained.
However emotional storytelling isn’t a step-by-step blueprint for the journey, from unseasoned startup to an IPO and/or an epic exit. Inevitably, each founder will expertise pushback, objections, and skepticism. The anecdote is to enchantment to buyers’ deeper motivations. In the event that they didn’t wish to make an influence (and generate income), they wouldn’t be within the enterprise capital sport. So make your pitch large, daring, and bold. “That is how we get enterprise capitalists excited to hitch the journey,” Robbie notes.
Telling your two tales
The founder story and the imaginative and prescient story ought to perform as two stand-alone tales that may be informed independently, however Robbie recommends structuring them to allow them to even be informed as one narrative. A founder’s origin story ought to lead into an interesting account of the bigger imaginative and prescient; making the transition between the 2 tales seamless is pretty straightforward.
Robbie explains that we’re acculturated to cliffhangers in motion pictures and TV, and within the startup world “we invite the investor to say, Inform me extra about that.” He thinks it’s an effective way to “dismount” from one’s private story and leap into pitching the corporate itself.
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Excellent your deck: Crafting a profitable investor pitch
A compelling pitch wants a well-crafted deck. Nevertheless, Robbie warns towards following a preset components for this or every other facet of fundraising. Each founder and each firm is completely different, so cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-blank approaches normally fail. One founder might need a private story that’s tied on to their startup’s services or products. One other firm might need a price proposition that’s very a lot of the present second—an attention-grabbing “why now” enchantment to buyers.
Nevertheless, Robbie has sturdy opinions about what a deck ought to (and mustn’t) do:
Do: Begin sturdy with a gap hook
Consider the primary slide in your pitch deck as priceless actual property. Your opening salvo needs to be irresistible—and quick. Every time we converse, now we have about three to 5 seconds to pique an viewers’s curiosity.
One other deal-breaker: Something that’s too obscure by itself. “If the primary slide would not make any sense to me, I am performed,” says Robbie.
Don’t: Stick with the issue/answer binary
The traditional drawback/answer construction is simply too commonplace. “[It] makes you sound like each different founder on the market,” Robbie notes. “And the most important factor in fundraising is to face out to chop by means of the noise.”
Do: Plant a flag
Early within the deck, use sturdy, attention-grabbing declarative statements, rhetorical questions, stunning statistics, traction numbers, and even quotes from clients.
Don’t: Try and enchantment to everybody
“We have to create filters,” says Robbie. “If the story is for everybody, it is for nobody. There is no method each investor ought to hear it and be like, That is wonderful. That is simply not the fact.”
Do: Create intrigue
Each slide ought to invite buyers to dig deeper: “Make me say, Inform me extra,” Robbie recommends.
Don’t: Go too text-heavy
Decks which are too overloaded with textual content are a recipe for “fractured consideration,” says Robbie. “Whenever you’re additionally talking, the human mind cannot sustain.”
Presenting your pitch deck
The headline (or title) of every slide ought to do its half to precise the story arc of your whole presentation. Should you bodily printed your deck and dropped it on the bottom, Robbie says anybody ought to be capable of choose it up and put it again within the right order simply from the headlines alone.
The very first slide normally includes a startup’s one-line description or tagline—which is “tremendous vital to essentially nail down,” Robbie provides. “Considered one of my favourite ones . . . was ‘We’re like Mary Poppins, however for house.’ You would not know precisely what it’s, but it surely’s sufficient to wish to study extra.” (Should you’re curious, too, the U.Okay.-based firm helps producers ship items through a parachute-like system—“whimsical and true to who the founder is,” says Robbie.)
Though he admits that it’s a “extremely opinionated strategy,” Robbie prefers pitch decks for use as a “follow-on instrument.” The preliminary assembly between a founder and potential funder shouldn’t be a pitch. As a substitute, he says founders ought to equip buyers to turn out to be their champions and let them do the storytelling as they transfer to the subsequent stage.
Now that’s a pitch-perfect technique.
Concerning the Writer
Nathan Beckord is the CEO of Foundersuite.com, which makes software program for startups elevating capital. Nathan can also be the CEO of Fundingstack.com, which is a brand new platform for VCs and funding bankers to each elevate capital and help purchasers and portfolio firms. Customers of those platforms have raised over $9.7 billion since 2016.
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