Increasingly investor communication is going online. Your initial pitch will most likely come through an email so it's important to be effective in pitching investors this way. Most email is now read on a mobile device so it has to pique his interest before he jumps to the next one. Here are some tips on crafting an effective pitch online:
Investors will always look at the subject line so make good use of it by giving a description of the topic such as "Introducing StartupX to Greyline Capital."
Address the email to the individual investor (Jim, Bob, Mary, etc) and not the generic (Investor, All, To Whom it May Concern).
Show a network connection to the investor such as "Our CFO worked at one of your portfolio company -- Hotspot App before joining StartupX."
Get to the point of what you do and say it in five to seven words or less, "We make cybersecurity tools for retail businesses."
Then explain how this is a real business and not just an idea, "our core platform is installed in 300 sites and growing by 20 sites per month."
Close with the team, "Our team has experience from Intel, Microsoft, Google, and the Cyberintelligence arm of the US government."
Finally, close with the ask, "We're raising $500K to expand the product into the market and would like to give you more details over a coffee next week."
The more numbers you use to describe the business and the market, the stronger the impact of the presentation. The overall email should be no more than 75 to 100 words. Anything longer will most likely go unread.
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