How To Make Your Pitch More Engaging

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Founders raising funding must capture the attention of the investor.

Here are some key steps on how to make the pitch more engaging:

Include market research to validate the problem to be solved.

This touches on the target market, the competition, and customer needs.

Make clear the problem to be solved and the solution offered.

It helps to show how the product works at a high level.

Show the support for the business so far.

This includes traction in the current business with leads generated, revenue growth, and support from others, including partners.

Highlight the challenges in the space and the hurdles the startup must overcome.

Pitch Decks with nothing but rosy projections are suspect.

Investors appreciate knowing exactly what must be done to beat the competition.

List the skills the team needs to succeed.

It's often the case that the founder shows a list of people and claims they are a rock star team.

But most investors don't know the people and can only go by where the team has worked before.

List a key business skill, technical skill, and domain skill that the team has to show this is the right team.

Consider these points in making your pitch deck more engaging.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

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For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

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In this episode of Investor Connect, we welcome Dave Blivin, founder and managing director of Cottonwood Technology Fund, who shares how he invests at the intersection of science, capital, and commercialization to turn hard technologies into real companies. Dave explains Cottonwood's focus on early-stage deep tech across areas such as photonics, advanced materials, sensors, med tech, energy, robotics, and advanced manufacturing, with a regional emphasis on the US Southwest and an expansion into Northwest Europe through partners in the Netherlands.

He outlines Cottonwood's approach of leading rounds, taking board seats, and writing larger early checks (often around $2M within $2–$4M pre-seed syndicates) to fund prototypes and recruit business leadership, while leveraging a strong corporate venture network for diligence and follow-on rounds.

Dave also discusses how he evaluates patent-based innovation with little prior art, why people and fundraising matter as much as working technology, challenges with national lab commercialization, common deep tech pitching mistakes, insights on building ecosystems outside Silicon Valley, and why renewed demand for hard tech is rising alongside AI-driven infrastructure needs.

Visit Cottonwood at www.cottonwood.vc/

Reach out to at www.linkedin.com/company/cottonwood-technology-fund/ and on x.com/cottonwoodvc

________________________________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https:/_/tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

Music courtesy of Bensound.

It Takes a Process

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Investors looking to invest in a startup often look at the revenue as a sign of traction.

In the very early stages, the presence or absence of revenue indicates the fundability of a company.

As the company grows, one can look at the growth rate as a sign of traction.

In addition to the presence of revenue and the growth rate, the investor can also look at the process behind the sales.

This process includes generating leads, qualifying and then closing them.

Check to see how sophisticated the process is.

More importantly, check to see how predictive the process is.

The better the sales process, the better the sales outcome for the company.

The process often shows how much the founder knows about selling the product.

A fully featured sales process that consistently takes prospects through to close is a key indicator of success.

As an investor, review not only their revenue traction but also the process behind it.

It takes a process to make a successful startup.

As a founder, don't wait to build the process; start on it immediately after launch.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

Music courtesy of Bensound.