Why?

Experienced founders know that pitching means telling a story that clicks 100% with your audience. In the case of a VC pitch, that means you need to 100% understand why VCs do what they do, and what they are looking for in order to make a return to their own Limited Partners (LPs).

You sometimes hear, “Can this founder team take this company and turn it into a billion-dollar exit?” That phrase isn’t hyperbole. In a lot of situations, VC firms need a billion-dollar exit to return their fund. That doesn’t mean that anything less than a billion-dollar outcome is a failure, but this is where a lot of startup founders misunderstand how VC works. If there isn’t at least a tiny sliver of a chance that your company turns into a billion-dollar company, why should a VC place a bet on you?

The story you need to tell to a potential investor does exactly this: Inspire confidence that your company makes a great investment.

How does it work?

After every pitch coaching session, we update the dashboard to keep the pitch on track. The goal is green flags across the board, oodles of confidence, and a great story, ready to pitch

Haje has worked with hundreds of startup founders, helping them crack the code for how to pitch their startups.

The pitch coaching program is five sessions, usually delivered over five weeks - but it can go faster or slower if needed. Flexibility is the name of the game here.

The first session is a ‘pitch what you have’ session, and from there, we make a plan for how to get you ready to invest.

Haje works with a ‘flags’ system, that gets reported throughout the pitch coaching process. Red flags mean 'oh dear, you're not going to raise any money unless you fix this.' Yellow is a challenge; there's something wrong here, but you and Haje can probably fix that in the narrative or by doing fixes. Green means... Well, you figured that one out. The goal is to move reds to yellows, and yellows to greens.

Haje can also help with fundraising strategy; Getting introductions, figuring out how to best cold-contact investors, whatever is needed to get you ready to pitch.

The sessions are 100% flexible, but Haje usually suggests doing at least one 20-minute dress rehearsal (typically in session 4 or 5), where Haje turns into the VC from Hell. He'll ask a thousand impossible questions and help prepare you for what it's like to get a ton of questions thrown your way. The most important outcome of this session: Learn to stay calm. Learn how to say 'I don't know' from a place of strength rather than from weakness.

The sessions are delivered over Zoom, and they are recorded. Two reasons: It’s helpful to watch yourself pitch your startup. The other reason is that the recording will be transcribed, and Haje works with his team to take the recordings, turning them into an in-depth report of the sessions: Suggestions, next steps, things to pay attention to, etc. These reports mean that you don’t have to worry about taking notes during the session, and you can focus 100% on the conversation and the most leverage out of your time.

Cost & Deliverables

The deliverables for pitch coaching:

  • Five zoom sessions, usually delivered over 5-10 weeks.

  • Recordings of the sessions, with transcriptions and in-depth notes.

  • Strategic and tactical advice about how to run your fundraising process.

The cost for this service is substantial, and Haje only works with 3 pitch coaching clients at the time, so there may be a bit of a wait. Book a call to tell him a bit more about your company and your fundraising round, and Haje can tell you a bit more about how he works.