Thank you for applying to pitch in front of our team of mentors.
We're excited to share our thoughts and advice with you.
Please know a Moonshot Mission Control team member will be in touch shortly regarding scheduling a time to pitch and receive feedback from our mentors.
In the meantime, here's what we'd like you to know about the process:
To prepare to pitch, you'll need to develop a 3- 5 minute pitch deck (slide show) with your company idea or existing company/service/product. See below for details about what to include in your pitch/pitch deck.
The pitch deck must be submitted 1-2 days in advance of your virtual pitch appointment to [email protected].
To streamline the flow of your pitch during your virtual appointment, the pitch deck slides will be advanced by one of the Moonshot call team organizers on the call. As a pitch participant, you will need to verbally tell that Moonhost organizer when to advance the pitch deck slide by simply saying, "Next slide."
After your pitch is delivered, the Moonshot call team organizer will then ask the panel of mentors on the call for any questions and feedback.
We estimate the total call to last 30-40 minutes.
ONLY advice will be offered, this is NOT A CONTEST OR a sales pitch to join our Moonshot incubator. We are simply trying to help encourage entrepreneurs and to build new businesses that can survive and thrive in this new future economy.
IMPORTANT: For the purposes of the pitch, there is NO confidential or any other business relationship between you and Moonshot or its representatives. You should not share any information that you want to keep confidential or trade secret. Also, if you believe that you may have patentable inventions that you want to discuss, it is important to complete your initial patent filings BEFORE you make any public disclosure of your inventions, including pitching to Moonshot or others. If you have any questions with respect to confidentiality and/or patentability, we strongly encourage you to discuss them with your legal counsel BEFORE your pitch.
How to Prepare for the Pitch
Below, you will find information on how to build your slide deck (in PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides which is then to sent to us in PDF format.)
Your pitch should be between 3-5 minutes long. After you finish your pitch, mentors will give feedback and advice. They will not interrupt you while you're in the middle of your pitch.
What Investors Look For in a Pitch Deck
1. High-level summary slide(s). These are one or two opening, preliminary slides that highlight your business. These slides capture the “essence” of your story. Include the points you would communicate if asked to distill everything into one or two slides.
2. The problem you’re solving. These can be a couple of perfunctory slides or three, four or more educational slides, depending on your audience’s sophistication. Convey the nature of the market opportunity you address with your business or product by highlighting what is “broken” or “not working.” If possible, scope out the size of the market opportunity. Ideally, these slides make it clear market participants are spending real dollars for imperfect products that do not adequately address their needs.
3. Your product or service/the solution to the problem. Having set up the problems faced by your customers, the next few slides are all about YOU. First and foremost, describe your solution, at a high level, for the unmet market demands described in the preceding slides. Drill in on how your products are differentiated. Convince your audience you have a better “mouse trap.” You want to make sure these slides leave no holes in your story or questions unanswered.
4. Marketing/strategy. Having wowed your audience with your product and business model, proactively articulate a go-to market strategy. Obviously, the scope of these slides is dependent on your stage of development but clearly demonstrate you have thought about how to roll out your product and how to capture market share.
5. Team. If you haven’t already heard this, here it goes. Team, team, team. That’s what investors are looking for. They are investing in your team, your passion and your dedication. Introduce your team in a few slides. Highlights your team’s strengths, make it clear they are committed to building something big and they will be great to work with.
6. Financials/projections. If you’ve been in business and have financials to share, share them. If you have projections regarding growth, show them as well. If you’re at the idea stage, it’s more about showing the size of the market and compare your product/service to a competitor you feel is most similar.
7. Areas in which you're looking for feedback. Ex. Do you feel like my projections are on point? How clear is my message? Is this a good idea? (Mentors will give feedback in general, and in their areas of expertise, but we also want to know what you're hoping to get feedback on from us.)
* Tone. When pulling together your presentation, consider the tone you want to convey. Nothing is more important in determining the right tone for your audience. Be creative. Avoid a dry, mind-numbing presentation. Always gauge your audience and play to them. At the end of the day, content is king when it comes to a deck. Layer in creativity with great content, show some personality and you will have a winning combination.
Make sure you include the 7 items above (and tone, of course) in your pitch deck.
