#MeetingWithInvestors #PitchingIdeas #TechProductPitch #BlackRockInvestors #YoungEntrepreneurTips
Hey there! 😊 It’s awesome that you have a meeting with investors from BlackRock, and I can totally understand the nerves and excitement that come with it. Presenting your tech product to such influential investors can definitely feel overwhelming, but with the right preparation and approach, you can absolutely nail it. Here are some tips to help you make the most out of your meeting with the BlackRock investors.
Understand your audience
Before you even step into the meeting, it’s crucial to do some research on the BlackRock investors you’ll be meeting with. Understand their investment portfolio, the types of businesses they’ve shown interest in, and any recent news or investments they’ve made. This will give you valuable insights into what they might be looking for and help you tailor your pitch accordingly.
Craft a compelling pitch
Given the limited time you have, it’s important to craft a pitch that is clear, concise, and compelling. Here are a few key elements to include in your pitch:
Introduction: Start by introducing yourself and your background as a young entrepreneur. Share a brief personal story to humanize your pitch and capture their attention.
Problem statement: Clearly identify the problem or gap in the market that your tech product aims to address. Use real-world examples or statistics to illustrate the significance of the problem.
Solution: Introduce your tech product as the solution to the problem you’ve identified. Highlight its unique features, benefits, and how it stands out from existing products in the market.
Market opportunity: Demonstrate the market opportunity for your tech product by showcasing the size of the market, potential customer base, and any positive trends or growth projections in the industry.
Revenue model: Clearly outline how your tech product will generate revenue. Whether it’s through direct sales, subscription models, licensing, or other avenues, be sure to showcase the potential for profitability.
Team and milestones: Briefly introduce your team and any key milestones or achievements you’ve reached with your tech product. This helps build credibility and trust with the investors.
Practice, practice, practice
It’s important to practice your pitch multiple times before the actual meeting. Try to condense your pitch into a 5-minute version, a 10-minute version, and a 15-minute version. This way, you can adapt to any unexpected time constraints during the meeting. Practice in front of a mirror, record yourself, or even pitch to friends or family members to get feedback and improve your delivery.
Be prepared for questions
Anticipate potential questions that the BlackRock investors might ask and prepare thoughtful answers in advance. This could include questions about your market research, competition, technology, scalability, and financial projections. The more prepared you are, the more confident and credible you’ll appear during the meeting.
Stay confident and authentic
Remember, the BlackRock investors are not just evaluating your tech product, but also you as an entrepreneur. Be yourself, stay confident, and let your passion for your tech product shine through. Authenticity goes a long way in building trust and rapport with potential investors.
In conclusion, meeting with investors from BlackRock is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your tech product and secure potential funding. With thorough preparation, a compelling pitch, and a confident demeanor, you can definitely make a lasting impression on the investors. Good luck with your meeting, and I’m rooting for your success! 🚀🌟
I would not go there without a patent first.
Ask ChatGPT to give the best frame work for your product, ask it for some tag lines.
As for your pitch, focus on explaining the problem you’re solving FIRST, then explain the gap in the market and then introduce the product. Also put in a case study of how the product changes lives – what it enables, solves etc. Also, the team is super important – ultimately, people buy people so don’t forget to talk about yourself, your motivations and why you solved this problem (make sure there’s an emotive story there!)
Best of luck!
Kid,there’s a big chance they’ll take your ideea
How did this go??
Apply for a provisional patent first
Certified Financial Planner here, but not your financial planner. I would agree with most of the other comments and think it would be wise to protect yourself and your idea first with patents and make sure you have adequate NDAs in place before sharing details
3 things: 1. It’s too early for you to go to Blackrock, I’d go to small VCs that do preseeds first. 2. Do not dive in to your technology if it’s proprietary (and no, a patent won’t protect you if it’s a software). 3. The only thing that matters is traction and GTM. If you are serious about things I’d consider either joining an accelerator or getting funds from friends and family before going to a VC.
4. Always ask at the end of each meeting what’s the next step in the process, don’t let them leave you hanging in the air or ghost on you.
Focus on the basics, what problem does your product solve? Does it do something faster, more costly eficiently? How? Show the numbers.
What market are you targeting? Show numbers.
Who’s gonna run the business? What’s their background?
What do you need to scale it and how you plan to do it?
If this is a venture deal, they aren’t going to sign an NDA for a pitch. Patents may be helpful depending on what you’re doing. If you’re going in to actually pitch them you are either going to want to grab attention with your traction (number of users, user growth, revenue, revenue growth etc.) or vision (this is the future and here is why and here is why now). Given your age they’ll probably be impressed with whatever you’ve already done technically, if you can convince them this is your dying mission to solve this problem you really might have a shot at receiving investment. Best of luck with whichever route you go!
Go on Max and watch the Silicone Valley episode where the team gets “Brain Raped”.
You need an attorney.
That’s great! Making physical products with electronics at scale is very difficult. Managing cost, quality, dealing with RMAs, supply chain, etc.
If your product is something that will have to scale up to high volume, expect some questions on this topic. A VC might be concerned about an inexperienced founder being able to get into production efficiently and on schedule.
Don’t worry about a patent, that could take over a year and then they won’t care anymore. Don’t ask for an NDA either. Just get straight to the point and how they can make money with you. Do the numbers on the market your in and what percentage you think you can take. The advantages/disadvantages of your product etc. what makes you different/better.
What do you need from them to grow? What’s your marketing strategy? When can they expect to see a return? They are going to want BIG numbers, they don’t want to do small time investments so if you’re only going to ask for $100k or something forget about it. They want to know if this thing can be a $100m brand and a clear path to get there.
Ask chat GPT.
You are about to get robbed.
Honestly I’ve pitched a few times. Make your slides as basic as possible, only a few words on each. You will use around 2 mins per side. Given the time I’d do 7 slides max, giving you time for questions.
1) intro into the issue – how did it come about, how did you make this widget
2) how big is the issue in terms of people and value
3) how you, and only you solve this i.e. what’s so special about your thing – patents, know how etc etc.
4) why can’t others copy you – knowledge, time to market etc
5) how much you’ve already got – market share, revenues etc
6) what you want – money, time, investors etc.
7) what you will do with the above – if I get x amount we’ll get to Y in sales in Z months.
Close and questions – that’s all you need. Keep it simple, no walls of text on the sides. A couple of lines, font 36+
Edit: write this, practice it. Do that at least 10 times and time yourself. Workout where you repeat yourself. Film it if possible. Presenting is an art and a learned skill. Be confident, know your shit.
Final add on – what questions will they ask you? What’s the worst thing possible they could ask? What’s your answer to this? Make sure it’s good. You should have a list of 10-20 questions you expect and good answers to them at hand. For example, you’re 17 what the hell do you know about anything, you’ll waste the money because you have no clue about business. What’s your plan? Are you doing this full time? What about your education etc etc etc
People invest in stories. Make sure your pitching involves storytelling
This is probably some kid screwing with everyone.
I’m not sure how anybody here feels comfortable giving advice with the information given. Here are some questions I’d have before I could tell you anything even remotely helpful.
1. What is this conversation about? I’m guessing it’s a BlackRock seed or preseed fund (not sure that even is a thing)? Did they reach out explicitly out of an interest to invest, or is this lead gen diligence for a potential later stage investment?
2. Do you have a company? LLC, Corporation?
3. Are you pre/post revenue?
4. 23 minutes is very specific, is this a pitch competition? Is it in person or remote?
5. What industry is it? Do you have any IP or proprietary tech? Or is it hardware enabled SaaS?
My advice would change depending on each of those answers.
Do all numbers by 10x and they might be interested
This sounds like a scam. BlackRock doesn’t invest in startups like this.
Don’t go alone. You need a good willed angel investor protecting you. No matter what, you’re a 17 year old kid over your head in this space.
Run
Search up guy kawasaki presentation rules. Feel free to modify it, but it helps set up a good standard.
From the comments, don’t meet with them lol
Buy blackrock
Offer everyone you meet a high-five. When you get to the last person in the room, offer a high-five and when they go to slap your hand, pull it away and say, ‘too slow’. Call of everyone ‘buckaroo’ it’ll go a long way.
Black rock is full of shitty practices
This is BlackRock. They’re not here to help you. Don’t take the meeting
I’m taking this as a hypothetical post as the OP has stated 20 days ago that they are 17 years old (and that BlackRock does not do many lead investments and that a company needs a year of customer and revenue growth for a meeting and usually they work with other partner funds who would have a favorable inclination before they would want to invest. Team sizes are 5-8 minimum.)
Take a look at Guy Kawasaki 10-20-30 pitch deck and then tune it up from reading the Y Combinator blog on pitch decks.
If you are pitching in a pitch event and there is a panel of “investors” you don’t need to worry about the content of your pitch, just deliver well and keep it short, talk about growing customer interest and all the things you’ve learned Pitch panels are random, and perhaps a 100% waste of time. (We’ve stopped participating in them because the people I send from our funds vote like the first guy that speaks – there’s a lot of group think)
Whoever you are speaking with there will be a good chance you will be rejected or not have enough value or trajectory. In this case you need to have a valuable ask, an introduction, 1-hour discussion with a VC, help in planning something key. You should have this ready before the meeting. (Over the course of my 43 years in this space you need to take value from every opportunity you get – don’t pass up a chance to be a winner.)
Congratulations! There are tips, which I use:
1. A strong opening! Pay attention to the relevance and novelty
2. Of course, a lot information about monetization.
3. A lot of numbers: diagrams, researches.
4. Maybe success stories of your clients, if you have already them
5. Of course information about your team, experience.
Good luck!
https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4b-how-to-pitch-your-company
Remember:
– You are their peer and they are LUCKY to get a meeting with you this early on
– You don’t have to answer everything. If the questions are invasive, just say that it is proprietary, that you have a plan, and then encourage them to set up a follow-on meeting to discuss at a later time
EDIT: leaving everything down below as advice which I still think is good. That said, looking at your post history it seems what you’re producing is some type of speaker? It seems HIGHLY dubious that Blackrock would invest in thus product at this stage, or at all. This seems like some sort of scam, or if not, one of their low-level deal analysts might be mass sourcing deals. I think this is a waste of your time.
I’m a founder, with a biz that’s currently scaling very fast and I see a lot of bad info on here.
Let me start by saying, congratulations on getting out there and building at 17. You’re giving yourself a big advantage.
Getting a patent is costly and time consuming. That’s a huge waste of time if you don’t have any sort of market validation.
As much as it might hurt to hear this: your idea is almost certainly not unique. You have better funded and more secretive competitors, this is almost a given. Your very first goal needs to be market validation. Right now, it seems you’re not even at pre-seed. Do you have customers? Revenue? Any other verifiable traction?
That’s the main thing investors are going to care about. Ideas are cheap, execution is golden. You need to execute.
Unless we’re talking deep tech, biotechnology, etc, you’re getting off on the wrong foot if you think you need to keep your idea secret. Sire, don’t share trade secrets and info that gives you a moat, but your tech on its own is worth very little to investors. They don’t need to steal it, they just need to find a competitor (Blackrock WILL be able to do this) to invest in that is better position to go to market.
I’d focus on proving market need + validating with actual customers. Find yourself early evangelists that are willing to spend time and preferably money on you and your product even before it’s ready.
Things investors will be thinking abkut/ asking:
Why are you raising?
Do you have sales? If not, why?
Have you proven need in market or do you just THINK there’s a need?
Last but not least: do you know Blackrock’ thesis? I haven’t looked at it deeply but I’m doubtful they invest in pre-seed. A firm of that size is looking for BIG deals. I think it’s a terrible time for you to look at a VC of that size. They’ll ask for to much, and put in to much capital forcing you to scale down a path you may not want to.
Edit2: I’ve made the mistake of going to big VCs to early in previous businesses. They will say no, and you will become a “no” on their books.
Practice. OP is clearly a troll though.
Uhh I can help
Are you some sort of gifted prodigy? This seems too good to be true lol how’d they reach out to you?
I have had 2 meetings with them but different industry completely as they have many divisions. If I was you. Because of your age and experience after presenting your product and it’s benefits in no more then 4 slides ( important) your 5th slide should be about the team you want to build around you. Position yourself as the inventor but your need in this order CFO, CEO and make sure that you make clear to them you just want to make cool products and you want a team around you to do everything else. Evaluating your product. Total addressable market get just 5% of that. Now divide that by 10 and that is your evaluation going in. Sell them a stake based on that evaluation
Geez, check this kids profile before taking anything he says seriously.
2 months ago he was asking how to get his hands on money illegally and suggested he was considering buying stolen credit card numbers 🔢 n the dark web.
And that’s just a bit of the crap he’s posting…
Start simple and describe the picture. What is the product, what does it do, why did you create it, why will people want to pay to use it. This can help you build your condifence. Then you can gradually get into more technical details as questions arise
Execute a CDA/NDA first.
Trademark and patent the shit out of it so they don’t steal it
Didn’t you ask the same question in your post
> How do I illegally or unethically make a lot of money
?
Starting a discord for founders and VCs to talk anonymously. Feel free to swing by and hang out.
Copy and paste discord invite: [https://discord.gg/7eGW6sWAQk](https://discord.gg/7egw6swaqk) (won’t work if you click for some reason)