To fix, you must nail how and why your product will dominate your (large) target market vs. current (incumbent) and future competitors.
But don’t take it from me, take it from Harry Stebbings and 20VC - who know a thing or two about investing.
Notice that every single one of their 5 Ideal Deal attributes focuses on competition.
That’s no surprise once you realize investors are focused solely on finding startups with the product and team potential to dominate huge markets.
You can’t dominate a huge market with an uncompetitive product.
Which means you’re not interesting to investors.
And also, if not obvious, you’re wasting your valuable time and money flogging a dead horse.
So the key takeaway is that your pitch deck must convince investors that current solution providers (incumbents) are unlikely or unable to match your deal-winning product attributes.
And you must convince those same investors that your competitive advantages are strong enough to fend off competition from large, deep-pocketed players who attempt the fast follow.
You want your advantages to be so defensible that the fast follower story is Google+ vs. Facebook (fast follower with uncompetitive product loses) and *not* Apple iPod vs. Sony Walkman (fast follower with superior product wins).
Book a free intro call on my website if you’d like help with your competition slide. I can help you fix it in an hour or two as long as you have a good understanding of your current and future competitors.
If you’d like to take a first pass yourself, check out the how-to guide I’ve linked to in the comments below.
founders startups
This post was originally shared by Malcolm Lewis on Linkedin.