The SINGLE Most Important Element of Your Pitch | Dose 038

welcome to the dream of dose i'm adam dakin managing director of dream at health tech in prior doses we've covered many key aspects of pitching and common investor questions that many founders simply screw up but there is one universally critical aspect of every single pitch including the elevator pitch if you get this wrong expressway to the no bucket let's get started dream adventures has been investing in great early stage startups for over a decade the dream at dose allows us to share best practices to help even more founders tell us about your great startup using the links below [Music] think of an investor like a surgeon who has to triage a battlefield full of injured soldiers if a soldier has no chance of survival or is cold with no pulse the surgeon quickly moves on to the next patient investors looking at hundreds of deals and funding only a handful operate in this same rapid triage mode so what is the metaphorical pulse that makes the investor dig in or pass it's literally the same for every startup in every industry take a moment to answer that for yourself now raise your hand if you said the team take another shot small market bad tech competition lack of differentiation nope it's actually none of those or at least not directly but adam you may be thinking investors always say it's all about the team it's cliche the three most important things are management management management or we bet on the jockey not the horse and of course that's all true but many companies fail for a different reason our anecdotal experience suggests at least 50 percent of companies fail because they don't make it onto the short list of problems that decision makers with budget authority are willing to pay for it doesn't matter if they have great tech and a great team are you a vitamin an aspirin or an antibiotic we want to invest in antibiotics solutions that are must haves because they're solving a hair on fire problem the definition of a startup is a race against insolvency without paying customers you will eventually run out of cash it's insane how frequently the company is 10 minutes into a pitch and we have no idea what problem is being solved for who so without question the most important part of the pitch is the problem statement if investors don't immediately buy into your problem statement skip straight to thanks for your time why winning new customers is hard if you're a b2b enterprise sale you need strong champions who have the motivation and the stamina to navigate the purchasing gauntlet certainly true in healthcare where overburdened stakeholders have limited time and constrained budgets so what makes a great problem statement well let's start with what doesn't at dream it we often hear over 20 pitches a week and hardly a week goes by where a founder doesn't start by saying something is broken followed by motherhood and apple pie statements peppered with buzzwords you can fill in the blank here patient communication broken care coordination broken ehr broken frankly you'd be scared to death to go near a hospital after half these pitches my personal favorite and the most frequent i'm not kidding healthcare is broken really is the solution solving the global healthcare crisis a strong problem statement articulates the scope of the problem its consequences in terms of cost or outcomes and makes clear that current solutions are not effective it has to happen in the first two to three minutes of the pitch in fact a summary of the problem in your solution should be communicated in your cover slide which is like a free advertisement that should get investors leaning in before you've even started here is neuroflow's cover slide a dream and alum that recently closed a very successful series b in less than 30 seconds you know what problem they solve the benefits of the platform and that they have meaningful traction and by the way the cover slide should also list all of your contact info so how do you create a great problem statement here are a few thoughts introduce your problem with an attention grabbing wow statement which often starts with did you know or imagine if one of our companies starts their pitch with imagine if two jumbo jets fell out of the sky every day did you know that's how many people die from medical errors with that one statement the audience knows the nature and scope of the problem they are targeting and they have peak curiosity here's another great example doctors spend too much time manually reviewing the ehr trying to find critical data in order to make more accurate diagnosis and decisions this yields over 80 billion in excess labor costs misdiagnosis and under billing and is a leading cause of physician burnout what if we could reduce physician time in the ehr by 75 percent while increasing each provider's revenue by over a hundred k the slide itself should have a few big numbers which instantly quantify the scope and impact of the problem also adjust the voiceover based on the sophistication of the audience when pitching people who know your space don't burn precious time deep diving into or assuming they don't understand the problem or the market finally please do not put your team slide at the front of the deck your team may truly be awesome but if i don't buy into your problem statement it doesn't matter this one may be a bit controversial so if you feel differently please share your thoughts in the comments section below all right here's a quick recap one the problem statement is the pulse of your pitch if it's weak nothing else in your pitch matters two use a cover slide that communicates your problem statement benefits and traction if you have it three consider opening with a wow statement that grabs investors attention four deliver the problem statement within the first few minutes make clear who pays and why and finally quantify the scope of the problem in terms of costs or outcomes in a simple slide that's your dream of dose in about five minutes now you're ready to nail the problem statement please leave your questions in the comments section and if you found this video helpful like this video and subscribe to the channel to see all of our doses go to dreamit.com forward slash dos and if you're the founder of a great health tech startup visit dreamit.com forward slash apply frankly you'd be scared to get scared to get you'd be scared to guess did you know that's how many people die from medication errors that should be medical errors actually use a cover slide that communicates your problem statement okay i can read that one better though one

Channel: Dreamit

Views: 17,263

Keywords: how to write the best problem statement, How to craft a problem statement for investors, For Better Products Start With a Problem Statement, describe what problem your start-up is solving, startup problem solution, what is the problem the startup is solving?, problem statement slide, business problem statement, problem statement startup, Crafting a Great Pitch, problem slide, problem slide pitch deck, pitching your problem statement to investors, startup problem statements

Id: uOBjkrw5wNk

Length: 6min 50sec (410 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021