What should you expect to pay a pitch deck consultant when preparing for your first presentation to angel investors?
Angel investors are the ones who are directly responsible for providing business start up, so it seems necessary to find a pitch deck consultant for the first presentation to angel investors. I was wondering how much are we expected to pay? How do you determine the reasonable cost per the consultant's credibility as well?
Answers ( 1 )
Now, I'm going to take "Pitch deck consultant" to make something a bit wider than just creating a PowerPoint presentation for you.
What you need is someone who can work with you on a whole bunch of topics. The pitch will come out of those topics. (Don't worry, I'll get to pricing in a while.) I'd hope you've already done most of these, but they'll help ground you and add some realism to what may be optimistic estimates. You typically need to know:
* What's your product?
* Your unique selling proposition - what sets you apart from the rest? What's your secret sauce?
* SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opposition, Threats) analyses
* Total market value
* Accessible market value (what proportion of the market you can expect to own)
* Expenditure to date
* Remaining expenditure to market - DO NOT make the mistake of expecting to work for free! For a manufactured product:
--- Materials advance costs
--- Tooling advance costs
--- Design times and costs
--- Manufacturing shakedown run time and costs
--- Certifications/regulatory times and costs
* Time to market
* Prospects already with interest registered, and total immediate value of prospects upon launch
* Opportunity costs and timescales for further sales
* How much money do you want?
* How much of your company are you prepared to offer up for that money?
There are more points than that; I'm just covering the ones that come immediately to mind. The exact list depends on your business type and its maturity.
With all this information in hand, your consultant can help you prepare a professional-grade business plan in a form investors will appreciate, build a compelling introductory slide deck, coach you in how to put your proposition to investors, and guide you through the process of getting investment.
How much will it cost? It depends on how much time the consultant's going to spend working with you. In the UK, you can probably expect £80-150/hr. It sounds scary, but the value they're bringing to your business may result in a far better deal, and ideally an angel bidding war. Alternatively, they may turn to you and say you don't have an investable business. Don't be offended. Far better to know soon, fail fast and move on (or iterate on the same thing to get it right), than crash and burn.
You do, of course, have the option to negotiate "sweat equity" with your consultant. In this case, part or all of your payment to them will be equity in the company. Don't resent that. If they make the difference between success and failure, you'd otherwise be left with 100% of nothing. It may be a good idea to make your consultant a non-executive director (or even an executive diector). It'll flesh out your board with industry expertise. Investors like to see wise heads as advisors.