ShotPitch - One touch pitching to Investors

@bentossell Thank you for the questions and concerns Ben. It is best suited for investors in the seed/angel space from around the world. I have been very actively involved in the Indian Startup ecosystem by virtue of being the National Lead for "Headstart Network Foundation". Over the last 3.5 years after having interacted with 1000+ entrepreneurs directly, given everything which is there in the market right now, the average time to fix meetings with 50 investors is 1.5 months. And, in these 1.5 months entrepreneurs are just fixing meetings and not even pitching. So that is one aspect. Other is, even before writing a single line of code for ShotPitch, we did a research on the life of investors and came out with four observations. We have integrated all of those observations into it and the product is a completely non-interfering one for Investors. Nothing ever goes to their email and there is no communication that happens until and unless an investor shortlists and wants to have a conversation. The main and the biggest problem being solved is discovery of investors and pitching to them directly. Lets take an example "If you are an entrepreneur and doing a travel startup, the moment you want to raise money in this technology driven world, you should be empowered enough to have 100 investors in the travel space and sector agnostic right in front of you whom you can pitch directly without having to loose your mind/time in trying to get through to them. Secondly, we have positioned ourselves as a layer on top of the platforms. We define ShotPitch like this: ShotPitch is a one touch connect, discovery and pitching mobile platform for startups to people interested in startups around the world" When we say people interested in startups we do mean the conventional investors as well as the top management of top 100 technology companies. So if there is data company based in Bangalore and if we can enable them to pitch to senior engineering manager at Twitter, then apart from them becoming investors they can also become their best contextual mentor/advisor :) Numbers: In the last three months of being in the private alpha mode with 15 startups(out of 1000+) and 40 investors( from Valley and India), we have enabled 300+ interactions with 3 closures. We have been loved more by the investors, than by startups :)

@bentossell Phew I wrote an article almost for you questions :D Remember our Twitter chat? How are we different: Well you can compare with us any product/platform and when it comes to empowering entrepreneurs and allowing them to pitch directly, there isn't any. The first meeting we had while in Valley was with Angel List and they loved our value proposition of on boarding people from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Pinterest and others. And yes, we already have a couple of people from these companies on board :) Including the Founding engineer at Pinterest :)

@nitprashant haha love a detailed answer! I'd be keen to see a few angel/seed investors jump in on their thoughts around this :) The only thing that stood out to me in your answer was putting startups in front of the right types of investors straight away (like travel). I think that is a good thing but also can be viewed from the otherside... it shows some hustle from the founders if they research firms/investors, know they like the travel space and then hustle some more to get a good, warm intro to them. I think (speculation based on reading/listening) that investors like this approach because it allows the founders to show certain qualities they want to invest in

@bentossell I completely agree with the point you are making Ben. When we on board investors and tell them the reasoning/understanding/throught process behind the product, they like it because we have built it keeping in mind their life. In fact, one of the things we always knew while conceptualizing was the fact that if this product has to work, it has to work for the demand side first i.e "Investors" and "Technologists" and all of that got validated when we did the invite only Alpha. The theory of entrepreneurs hustling and getting to investors is something we find mind boggling. Is it fair that you and I waste a couple of months arranging for meetings in this age? :)

@nitprashant When you say "value proposition of on-boarding ppl from ____" , are these people supposed to be the word-of-mouth publicity to their founder friends or Angellist kind of syndicate fund participants in your eyes ?

@aabhashk Thank you Abhash :)

@nikhiljoisr Thank you Nikhil. Glad that ShotPitch worked out for you :)

@harshsnehanshu Thank you Harsh. Glad that it worked for you :)

@chezacke Hey thank you for raising this. Yes, the quality of the platform is defined by the investor quality and that is why we make sure to get on a phone/skype call before approving an investor in the system. In fact the first 500 people we want to on board mostly from Valley and India will mostly be done manually. Although we have had interest from Europe, Mexico and other parts of the world :)

@john_krehbiel Thank you so much for asking this. Does my answer to Ben's question answer yours? :) If not, will be happy to clarify.

@john_krehbiel Thank you John, glad it does. Would love to know what you do :)

@jedbyb When it comes to hustling we have done our part as well. But to be able to know and pitch to the relevant investors+technologists is something that we believe( and also from market feedback) isn't something that is completely justifiable. http://inc42.com/resources/entre... PS: We did hustle to make sure that ShotPitch gets on PH via Jack Smith :)

@erin_little Thank you Erin :)

@niteshmanav @nitprashant Hi Nitesh. Thank you for the feedback. Regarding the Signup Process, if you are using LinkedIn, then yes we mean Signup as an Entrepreneur. We take the details from the entrepreneurs LinkedIn account and add him as a Founder of the Startup. Secondly, we are not supporting multiple startups for a single Entrepreneur account currently. To be honest, you are the first one to request this and if we hear more entrepreneur requesting the same, then we will introduce multiple startup feature. However, for the time being, if you want to submit more than one startup, you can either do that using your co-founders(if any) Linkedin account for the second startup or you could use the email signup feature which is below the LinkedIn Signup button. Hope this answers your questions. Let me know if you have any follow up questions. :)

@bansalnagesh @nitprashant Thanks Nagesh for the prompt reply. Now there will be a follow-up submission, not the questions as of now :)

@natelegler Thank you Nate. We don't plan to charge startups till the time we keep playing in the discovery and pitching space i.e atleast for the next 8-12 months. We really want to crack the discovery and pitching bit, before going into doing the entire lifecycle of fundraising. Till we play this role, the revenue model is on investor side. Let me know if I answered your question and if there is anyway I can help :)

@nitprashant The only follow up question is what is the revenue model on the investor side? Small finder's commission? Also no mention but are y'all funded to be able to extend out up to year while getting the grasp on the discovery/pitch space? Also it really is a great app and outlet for startups. Love how there is that "review" process with the focus on quality startups vs a flood of them.

@natelegler Hey Nate, no it is not finder's commission but subscription model differently charged for individuals and separately charged for Institutional Funds. Because we are talking of a huge number of people on the demand side(Conventional Investors+ Technologists) and selling it as an enterprise product to Institutional Funds, the chunk is big enough :) Think of it as replacing the email of Analysts at Funds. Thank you for the sweet note in the end :)

@nitprashant it hit me as soon as I pressed submit I bet you would do a subscription type of setup! Well done on the whole thing. It has given me some really good ideas on what I'm currently working on (totally different space so no worries).

@natelegler Glad to have been of help :)

@imrsdotco Thank you Rahul :)

@iamjohnlai Thank you John :)

@rueter Thank you Steven. AL or for that matter any platform have never been designed keeping discovery and pitching in mind, they have all been designed to remove the pain from the process of fundraising. Try sending a message to an investor through AL :)