1. SWAN ANGEL NETWORK PITCH GUIDELINES
Whether pitching to Swan, or any other Investor / VC, here are some basic guidelines to make sure your pitch is comprehensive, and can address most basic questions every investor will have.
Making sure your Pitch includes all this information will keep the process fast and efficient for you and for Investors

2. A. Executive Summary (Optional)
What
Provide an Executive Summary that covers all the key points of your Start-up. Summarize key messages from each of the following sections
Why
It makes it easier for Investor to grasp the overall story, and follow the rest of the slides.
More than the Investor, writing an Executive Summary will provide you a lot of clarity around your own story.
Best deck-writers usually start with their story-line (in the form of an Exec Story) and build the remaining pitch from there

3. B. Market & Business Model
What
Address the following common questions in terms of the market:
Market Need & Solution
What’s the current market structure? How do transactions / activities happen today?
What are the key pain-points of your target customer(s)?
How are you planning to address the Problem? (Summary of product / service)
Business Model
How will your company make money? Which areas of the value-chain would it address? What would be the revenue model(s)?
Market Sizing
What’s the current and future market size? Expected growth rate?
Why
Successful businesses are built around market needs. Having a clear understanding of market dynamics are an absolute necessity !

4. C. Product & Competitive Analysis
What
Product / Service Features
Key attributes of the Product / Service being offered by the Firm
Product development roadmap, highlighting features or functions already live, and those planned for development over the following 1-2 years
Competitive Analysis
Map the competition – who else does what – which competes with the Firm’s products / services
What are the key differences between you and your competition
How will your start-up build entry barrier to prevent competition from taking over
Why
Product is the core of the business. Without a sound product or service, a Start-up cannot succeed.
Lack of preparedness to face competition is perhaps the single biggest gap in the planning of most start-ups. You may be able to build a smalls successful business in a small location with no competition, but how will you scale to other cities where competition exists, or when others copy your idea or product?

5. D. Founders and the Team What Founders Team Why
Brief of each Founder: Name, Pic, Background, Role in the Start-up
Important disclosures (e.g., if someone is part-time, or if family members are Founders etc.)
Team
Brief description of the rest of the team (names, roles & background if possible)
Why
Products might evolve, Business Models might pivot, but ultimately it’s the Founders who do their magic to create value.
Almost all Investors agree that their most important criteria for funding a company remains whether they can trust the intention and capability of the Founding team

6. E. Traction, Financials and Forecasts
What
Traction
Growth in users, customers, transactions, revenues etc. so far, and forecast for next 3 years
Financials
Unit economics of the business model
Financial forecast (revenues, costs, profit)
Why
Everything finally converges to numbers. Quantification of key business metrics makes it very easy for an Investor to gauge whether the business can scale to its potential or not

7. F. Fundraise – History and Current requirements
What
Clear representation of the funding history so far, including current shareholding pattern
Current fundraise with details of deployment of funds
Why
It’s common for many Start-ups to leave the funding requirements to personal discussion instead of putting in a deck.
However, making this information available upfront can help an Investor quickly gauge whether it is doable for him or not