October 13, 2025 • 29 mins
PitchItPodcast.com: Everyone's looking to raise money - but so few are doing it correctly. In this podcast, you'll learn the necessary ingredients on what makes a presentation successful - and what investors REALLY want to hear!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Pitch It Podcast. This
is Ron Costa broadcasting live from our studios in Las Vegas, Nevada,
and folks, this is the inaugural issue of our podcast
with the first episode. I'm very psyched about this. Let
me just tell you one of the reasons why we
did this. We need a podcast for issuers and business
(00:31):
owners to come in and pitch their deal to investors.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And one of those things.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Is that's out there. We don't see something that's really really strong.
Build this right here with this podcast, So the question becomes,
of course, how do you pitch your deal? What's the
best way to do this? And that's why in this
initial podcast, I'd like to bring on Mike Brett from
Small Cap Equity Advisors to talk about it to our
(00:55):
audience here. Mike, how you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Doing well? Doing well? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, it's great, and Mike's been a very important guest
from our previous podcasts. And you really won't find anyone
out there that's more in tune with the industry than
than than you are, Mike, for sure. So yeah, so
I wanted to just let's get this thing real real quickly.
You see a lot of people are raising money of course, right,
(01:21):
and you've been doing this for a really long time.
So when someone comes to you and says, hey, I'm
looking to raise money for my business and I want
to pitch my business to somebody, Uh, let's just start
off from the top level. What are you telling rafa back?
Are there anything that any words of wisdom that they
start off with?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, first thing, that's a good question. The first thing
I you know, I cover with anybody is some statistics
that investors are aware of. But whoever's asking for money
seems to a volume. And first off, ninety percent of
the businesses fail and for twenty two percent of the
(02:01):
businesses never have a market for whatever they're peddling. And
fifty percent of the businesses out there closed down in
five years. And get this one, seventy five percent of
companies that are VC backed venture capital back never return
any money.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Now why are.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Those yeah, and why are those figures important?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Investors know these figures, So if you're pitching them or
asking them for money, you have to be able to
address those failures. You know, ninety percent of businesses fail
and that's startups. Uh, you know you have do you
have an addressable market, forty two percent don't, and seventy
(02:47):
five percent of the companies that get VC money never
return a penny. So failure is, you know, in the
forefront of every investor's mind. So unless they can understand
and why, you're not going to be part of the statistics,
They're just not going to write a check no matter
how bright and shiny you know the object is.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, or how great their pitch deck is or something
like that too. I mean, how much money do people
spend on pitch decks that I really don't make a difference, right.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, And that's good, that's a good point. I mean
you see a lot on LinkedIn and and other things.
Everybody's an expert when it comes to how to raise money,
and all they're really doing is peddling, you know, how
to they'll put a deck together for you, or they'll
review your existing deck and slides and put on a
pitch conference or something. And the first but what people
(03:41):
don't understand is an investor takes less than ninety seconds
to look at a pitch deck to review. So I
tell people, look, what are you going to say in
ninety seconds to get the investor interested enough to want
to get additional information from you and talk to you
in more detail. You got ninety seconds. Most of them
(04:04):
think they're going to get on the phone or however
are they going to pitch and they got all day
long to you know, tell their story, and that's not
the case. You got a small window of opportunity, and
so you've got to be prepared. And a lot of
these so called experts out there just don't prepare people
to ask for money, you know, and it's a shame.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, you're talking about ninety seconds here with this pitch
It podcast. Our vision is to give them twenty minutes
do a quick pitch on the podcast and that's it.
So they're going to have to you know, get that
first ninety seconds in real quickly and then the rest
hopefully gets the investor curious enough to give them a
call for more information. So, so how would they do that, Michael?
(04:50):
What do you start off with if you sort off
with the background of the executives or did you just
go into the product or what's the best way?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well you really, yeah, they really need this to start
with the problem you know that somebody will pay for
rather than i mean the team, the officers the people
involved are way down the list they need to start
out with. Look, everybody's faced with this problem. We have
the solution, and why is our solution good? Then you
(05:18):
have to explain that, and then you have to address
the situation where all right, you've identified the problem, you
have the solution, will anybody pay for it? And you
know how much? And how will you sell? So there's
there are a lot of elements that go into the
initial conversation that somebody has with with a potential investor.
(05:40):
And again it depends on what investor you're talking. Is
it an individual, high networth individual, or is it an
investment bank, venture capital? They all have their different requirements. Now,
having said that that the founder has to make sure
before they get pitching any buddy, they want to be
(06:01):
able to pitch the right type of investor. Now, what
I say is, if you are raising money for cannabis
or oil and gas, you have to be talking to
an oil and gas investor or a cannabis investor, not
somebody that invests in high tech. And a lot of
(06:21):
people go on LinkedIn and the other people are selling
a so called list of investors emails or anything that
first off, I think We've had this conversation before. Real
investors don't put their name and contact information on the
list to be sold because they're going to get spammed
by everybody's out there trying to raise a buck. So
(06:44):
and that's really the wrong avenue to take. Which what
somebody needs to do is build their own network. However
they do. That could be for pr it could be
through you know, YouTube, like you're talking about YouTube channels.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
You build.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
An audience that's interested in what you have to say,
and then they'll call you and say, hey, I heard
your podcast. I'd like to know more information about what
you're trying to do, and then you know, you get
into a dialogue where investors they're actually calling you rather
than you trying to hunt them down through emails and
(07:21):
any other way. So that's what people need to understand
when they come to raising money. There's the right way
and the wrong way to do it. And we'll get
into some more of that later on this interview.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, no, you nailed it on that. That's absolutely right,
and I think that's one of the reasons why we
took so much time in developing this podcast as well
as our Must See Bus network, because that is going
to be targeted to people who want especially what they're
looking for. So you mentioned the cannabis investor, Maybe if
can do a search for cannabis and find out all
these different podcasts and videos related to businesses raising money
(07:55):
for their cannabis operations. So, yeah, being a targeted audience
is really big. But what I've found out from a
lot of people talking to them is that these guys
don't have eyeballs or enough eyeballs to their deals to
begin with, and if they do, they're not people who
are actually going to actually make a decision. They're kind
of like tire pickers in a way. And I don't
(08:16):
know if do you address that as well or no.
I mean that's just a matter of getting in front
of the right people, which again we're trying to do
for these businesses who pitch on the podcast, on this
pitching podcast, and certainly the people who are going to
be adding content to the Musci dot Bus network.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, I mean, those are all good points and that
need to be covered, you know, at some point, But
it really comes down to the startup founder talking to
the right people, and it's not easy to find the
right type of investor. Many people trying to raise what
money think they can just because they have a bright
(08:58):
shiny object is what I call it, and they put
it on LinkedIn or some other social media site that
they have this idea and raising money. They think everybody's
going to be excited about and throw money at them.
But you know, as I mentioned at the top of
the hour, investors are aware of the struggles of businesses
(09:18):
that fail, and investors want to know i'ma going to
get my money back and win, and that has to
be talked about very early on in the presentation. And again,
to be clear, I don't put together presentations. I don't
train people on what to say and how to say it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
But you know, after.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Spending thirty years of doing this and attending multiple conferences
and events, you know I know what investors look for,
and you know what you need to include and what
you need to exclude from a presentation, because your whole
idea is not to get a check, it's to peak
their interest, to have a further conversation to where the
(10:02):
investor says, Okay, how do I invest Who do I
write the check to? That's where you want to go
when you're raising money. You know you want to get
the investor to ask the question.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Absolutely. You hear all these stories about, oh, you know,
I did this pitch and they wrote me a check
on the spot, and I keep wondering, what's the percentage
of time that that happens. It's probably very yeah, very low.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I mean, you know, like a lot of you see
a lot of these pitch events that are on the
advertised were, if you know, not not a podcast, but
a actual event where somebody pays a couple of grand
to go and pitch to fifty investors. Well, first off,
it's illegal, and we'll get into that. And secondly, you
(10:47):
don't know who you're pitching to. You know, there could
be just because they're in they're classified as investors, they
may not be the right type of investor for the
deal you're pitching number one and number two. You know,
as we've talked about on other shows, you know, there
are security rules that you have to abide by when
(11:07):
you're talking to somebody. You know, you can't just go
to an event and start saying this is who we
are and we're raising five million dollars. Well, you know
you can't do that. You know, you got to do
a reg defiling under five or six C that allows
you to talk in public about it, advertise and promote it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So there.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I don't want to get too technical, but there are
a lot of elements that go into how you find investors,
what you say to them, and you know, do you
build your own network, you try to use somebody else's.
And you've probably seen on LinkedIn and some other sites
people saying I'll make warm introductions for you. Well, that's
(11:47):
a bunch of boloney. First off, why would I want
to introduce you, a total stranger to somebody that I've
known for fifteen or twenty years. If I'm not going
to if I don't think your deal is good enough
for me to write a check and invest, why would
I want to make a warm introduction so that you
(12:08):
can call and say, hey, Mike Prepp referred me to you,
you know, write me a check.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I mean, those warm introductions just don't work. But as
I've said in some of my articles on LinkedIn, most
people trying to raise the money, you're so desperate for
the money they'll buy into anything any kind of course
or a masterclass or or a list, thinking that it's
(12:35):
going to be the answer to the problem and it
really just compounds abrouv.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah. You know, well Facebook told me that there's a
lot of hot women in my neighborhood waiting to meet me.
So that hasn't really worked out.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, yeah, you and I get the same messages.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, so okay, Well, well and that's probably that's basically
your business too. You consult these people too. They've hired you,
and you consult them what stuffs to take and what
to look out for and step by stuff process.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Right, Yeah, And that's a good point to me. There's
racing capital is a process. Many many people don't understand
the process. They think all they have to do is
put a fancy deck together and start posting on LinkedIn
or some social media site and everybody should flock and
write them a check. It doesn't work that way. There's
(13:28):
a process, and you know, depending on what you're trying,
how much you're trying to raise, if you're talking to
strangers or people, you know, you know, there are different
security laws, state and federal that you have to abide by.
And what I do is I advise clients on the
proper way to do and comply with the process of
(13:49):
raising capital. I don't raise the capital form because you
have to have a.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Funeral license in order to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
But I can tell them, Look, from what you've told me,
you could use a regulation, a offering, a regulation, D,
a regulation, crowd funding, uh, you know, five or six C.
And this is what you need to do, this is
how you need to conduct it. This is what you
can say, which you can't say. You know, I can
go through that because in many people the contacts say, look,
(14:21):
we don't want to spend the time to do that,
we just want somebody to write us a check. Well,
it doesn't work out way. It doesn't work Vicky. Vicky's
pointed that out on a couple of podcasts that we've interviews,
we've done.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
But everybody, like you said, Ron, I talked to one
investor one time and he wrote me a big check.
Well that really doesn't happen. That's usually fluff.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, other deal doesn't die. Okay, So let
me ask another question, Mike, And we live in Las
Vegas here, and there's a lot of confidences that come
in with businesses looking to raise money, know these micro
cop things, and they go out and they deals. What's
a time frame for this. How long should you pitch
a deal in front of investors before they just start
(15:06):
falling asleep?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, good point. I mean probably ten minutes. And your
presentation shouldn't be any longer. If you're using a deck,
slides shouldn't be any longer than ten And somebody should
not be reading from the deck or the slides to
the investors. They'll immediately fall asleep. And you know, you
(15:31):
want to get to the point, you know, you really
want to right off to get their attention. You want
to say, you know, this is who we are, and
this is the problem we're solving. This is how much
we're trying to raise. You've got to get right to
the media the issue, how much we're trying to raise,
and you know, then then be able to tell the
investors this is how you're going.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
To get your money back.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And when I mean without empty promises and you know
type or anything like that. I mean, you can tell investor,
you know, we're going to go public in it's eighteen
months and this is how or we have the people
lined up they're going to buy us out. I mean,
you have to have some kind of a reason that
(16:12):
investors are going to get their money back and when
so they feel comfortable in writing you a check. Now,
I mean you have to be truthful about that too.
You can't just throw something out about, well, we're going
to be acquired by a competitor. You know, investors have
heard all that before, so you have to be realistic
in what you're telling them. So, but you know, not
(16:33):
more than ten minutes. And then you want to open
it up to questions and answers Q and A. Then
you really know you by the type of questions and
the number of questions you get, you get a pretty
good idea of how everybody was listening to the presentation.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's a great point. The longer the presentation, the less questions,
it seems like. And these guys that come up and
talk for ten twenty minutes, they're the ones who get
a lot of questions afterwards. And I think that's I
think you're right. I think that shows a lot better
interest than you're kind of like dangling the bait a
little bit rather than just boring everyone with details and
nobody wants to hear about it.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, And then yeah, when you talk about boring with details,
so many founders want to sound intelligent, so they start
using all kinds of technical jargon. People investors don't want
to hear that. You know, they don't want to be
talked down to you like they're stupid, and they don't
want to hear you up there talking about all kinds
(17:28):
of technical information that will put them to sleep.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Get right to the issue. This is the problem.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
This is why we're going to solve it. This is
how we're going to solve it. We have pain customers
right now. We have not your mom and dad and friends,
but you know, we have people one hundred customers right
now that are paying X number dollars for it, and
they're renewed. I mean, investors want to hear that information
rather th than we have a bright, shiny object that
(17:56):
everybody's going to want to buy until nobody does. And
that's what investors, that's what goes through their mind when
they're setting to these presentations. They go, oh my god,
not another one that's got an idea that everybody's going
to want to buy and they have no customers. And
then the other thing that people pitch is, well, we're
(18:16):
the next Unicorn, and Unicorn is a billion dollar valuation.
You have no sales, You're not going to be a unicorn.
And then the other one is we have disruptive technology.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No you don't.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You don't have any sales, you know, how can you
have disruptive with those? So there's a lot of mistakes
people make at these live conferences, being.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Too long and provose and boring.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Those are a few of them right there, but you know,
just not getting down to the point, especially if there's
going to be ten to fifteen other companies presenting. You know,
the investor is going to start getting up and walking
out after a few if they're all going to be
this saying. And that's what you see when you go
to these events. Everybody has the same deck, the same
(19:06):
pitch because they all went to the same people to
get coached, and they never really delved into the intricacies
of what the process is for raising capital and what
investors want. It's always what the founder wants, and that's
the wrong way to do it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And you know, a lot of a lot of sense
what you're saying, Mike, is investors invest that's what they do, basically,
that's what they do for a living. So they see
all kinds of pitches, they hear all kinds of stuff,
and they already know how to filter through it. Get
rid of the irrelevant words, the irrelevant language, and listen
(19:50):
to the buzzwords. Listen to what it is, why it is,
how long it's going to take for you to make
a return on your investment if you invest this, and
be like direct with like bullet points to it so
that they pay attention. Otherwise it's in there, they hear
it out of their head. They don't care because they
(20:12):
heard it one hundred times. So you've got to be
really different. Is that what you're like trying to say
that be different, be concise and catch their attention and
make them understand why their money is best invested with you,
because this is the rate of return you're going to
get within this period of time.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Because we know it, we have experienced with it exactly.
I mean, you know, investors know where and how to invest.
They don't need to be educated or browbeat into saying
this is you know, the fear of missing out if
you don't invest. You know, I got to pitch the
other day, you know, I just was not it. First off,
(20:53):
I asked the guy to send me something, email me
something so I can review.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
He didn't.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
He wanted to pitch me on the phone, like I
was gonna write him a check right then. And when
I started asking a couple of questions, he got real
defensive and said, man, you ask a lot of questions.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I said, well, he.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Didn't send me anything to review, and the only way
to get an understanding of what you're trying to do
is ask the questions. And I said, Secondly, I asked
you about your competition. You told me you don't have
any competition. I asked you about the cost of your product.
You don't know the figures. I asked what your profit
margin is. You don't have I mean, I went on
and on, and I said I'm not interested. Well, he
(21:31):
got really irate and he said, well, I wouldn't have
you invest anyhow.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And that's what you don't do.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You don't burn a bridge, you know, you don't defensive. Yeah,
I think I was reading me the Rite Act, and
you know, I said good luck, and he said he
kept talking.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I just hung up. Yeah, my god.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
The all kinds out there, for sure. But by anyway,
this is one of one of the reasons why we're
developing this this picture podcast and putting it out there.
For issuers, and it's going to be about a ten
to twenty minute they were going to get somebody on
the show introduce them, and then just have them pitch
their deal as if they were talking to a whole
audience whatever ten twenty minutes or so, give them their
(22:12):
contact information for more questions or more information, and then
if they want more information for us, they can contact
us or contact you, and eventually hopefully give them on
the Must See Network will give them a free channel
and we'll let them do all their live streaming and
everything to an audience of investors who are paying for content.
(22:34):
You must see. It's kind of like a Netflix system,
only just for credit funding. So these people who are
great up in Yeah, these people who.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Are that's a very vague to the investors. Yeah, yeah,
that's very valuable.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
And that's a valuable service to you because there are
not a lot of out there that are effective. And
you know, I think you've got a good idea of
good approach on what you're doing because again, people trying
to companies trying to raise money. I don't care whether
it's the startup or you know, a company that's going
for a Series A or B financing. You know, they
all need some kind of a platform or some kind
(23:10):
of way of getting investors to hear about them. And
you know, I tell clients, look, if I don't know
who you are and what you're doing, why would I
want to write you a check? If I haven't heard
about you, then I don't know you. And how can
I trust a total stranger with my money if I
(23:30):
don't know who you are? And so something like you're
talking about Ron, it's something like you're talking about with
the podcast. It gives you know, somebody a platform to
be for investors to be aware of them, to know them,
and then if they do their pitch right, the investor,
after it's all over, the investor will call for email
(23:52):
and say, hey, I just saw you on the Ron
CASA pitch network. I'd like to get some information about
your deal. That's how you start and build your own network.
But you don't you don't come out and ask for
the check. You know, you tell them how much you're
trying to raise on what four, but you don't ask
them for the check. In that first, you build up trust,
you build up a relationship, you build up your network.
(24:14):
And what I tell people is don't wait until the
last minute to raise money, because it takes somewhere from
six to twelve months to really start from scratch and
raise money.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's not done in the thirty days.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Despite what you might read that somebody reads thirty five
million dollars in thirty days just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
So you know, I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So Mike, Mike, why don't you just I want to
close this out, tell the audience your phone number or
way to get in touch with you, and if they
want further information from you in terms of guidance on
how to move this process forward.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, they can call me at nine to five to
one two three six eight four seven three. They can
email me in real simple email. It's my Brett B
r E T T E at gmail dot com. They
can go to LinkedIn and get my profile and see.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
What I do.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And you know how I advise companies, and you know,
contact me and I can walk through the process with them,
and you know basically what I tell people's look, I
can advise you and consult with you to keep you
out of jail, because if you don't do it right,
you are going to get taught and the SEC and
(25:29):
State regulators are not nice people when investors in their
particular state are getting taken advantage of. So you know,
if you don't do it right, you got a problem.
And let me make one other one other point I
run at the beginning. You know, I mentioned that I'm
getting a lot of calls from people trying to finance films. Well,
(25:51):
the one thing there are what I've seen in probably
a dozen packages from them, is they're all talking about
the excitement. You know, they're talking about this movie star
they got signed up, talking about the script they you know,
they talk about all the glory of being involved with
a film, but they never disclose the risk involved with investment.
(26:15):
They don't talk about the risk of the film industry,
how volorati it is, how films almost all of them
lose money. They don't talk about the creative accounting that's involved,
or investors lose money. They don't talk about the distribute
distribution challenges, how's the film going to get out there?
And then they don't talk about the how the investor
(26:37):
is going to benefit. Is he getting equity, is he
getting a revenue share? Is there coming from streaming just television?
I mean, just a lot of disclosure. They just bypass
all that, and then they had one person tell me, well,
we're not trying to scare investors away by telling them
disclosing risk. We're trying to raise money. Well, you just
(26:57):
open yourself up for investors later on saying hey, wait
a minute. You know I want my money back, and
if you haven't done it right, you're gonna have to refund.
So that's one thing that I do. I help guide companies.
And you know, again, we're not a free service. We
charge for it. We don't take any success fees. We
can get into that in another show as to why,
(27:20):
but you know we can we can at least get
the clients, whether they're in film or oil and gas
or technology, starter on the right foot with the right
type of paperwork and you know, make sure they do
it right from the get go.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Now it sounds right, It sounds by Mike. Did you
know that there there's a bill out there voting on
building Hollywood studios here in Las Vegas to kind of
bring that whole community out here to film and everything else.
I don't know whether it's going to pass or not.
We'll see what happens, but anyway, yeah, no, it sounds
good and and folks out there, if you're if you're
if you're an issuer or business owner, you're looking to
(27:56):
raise money, you want to get on the podcast, let
us know. Go to pitch It podcast dot com and
fill out the form there and we'll see what we
can do. Give me details on how to get on
the show. We're going to be syndicating this, of course
to all the syndication sources. You go to that website
and scroll down you'll see the sources out there, and
we need you to subscribe. Again, we just started this podcast.
(28:17):
This is our first episode. We need to get subscribers,
So pick the one that you like the best and
subscribe to that and one by one we'll be edding
them as we go along. And then finally on the
Mussy dot biz that's a streaming channel. We can syndicate
you all over Google, Apple, Amazon, Prime, Roku, and we've
(28:37):
got a whole bunch of other content syndication sources to
get your deal out and you can tell your story
to the world. So thank you so much, Mike, thanks
for being on the show today, and we looking forward
to more podcasts with the Pitch It Podcast. Everyone, thanks
for listening and have a great week. Thanks bye
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Pitch It Podcast. This
is Ron Costa broadcasting live from our studios in Las Vegas, Nevada,
and folks, this is the inaugural issue of our podcast
with the first episode. I'm very psyched about this. Let
me just tell you one of the reasons why we
did this. We need a podcast for issuers and business
(00:31):
owners to come in and pitch their deal to investors.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And one of those things.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Is that's out there. We don't see something that's really really strong.
Build this right here with this podcast, So the question becomes,
of course, how do you pitch your deal? What's the
best way to do this? And that's why in this
initial podcast, I'd like to bring on Mike Brett from
Small Cap Equity Advisors to talk about it to our
(00:55):
audience here. Mike, how you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Doing well? Doing well? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, it's great, and Mike's been a very important guest
from our previous podcasts. And you really won't find anyone
out there that's more in tune with the industry than
than than you are, Mike, for sure. So yeah, so
I wanted to just let's get this thing real real quickly.
You see a lot of people are raising money of course, right,
(01:21):
and you've been doing this for a really long time.
So when someone comes to you and says, hey, I'm
looking to raise money for my business and I want
to pitch my business to somebody, Uh, let's just start
off from the top level. What are you telling rafa back?
Are there anything that any words of wisdom that they
start off with?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, first thing, that's a good question. The first thing
I you know, I cover with anybody is some statistics
that investors are aware of. But whoever's asking for money
seems to a volume. And first off, ninety percent of
the businesses fail and for twenty two percent of the
(02:01):
businesses never have a market for whatever they're peddling. And
fifty percent of the businesses out there closed down in
five years. And get this one, seventy five percent of
companies that are VC backed venture capital back never return
any money.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Now why are.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Those yeah, and why are those figures important?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Investors know these figures, So if you're pitching them or
asking them for money, you have to be able to
address those failures. You know, ninety percent of businesses fail
and that's startups. Uh, you know you have do you
have an addressable market, forty two percent don't, and seventy
(02:47):
five percent of the companies that get VC money never
return a penny. So failure is, you know, in the
forefront of every investor's mind. So unless they can understand
and why, you're not going to be part of the statistics,
They're just not going to write a check no matter
how bright and shiny you know the object is.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, or how great their pitch deck is or something
like that too. I mean, how much money do people
spend on pitch decks that I really don't make a difference, right.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, And that's good, that's a good point. I mean
you see a lot on LinkedIn and and other things.
Everybody's an expert when it comes to how to raise money,
and all they're really doing is peddling, you know, how
to they'll put a deck together for you, or they'll
review your existing deck and slides and put on a
pitch conference or something. And the first but what people
(03:41):
don't understand is an investor takes less than ninety seconds
to look at a pitch deck to review. So I
tell people, look, what are you going to say in
ninety seconds to get the investor interested enough to want
to get additional information from you and talk to you
in more detail. You got ninety seconds. Most of them
(04:04):
think they're going to get on the phone or however
are they going to pitch and they got all day
long to you know, tell their story, and that's not
the case. You got a small window of opportunity, and
so you've got to be prepared. And a lot of
these so called experts out there just don't prepare people
to ask for money, you know, and it's a shame.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, you're talking about ninety seconds here with this pitch
It podcast. Our vision is to give them twenty minutes
do a quick pitch on the podcast and that's it.
So they're going to have to you know, get that
first ninety seconds in real quickly and then the rest
hopefully gets the investor curious enough to give them a
call for more information. So, so how would they do that, Michael?
(04:50):
What do you start off with if you sort off
with the background of the executives or did you just
go into the product or what's the best way?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well you really, yeah, they really need this to start
with the problem you know that somebody will pay for
rather than i mean the team, the officers the people
involved are way down the list they need to start
out with. Look, everybody's faced with this problem. We have
the solution, and why is our solution good? Then you
(05:18):
have to explain that, and then you have to address
the situation where all right, you've identified the problem, you
have the solution, will anybody pay for it? And you
know how much? And how will you sell? So there's
there are a lot of elements that go into the
initial conversation that somebody has with with a potential investor.
(05:40):
And again it depends on what investor you're talking. Is
it an individual, high networth individual, or is it an
investment bank, venture capital? They all have their different requirements. Now,
having said that that the founder has to make sure
before they get pitching any buddy, they want to be
(06:01):
able to pitch the right type of investor. Now, what
I say is, if you are raising money for cannabis
or oil and gas, you have to be talking to
an oil and gas investor or a cannabis investor, not
somebody that invests in high tech. And a lot of
(06:21):
people go on LinkedIn and the other people are selling
a so called list of investors emails or anything that
first off, I think We've had this conversation before. Real
investors don't put their name and contact information on the
list to be sold because they're going to get spammed
by everybody's out there trying to raise a buck. So
(06:44):
and that's really the wrong avenue to take. Which what
somebody needs to do is build their own network. However
they do. That could be for pr it could be
through you know, YouTube, like you're talking about YouTube channels.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
You build.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
An audience that's interested in what you have to say,
and then they'll call you and say, hey, I heard
your podcast. I'd like to know more information about what
you're trying to do, and then you know, you get
into a dialogue where investors they're actually calling you rather
than you trying to hunt them down through emails and
(07:21):
any other way. So that's what people need to understand
when they come to raising money. There's the right way
and the wrong way to do it. And we'll get
into some more of that later on this interview.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, no, you nailed it on that. That's absolutely right,
and I think that's one of the reasons why we
took so much time in developing this podcast as well
as our Must See Bus network, because that is going
to be targeted to people who want especially what they're
looking for. So you mentioned the cannabis investor, Maybe if
can do a search for cannabis and find out all
these different podcasts and videos related to businesses raising money
(07:55):
for their cannabis operations. So, yeah, being a targeted audience
is really big. But what I've found out from a
lot of people talking to them is that these guys
don't have eyeballs or enough eyeballs to their deals to
begin with, and if they do, they're not people who
are actually going to actually make a decision. They're kind
of like tire pickers in a way. And I don't
(08:16):
know if do you address that as well or no.
I mean that's just a matter of getting in front
of the right people, which again we're trying to do
for these businesses who pitch on the podcast, on this
pitching podcast, and certainly the people who are going to
be adding content to the Musci dot Bus network.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, I mean, those are all good points and that
need to be covered, you know, at some point, But
it really comes down to the startup founder talking to
the right people, and it's not easy to find the
right type of investor. Many people trying to raise what
money think they can just because they have a bright
(08:58):
shiny object is what I call it, and they put
it on LinkedIn or some other social media site that
they have this idea and raising money. They think everybody's
going to be excited about and throw money at them.
But you know, as I mentioned at the top of
the hour, investors are aware of the struggles of businesses
(09:18):
that fail, and investors want to know i'ma going to
get my money back and win, and that has to
be talked about very early on in the presentation. And again,
to be clear, I don't put together presentations. I don't
train people on what to say and how to say it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
But you know, after.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Spending thirty years of doing this and attending multiple conferences
and events, you know I know what investors look for,
and you know what you need to include and what
you need to exclude from a presentation, because your whole
idea is not to get a check, it's to peak
their interest, to have a further conversation to where the
(10:02):
investor says, Okay, how do I invest Who do I
write the check to? That's where you want to go
when you're raising money. You know you want to get
the investor to ask the question.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Absolutely. You hear all these stories about, oh, you know,
I did this pitch and they wrote me a check
on the spot, and I keep wondering, what's the percentage
of time that that happens. It's probably very yeah, very low.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I mean, you know, like a lot of you see
a lot of these pitch events that are on the
advertised were, if you know, not not a podcast, but
a actual event where somebody pays a couple of grand
to go and pitch to fifty investors. Well, first off,
it's illegal, and we'll get into that. And secondly, you
(10:47):
don't know who you're pitching to. You know, there could
be just because they're in they're classified as investors, they
may not be the right type of investor for the
deal you're pitching number one and number two. You know,
as we've talked about on other shows, you know, there
are security rules that you have to abide by when
(11:07):
you're talking to somebody. You know, you can't just go
to an event and start saying this is who we
are and we're raising five million dollars. Well, you know
you can't do that. You know, you got to do
a reg defiling under five or six C that allows
you to talk in public about it, advertise and promote it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So there.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I don't want to get too technical, but there are
a lot of elements that go into how you find investors,
what you say to them, and you know, do you
build your own network, you try to use somebody else's.
And you've probably seen on LinkedIn and some other sites
people saying I'll make warm introductions for you. Well, that's
(11:47):
a bunch of boloney. First off, why would I want
to introduce you, a total stranger to somebody that I've
known for fifteen or twenty years. If I'm not going
to if I don't think your deal is good enough
for me to write a check and invest, why would
I want to make a warm introduction so that you
(12:08):
can call and say, hey, Mike Prepp referred me to you,
you know, write me a check.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I mean, those warm introductions just don't work. But as
I've said in some of my articles on LinkedIn, most
people trying to raise the money, you're so desperate for
the money they'll buy into anything any kind of course
or a masterclass or or a list, thinking that it's
(12:35):
going to be the answer to the problem and it
really just compounds abrouv.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah. You know, well Facebook told me that there's a
lot of hot women in my neighborhood waiting to meet me.
So that hasn't really worked out.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, yeah, you and I get the same messages.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, so okay, Well, well and that's probably that's basically
your business too. You consult these people too. They've hired you,
and you consult them what stuffs to take and what
to look out for and step by stuff process.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Right, Yeah, And that's a good point to me. There's
racing capital is a process. Many many people don't understand
the process. They think all they have to do is
put a fancy deck together and start posting on LinkedIn
or some social media site and everybody should flock and
write them a check. It doesn't work that way. There's
(13:28):
a process, and you know, depending on what you're trying,
how much you're trying to raise, if you're talking to
strangers or people, you know, you know, there are different
security laws, state and federal that you have to abide by.
And what I do is I advise clients on the
proper way to do and comply with the process of
(13:49):
raising capital. I don't raise the capital form because you
have to have a.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Funeral license in order to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
But I can tell them, Look, from what you've told me,
you could use a regulation, a offering, a regulation, D,
a regulation, crowd funding, uh, you know, five or six C.
And this is what you need to do, this is
how you need to conduct it. This is what you
can say, which you can't say. You know, I can
go through that because in many people the contacts say, look,
(14:21):
we don't want to spend the time to do that,
we just want somebody to write us a check. Well,
it doesn't work out way. It doesn't work Vicky. Vicky's
pointed that out on a couple of podcasts that we've interviews,
we've done.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
But everybody, like you said, Ron, I talked to one
investor one time and he wrote me a big check.
Well that really doesn't happen. That's usually fluff.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, other deal doesn't die. Okay, So let
me ask another question, Mike, And we live in Las
Vegas here, and there's a lot of confidences that come
in with businesses looking to raise money, know these micro
cop things, and they go out and they deals. What's
a time frame for this. How long should you pitch
a deal in front of investors before they just start
(15:06):
falling asleep?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, good point. I mean probably ten minutes. And your
presentation shouldn't be any longer. If you're using a deck,
slides shouldn't be any longer than ten And somebody should
not be reading from the deck or the slides to
the investors. They'll immediately fall asleep. And you know, you
(15:31):
want to get to the point, you know, you really
want to right off to get their attention. You want
to say, you know, this is who we are, and
this is the problem we're solving. This is how much
we're trying to raise. You've got to get right to
the media the issue, how much we're trying to raise,
and you know, then then be able to tell the
investors this is how you're going.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
To get your money back.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And when I mean without empty promises and you know
type or anything like that. I mean, you can tell investor,
you know, we're going to go public in it's eighteen
months and this is how or we have the people
lined up they're going to buy us out. I mean,
you have to have some kind of a reason that
(16:12):
investors are going to get their money back and when
so they feel comfortable in writing you a check. Now,
I mean you have to be truthful about that too.
You can't just throw something out about, well, we're going
to be acquired by a competitor. You know, investors have
heard all that before, so you have to be realistic
in what you're telling them. So, but you know, not
(16:33):
more than ten minutes. And then you want to open
it up to questions and answers Q and A. Then
you really know you by the type of questions and
the number of questions you get, you get a pretty
good idea of how everybody was listening to the presentation.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's a great point. The longer the presentation, the less questions,
it seems like. And these guys that come up and
talk for ten twenty minutes, they're the ones who get
a lot of questions afterwards. And I think that's I
think you're right. I think that shows a lot better
interest than you're kind of like dangling the bait a
little bit rather than just boring everyone with details and
nobody wants to hear about it.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, And then yeah, when you talk about boring with details,
so many founders want to sound intelligent, so they start
using all kinds of technical jargon. People investors don't want
to hear that. You know, they don't want to be
talked down to you like they're stupid, and they don't
want to hear you up there talking about all kinds
(17:28):
of technical information that will put them to sleep.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Get right to the issue. This is the problem.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
This is why we're going to solve it. This is
how we're going to solve it. We have pain customers
right now. We have not your mom and dad and friends,
but you know, we have people one hundred customers right
now that are paying X number dollars for it, and
they're renewed. I mean, investors want to hear that information
rather th than we have a bright, shiny object that
(17:56):
everybody's going to want to buy until nobody does. And
that's what investors, that's what goes through their mind when
they're setting to these presentations. They go, oh my god,
not another one that's got an idea that everybody's going
to want to buy and they have no customers. And
then the other thing that people pitch is, well, we're
(18:16):
the next Unicorn, and Unicorn is a billion dollar valuation.
You have no sales, You're not going to be a unicorn.
And then the other one is we have disruptive technology.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No you don't.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You don't have any sales, you know, how can you
have disruptive with those? So there's a lot of mistakes
people make at these live conferences, being.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Too long and provose and boring.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Those are a few of them right there, but you know,
just not getting down to the point, especially if there's
going to be ten to fifteen other companies presenting. You know,
the investor is going to start getting up and walking
out after a few if they're all going to be
this saying. And that's what you see when you go
to these events. Everybody has the same deck, the same
(19:06):
pitch because they all went to the same people to
get coached, and they never really delved into the intricacies
of what the process is for raising capital and what
investors want. It's always what the founder wants, and that's
the wrong way to do it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And you know, a lot of a lot of sense
what you're saying, Mike, is investors invest that's what they do, basically,
that's what they do for a living. So they see
all kinds of pitches, they hear all kinds of stuff,
and they already know how to filter through it. Get
rid of the irrelevant words, the irrelevant language, and listen
(19:50):
to the buzzwords. Listen to what it is, why it is,
how long it's going to take for you to make
a return on your investment if you invest this, and
be like direct with like bullet points to it so
that they pay attention. Otherwise it's in there, they hear
it out of their head. They don't care because they
(20:12):
heard it one hundred times. So you've got to be
really different. Is that what you're like trying to say
that be different, be concise and catch their attention and
make them understand why their money is best invested with you,
because this is the rate of return you're going to
get within this period of time.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Because we know it, we have experienced with it exactly.
I mean, you know, investors know where and how to invest.
They don't need to be educated or browbeat into saying
this is you know, the fear of missing out if
you don't invest. You know, I got to pitch the
other day, you know, I just was not it. First off,
(20:53):
I asked the guy to send me something, email me
something so I can review.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
He didn't.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
He wanted to pitch me on the phone, like I
was gonna write him a check right then. And when
I started asking a couple of questions, he got real
defensive and said, man, you ask a lot of questions.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I said, well, he.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Didn't send me anything to review, and the only way
to get an understanding of what you're trying to do
is ask the questions. And I said, Secondly, I asked
you about your competition. You told me you don't have
any competition. I asked you about the cost of your product.
You don't know the figures. I asked what your profit
margin is. You don't have I mean, I went on
and on, and I said I'm not interested. Well, he
(21:31):
got really irate and he said, well, I wouldn't have
you invest anyhow.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And that's what you don't do.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You don't burn a bridge, you know, you don't defensive. Yeah,
I think I was reading me the Rite Act, and
you know, I said good luck, and he said he
kept talking.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I just hung up. Yeah, my god.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
The all kinds out there, for sure. But by anyway,
this is one of one of the reasons why we're
developing this this picture podcast and putting it out there.
For issuers, and it's going to be about a ten
to twenty minute they were going to get somebody on
the show introduce them, and then just have them pitch
their deal as if they were talking to a whole
audience whatever ten twenty minutes or so, give them their
(22:12):
contact information for more questions or more information, and then
if they want more information for us, they can contact
us or contact you, and eventually hopefully give them on
the Must See Network will give them a free channel
and we'll let them do all their live streaming and
everything to an audience of investors who are paying for content.
(22:34):
You must see. It's kind of like a Netflix system,
only just for credit funding. So these people who are
great up in Yeah, these people who.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Are that's a very vague to the investors. Yeah, yeah,
that's very valuable.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
And that's a valuable service to you because there are
not a lot of out there that are effective. And
you know, I think you've got a good idea of
good approach on what you're doing because again, people trying
to companies trying to raise money. I don't care whether
it's the startup or you know, a company that's going
for a Series A or B financing. You know, they
all need some kind of a platform or some kind
(23:10):
of way of getting investors to hear about them. And
you know, I tell clients, look, if I don't know
who you are and what you're doing, why would I
want to write you a check? If I haven't heard
about you, then I don't know you. And how can
I trust a total stranger with my money if I
(23:30):
don't know who you are? And so something like you're
talking about Ron, it's something like you're talking about with
the podcast. It gives you know, somebody a platform to
be for investors to be aware of them, to know them,
and then if they do their pitch right, the investor,
after it's all over, the investor will call for email
(23:52):
and say, hey, I just saw you on the Ron
CASA pitch network. I'd like to get some information about
your deal. That's how you start and build your own network.
But you don't you don't come out and ask for
the check. You know, you tell them how much you're
trying to raise on what four, but you don't ask
them for the check. In that first, you build up trust,
you build up a relationship, you build up your network.
(24:14):
And what I tell people is don't wait until the
last minute to raise money, because it takes somewhere from
six to twelve months to really start from scratch and
raise money.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's not done in the thirty days.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Despite what you might read that somebody reads thirty five
million dollars in thirty days just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
So you know, I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So Mike, Mike, why don't you just I want to
close this out, tell the audience your phone number or
way to get in touch with you, and if they
want further information from you in terms of guidance on
how to move this process forward.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, they can call me at nine to five to
one two three six eight four seven three. They can
email me in real simple email. It's my Brett B
r E T T E at gmail dot com. They
can go to LinkedIn and get my profile and see.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
What I do.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And you know how I advise companies, and you know,
contact me and I can walk through the process with them,
and you know basically what I tell people's look, I
can advise you and consult with you to keep you
out of jail, because if you don't do it right,
you are going to get taught and the SEC and
(25:29):
State regulators are not nice people when investors in their
particular state are getting taken advantage of. So you know,
if you don't do it right, you got a problem.
And let me make one other one other point I
run at the beginning. You know, I mentioned that I'm
getting a lot of calls from people trying to finance films. Well,
(25:51):
the one thing there are what I've seen in probably
a dozen packages from them, is they're all talking about
the excitement. You know, they're talking about this movie star
they got signed up, talking about the script they you know,
they talk about all the glory of being involved with
a film, but they never disclose the risk involved with investment.
(26:15):
They don't talk about the risk of the film industry,
how volorati it is, how films almost all of them
lose money. They don't talk about the creative accounting that's involved,
or investors lose money. They don't talk about the distribute
distribution challenges, how's the film going to get out there?
And then they don't talk about the how the investor
(26:37):
is going to benefit. Is he getting equity, is he
getting a revenue share? Is there coming from streaming just television?
I mean, just a lot of disclosure. They just bypass
all that, and then they had one person tell me, well,
we're not trying to scare investors away by telling them
disclosing risk. We're trying to raise money. Well, you just
(26:57):
open yourself up for investors later on saying hey, wait
a minute. You know I want my money back, and
if you haven't done it right, you're gonna have to refund.
So that's one thing that I do. I help guide companies.
And you know, again, we're not a free service. We
charge for it. We don't take any success fees. We
can get into that in another show as to why,
(27:20):
but you know we can we can at least get
the clients, whether they're in film or oil and gas
or technology, starter on the right foot with the right
type of paperwork and you know, make sure they do
it right from the get go.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Now it sounds right, It sounds by Mike. Did you
know that there there's a bill out there voting on
building Hollywood studios here in Las Vegas to kind of
bring that whole community out here to film and everything else.
I don't know whether it's going to pass or not.
We'll see what happens, but anyway, yeah, no, it sounds
good and and folks out there, if you're if you're
if you're an issuer or business owner, you're looking to
(27:56):
raise money, you want to get on the podcast, let
us know. Go to pitch It podcast dot com and
fill out the form there and we'll see what we
can do. Give me details on how to get on
the show. We're going to be syndicating this, of course
to all the syndication sources. You go to that website
and scroll down you'll see the sources out there, and
we need you to subscribe. Again, we just started this podcast.
(28:17):
This is our first episode. We need to get subscribers,
So pick the one that you like the best and
subscribe to that and one by one we'll be edding
them as we go along. And then finally on the
Mussy dot biz that's a streaming channel. We can syndicate
you all over Google, Apple, Amazon, Prime, Roku, and we've
(28:37):
got a whole bunch of other content syndication sources to
get your deal out and you can tell your story
to the world. So thank you so much, Mike, thanks
for being on the show today, and we looking forward
to more podcasts with the Pitch It Podcast. Everyone, thanks
for listening and have a great week. Thanks bye
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