Right Timing

Is it the right time to invest in your business?

Having the right product fit is important as you build your revenue stream and getting more customers, but pitching that it is the right time to invest is a whole different game. Through one of the conferences, a venture capitalist shared that you may have a great idea but the market may be in a wrong time to invest in you. This is due to available options or access that they have and others may have a better growth rate than your industry at that point in time. However, there are two schools of thoughts, my ex boss would argue that it is never the right time to do anything, anything that you do needs to be done with a sense of urgency. Who’s to say who is absolutely right? Ultimately, the focus should be on would that get you the much needed funding today?

Conveying Timeliness

Your startup needs the much needed funding today and of course it is the right time to invest in your company. If you are still struggling to get significant funding, it may be timeliness is not being conveyed across. How do you convey timeliness? “Now is the time!” “Start today!” is not conveying because this is just a call to action. Remember guys, your pitch has to persuade not inform. We are going to share our views on conveying time today. Following motivation sequences, you can include how people have faced a problem that has been exacerbated in recent years. I.e. digitalisation of office processes has been exacerbated due to covid. Those who weren’t ready suffered productivity loss while companies with existing systems in place could simply expand rather than adopting a new system. From this, you start conveying the inevitable transformation of company processes and that their competitors who were delaying such change have embraced it. Perhaps the pre-covid adoption rate was low, today it has grown exponentially. Hence, it is no longer a matter of “should we do this now?” but rather “are we too late?” When conveying timeliness, you need to tie in specific and resonating event to help investors or clients to have an “anchor”. The example used talk about how covid (which was a time specific occurrence) tie into the need to change is now because there are multiple factors or the right “ingredients” to adopt the change.

You can also convey timeliness in the solutions stage by (again) tying a time specific event to your solutions. In Malaysia, the government had announced certain budget policies for companies who embraces work from home initiatives, upgrading of network capabilities, cyber securities and even some initiatives to subsidise certain upgrade of hardwares. This too can persuade potential clients to act now to take advantage of certain financial benefits because now, they are being incentivised to change. When it comes to funding, there are certain indicators or growth trends that you can use to “tie-in” with the potential growth at this point in time. How such trends will boost demand? Like how short form videos have changed how advertisers create content instead of creating advertisements. By visualising such change and how it benefits your startup on the demand side would be more convincing than “Don’t Wait! The Change is Here! The Change is Now!” or one of my favourite examples, “Don’t miss out!” (playing on FOMO). I am not saying that these do not work, it is just that potential investors or clients can become desensitised when too many people have been using it.

Try tying in a time sensitive event to your pitch to make it sound more pressing and create a sense of urgency to adopt your solution or that placing money in the sector your startup is in is the right time now.