Investor-Criteria Pitch Rebuild
Rebuild the pitch around how the target investor evaluates success
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
The Investor-Criteria Pitch Rebuild starts by refusing to carry a failed deck unchanged into a different investor room. Research the new audience's mandate, vocabulary, expected returns, and evidence requirements. If the investors evaluate social impact, for example, the pitch must explain who benefits, how impact occurs, and how it can be measured alongside the commercial model. Programs, application templates, forums, and investor materials can expose the questions that decision-makers repeatedly ask. Use those inputs to rebuild financial projections, revise slides, and tell a vision that maps directly to the investor's scorecard. This is not cosmetic personalization: the mechanism changes which evidence leads the story. The output is a pitch that allows a well-matched investor to understand both the venture opportunity and the specific result their capital is intended to create.
Origin
After Black investors rejected Blavity's first pitch, DeBaun researched social-impact investors and rebuilt her materials around their impact criteria.
Core principles
- 01A failed pitch should not be reused unchanged
- 02Different investors evaluate different kinds of value
- 03Research should precede message design
- 04Structured programs can reveal hidden evaluation criteria
How to run it
- 1
Retire the failed version
Identify which assumptions, evidence, or story failed to persuade the original audience.
Watch out Do not interpret every rejection as a request for prettier slides.
- 2
Research the new scorecard
Study the target investors' mandate, desired returns, impact requirements, and prior investments.
Pro tip Use application questions and templates as clues to the real evaluation process.
- 3
Build the missing evidence
Prepare the projections, impact measures, and answers the new investor class expects.
Watch out Label uncertain projections honestly rather than presenting forecasts as facts.
- 4
Retell the vision
Reorder the deck around the investor's criteria while preserving the company's authentic mission and economics.
Pro tip Connect soft outcomes to concrete operating choices such as hiring or distribution.
Watch out Do not manufacture impact claims merely to fit a funder's mandate.
- 5
Pitch the matched audience
Present to investors whose criteria now align with the evidence and revise from their questions.
In the wild
DeBaun researched social-impact investing, entered New Media Ventures, used its templates to create three-year projections, and revised her deck. She emphasized financing the next generation of journalists and how representative advertising could change perceptions of what was possible.
→ She won the initial $100,000 and gained the first anchor for a larger round.
Common mistakes
Reusing a failed deck
A new investor class may use a different scorecard. The same materials can hide the evidence that matters most to them.
Faking alignment
Investor adaptation should reveal genuine fit, not invent a mission or impact the business does not produce.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for fundraisers whose underlying business remains sound but whose pitch or investor targeting is misaligned.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when rejection reflects weak economics or absent demand rather than presentation and investor fit.
From the transcript
“I knew that I shouldn't use those same materials because I needed to tell a different story”
“I needed to think put myself in the mindset of these folks and understand what like what their criteria was”
“I updated my pitch Jack which was pretty straightforward like I said I just updated some of the slides in terms of impact”
From the episode
Morgan DeBaun: Your Startup Survival Kit, from VC Funding to Leadership
Morgan DeBaun