Zoom Presentation Mistakes to Avoid when Pitching your Startup

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I’ve now seen hundreds of fundraising pitches on Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting, Google Meet (Hangouts!), Microsoft Teams, etc. It is unfortunate when entrepreneurs make easy-to-remedy mistakes that inevitably distract potential investors from what might have otherwise been a great pitch, especially at pitch events where time is limited and there are no do-overs. Here’s a back-of-the-napkin list of common errors and recommendations I’ve compiled during the last year-plus of online-only pitches.

• Make sure your company’s name is somewhere in your presentation’s header or footer, especially if several companies will be presenting in a row, as otherwise any investor who’s more than 10 seconds late to your pitch, won’t know who is presenting.
• Share your screen, not your presentation application (e.g. PowerPoint), so that you can easily switch to and present another application during Q&A (e.g. a financial spreadsheet in Excel), if necessary.
• Turn off notifications on your computer. Notification pop-ups can range from the merely annoying (“Your Antivirus is Up-to-date”) to extremely embarrassing (“When you’re done hoodwinking those Angels, give me a call”).
• Video — if part of your presentation — should have a narrative overlay, as some investors may not be watching, only listening, and will have no idea what’s going on if there is no narration; also, silent video is just plain weird.
• Play video from a local file, not a streaming service (e.g. YouTube), as not only do video links have a funny way of “suddenly” not working, but streaming video while simultaneously screen sharing can trash one’s network performance and lower the quality of the screen share.
• Close every application that’s either not part of your presentation or wouldn’t be needed to open a supporting document during Q&A (e.g. Excel), as not only do you want your computer running at peak performance, but more importantly, when you accidentally close your presentation after you’re done presenting (instead of leaving it open on the “ask slide” as you ought), embarrassing emails or other detritus won’t be showing on the screen.
• Don’t have your back facing a sunny window, as it creates screen reflections and other distractions.
• Avoid strange camera angles (up your nose, side of your face, etc.) as they can be disconcerting. Check this beforehand (with someone who will give you an honest opinion). Laptop cameras can be especially problematic (e.g. below your face) so either lower your chair, or perch the laptop on a few books (in which case you may need a wireless mouse).
• Your cellphone’s ringer should be off, or your cellphone should be set to airplane mode.
• If your computer has a softphone, make sure the softphone application is closed and incoming calls won’t interrupt your presentation.
• Certain screen sharing platforms have settings that result in presentations that look fuzzy to the participants (e.g. Zoom’s “optimize for video clip” setting)… check beforehand with a remote confederate, as it’s not something you can easily detect on your own.
• Your presentation should have clearly visible page numbers, as experienced investors will remember a page number that they want you to go back to during Q&A, and otherwise you’ll have to interpret something like “go back to the slide with the funny picture.” In a time-limited one- or two-minute Q&A session, getting to the right slide fast is paramount.
• Keep a folder with shortcuts to all relevant supporting documents on your desktop so that you can get to them fast if needed.
• Open your default browser, close all the open tabs, close the browser, re-open it, and confirm that when it opens, there are no extraneous tabs. It can happen (and has happened!) that a question gets asked that’s best answered by showing something online. There’s no need to pay the network performance penalty of having a newly opened browser try and load twenty pages simultaneously, nor is it worth the risk that that your open tabs reveal anything awkward. Prep this beforehand.
• It should go without saying that you ought to be somewhere quiet, with fantastic bandwidth and no distractions.
• If your pitch will be time-limited, have whatever countdown timer or stopwatch application you’ll be using ready and tested. If you’re using a cellphone application for this, make sure that your cellphone is not set to auto-lock or otherwise go into some unhelpful screen saver mode.

Lastly, while it’s not specifically screen-sharing-related advice, I can’t give pitching advice without adding the most important rule: Practice Your Pitch!

Remember, a well-attended Angel Network pitch event could have dozens of potential investors in attendance. You only get one shot at winning them over. You probably put a lot of effort into your presentation deck, and hopefully you spent a great deal of time practicing your pitch. So don’t overlook the above items that may seem like trivial infrastructure or cosmetic issues, but in fact contribute to potential investors’ first impression of you. As much as investors are looking for a good opportunity, they are equally — or even moreso — looking for a reason to say “No”. Don’t make it easy for them!