Identify the type of questions that investors may ask the presentation team when pitching a new business. How should the presenter respond to these questions?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Investors generally like to ask questions to which they already know the answers; this is a test to see whether the founding team knows what it's talking about or whether the team is making up answers spontaneously. Investors often ask questions that either require an impossibly precise answer or are so broad that it's hard to tell what they are looking for. In this instance, the presenter should repeat the question to ensure that it has been understood or ask for clarification. The type of question that poses the most problems for the founding team is the inordinately complex one that contains several underlying assumptions. The first thing you should do when faced with such a question is to ask that the question be repeated, to ensure that you haven't missed anything or made an incorrect assumption With the more complicated question, you may feel comfortable answering only part of it. If investors ask a factual question to which you do not know the answer, you should admit that you don't have that answer off the top of your head but will be happy to find it after the meeting is over and get back to the questioner. Finally, if the pitch or anything the team has proposed is criticized by investors, you should be careful not to be defensive or to turn the criticism in any way on the audience.