Article source: TechInAsia
While we were recruiting for our first batch of startups at Iterative, we spoke with many deep-tech firms in Southeast Asia.
Just a few months ago, the Singapore government injected S$300 million into Startup SG Equity for deep-tech startups. As we listened to some pitches within this vertical, we noticed a few areas that could be improved. By pointing these out, we hope this will help a few of you pitch your next great idea.
1. An answer searching for a solution
Great startups typically start pitches with the problem they are trying to solve. They spend considerable time making sure that investors can understand and relate to the pain point they want to focus on before talking about their solution.
Deep-tech pitches, we noticed, will sometimes skip the problem slide altogether or spend one short slide on the problem and spend five to 10 slides on their solution.
This happens because deep-tech founders usually come from technical backgrounds and/or from academia. Working in academia, you have a singular focus of testing state-of-the-art ideas in domains that are relatively well-defined. However, translating this idea into a solution that handles specific customer pain points usually isn’t that simple.
Remember that by definition, a solution must have a problem, but in the case of startups, it also needs an audience.