"What differentiates you personally?"

When an investor asks you "What differentiates you personally?", what do you answer? 🤔 👇

What the investors are really asking:

Firstly, what makes your team special? Secondly, who are you as a founder and why will you lead this business to success better than anyone else? It’s about communicating passion, commitment and the range of skills that can get the business off the ground.

Where you should look for the answer:

This is all about communicating your team’s unique experience, expertise and commitment to the purpose and vision of your company. Investors will be asking themselves if you have the diversity of skills and team chemistry to succeed. For example, if the team is very technical, do you have gaps in skills required to run the operations and marketing functions effectively.

For a sole founder this question can be even more challenging. While founders in a team will have to wear many hats to get things done, a sole founder has to wear all the hats. So you need a coherent explanation of how you will manage this.

For both teams and sole founders, you should also have a clear understanding of where the big gaps are in terms of talent. For example, the technical team may want to communicate that they see their first hires as operations and marketing people, and that these hires will be made possible through fundraising.

You may also want to discuss partners, advisors and Board members (if you have some) here, as they will bring additional expertise critical to the business, including opening doors for you.

How to make your answer compelling:

There are different schools of thought around founders. Some investors believe the founder(s) must have experience in the field in which they are launching a business. Others believe that anyone with passion, skills and strong commitment can make a novel idea and business work. It is good to understand the type of investor you are talking to as you answer this question, so do some homework before the meeting and look at what sort of businesses/teams they generally invest in.

In addition, spend time working on your story and making it engaging, both rationally and emotionally. Letting investors understand where you have come from, why you started the business and the impact you want to make on the world is critically important. If you can capture their attention and excite them about getting involved in your story and building it together, then you have a much greater chance of engaging with “smart money” investors that can bring you expertise as well as cash.

If you need help with your pitch preparation, our team of mentors can get you investor ready. Learn more and book a FREE chat.