Raising cash with AI PART 5
Sorry for the short notice but if we miss this window it will be 2024 in a blink of an eye.
And I want to give my readers an opportunity to go into 2024 with an plan for success in place.
So on Monday 11th December (yes next week!)…
We START!
What is included in this AI Accelerator?
I’ll show you my ‘Zero to AI Hero’ framework that anyone can use to start a digital business…
In fact because this will be live I’ll have the capacity to use the latest AI has to offer.
What else do you need to know?
It’s 5 days (Starts Monday 11th December - Ends Friday)
New video daily (Approx 30-minute sessions)
Live chat (Ask me or my team anything all week)
What if you can’t make the live sessions?
I’ve got readers from all over the world so it’s impossible for everyone to make it live. Believe me I’ve tried.
So I’ll be recording on the day, uploading and you’ll be able to access the recording at your leisure. No panicking to make a certain time.
And me and my team will be available for that week for live chat.
So any questions, challenges or wins you have — I’ll be there to chat in a dedicated space as via text and video.
How much to join?
I’m calling this AI Accelerator: Cohort ZERO.
Cool right?
Because this is my first ever accelerator you can join for almost free.
There is a nominal joining fee of $1.
There’s no catch.
I just don’t want people joining and then not showing up. It hurts my feelings.
Ok…
So if you’re ready to join next weeks AI Accelerator…
And become my most cherished Cohort ZERO.
There won’t be any recordings for sale. Once the Accelerator closes it closes.
See you on Monday!
Ok back to the issue!
We’re at the end of our fundraising using AI process.
The previous prompts we’ve covered should be up and running doing initial outreach for you.
The name of the game now is persistence and volume. Keep sending out (relevant, personalised!) applications for funding.
If you receive feedback from any investors make sure to apply it!
Just add their feedback into your previous prompts to tweak.
Keep on applying and improving and eventually you’ll get a show of interest.
At this point we move to the next part of the process.
We’re now going to use AI to prepare the next document: a pitch deck.
Importantly we can generate individual pitch decks for individual investors, specifically matching their investment requirements from previous Parts.
Prefer to watch? Here’s a video:
Let’s get started:
Killer pitch decks
A pitch deck is basically a Powerpoint presentation given to potential investors.
But Powerpoint isn’t very sexy so the world of startups renamed it a “deck”.
Much cooler sounding - like a skateboard deck. Skateboards are cool right?
We have a couple of AI options here.
More than a couple to be honest - I’ve tried out a whole bunch of good (but mainly bad) AI tools for this job.
Tome is more restricted (I find) when it comes to modifying the deck to your needs. But because they have a bunch of preexisting pitch deck templates this is less of an issue in this particular case.
Gamma is more flexible and I’ll be using it in this tutorial.
Try both, see what you like. Both have generous free trials.
Once you have a Gamma account go ahead and create a new presentation. You’ll get a screen like this:
Generate is their fancy all-singing-all-dancing “chat” mode where you talk to their AI and prepare your deck. It’s great - you should try it!
But we’re going to save your credits by pre-processing our pitch deck contents in ChatGPT and then move it into Gamma using Text Transform.
Text Transform basically takes a set of notes and converts it into a deck. We’ll use ChatGPT to flesh out those notes.
Below your work from the last Part we’ll use this prompt:
Flesh this funding application draft into a pitch deck, slide by slide.ChatGPT will prepare everything in a slide by slide format:
This is what we bring into Gamma’s Text Transform tool. Copy and paste it in like so:
Go ahead and click Generate and Gamma will prepare the first draft. Voila, a professional looking pitch deck done for you:
You can now ask Gamma’s AI to make edits or manually do so using their editor.
The main thing is that the first draft is done for you and already looks professional.
Certainly nicer than what 95% of us could knock up in Powerpoint! And for those 5% Powerpoint wizzes out there I bet it takes you more than 30 seconds!
We can use this method to rapidly prep our pitch decks en masse as investors start showing interest, each pitch deck hitting their specific requirements.
Having a pitch deck is one component of the pitch.
The other is the actual script and its delivery.
We’ll again use a prompt under our existing work:
Convert this into a spoken pitch script
Maximum length [x] minutes - provide timings on each section
Provide full script
Give each line on its own line for readability, no long paragraphs
Keep individual thoughts conciseMake sure to add the timing dependant on what you’ve been given to pitch. If in doubt go short - no-one was ever mad about a short pitch!
This generates a script outline like this:
Each line is its own distinct point. Your job is to use these as jumping off points to talk - don’t just read the script out loud!
I’d recommending recording yourself going through your pitch deck. I personally use Tella for all my recording work.
This will:
help you find parts where it doesn’t flow
give you practice delivering it
allow you to record a video pitch
The last is particularly important. Less and less will investors invite you to their office to pitch.
Instead investors often want a short deck and video.
For these videos keep it short!
One way to get feedback is to record and transcribe the recording. Then feed the transcription back to ChatGPT and ask for feedback on how to improve the pitch.
This will only give feedback on the content of the pitch and not the delivery. But it’s still helpful.
If you want deeper feedback on your pitch use the AI Business Breakthrough Accelerator community as your sounding board- the community members and myself are here to provide feedback.
Pulling it together
We’ve now completed the process from front to back - taking our work from one Part to the next and developing our funding application.
Repeat this for multiple prospects, refining your process and performance as you go. Use AI to speed your process so that you can put our far more applications than would have been possible without a fundraising team.
A reminder of what we covered this week:
Part 1: Nailing our funding requirements
Part 2: Writing a one pager
Part 3: Building a funding list
Part 4: Reaching out to funders
Part 5: Killer pitch decks
Until then, keep PROMPTING!
Kyle