In the past 12 months, we received 100’s of pitches from Indian startups looking to raise seed venture capital. I would say that at least 80% of the pitches were challenging to understand. That is, we as investors had to work hard and ask a lot of questions in order to just understand the basics of what the business idea is, the progress they had made, why they are the right team, and why we should be excited to learn more.

Remember, when you are doing your first pitch to an investor, it is like your first date — you want to make a good impression in order to get a second date. Yes, you’re nervous. But you also have to take some risks to share your story and to create some intrigue about your relationship (investability) potential.

You are primarily selling yourself (and your team) and creating confidence on how you are going to be able to realize the potential of your business to scale, make great profits, and provide liquidity for the investor.

We decided to create a template of what a “dream startup pitch” to us as investors would look like. If you use this template to pitch to us, you will have a much higher chance to receive a follow-on meeting … assuming, of course, that you’ve got good answers to the questions.

Read: Pitching Your Startup to Investors

Of course, there are lots of ways to pitch a business to investors which others have shared so this is not the definitive pitch template. But it’s one we like and believe that it would also be effective with other investors.

Please let us know your feedback. Have we missed anything important? Would you change some things? Are there other investor pitch templates that you would recommend to entrepreneurs?