The questions investors ask in a pitch, and how to answer them.

TL;DR

Investors ask two kinds of questions in a pitch. Growth questions are about where the business can go: how you will win customers and how big it can get. Risk questions are about what could go wrong: how you will keep customers and when you will break even. In a study of nearly 2,000 investor questions at TechCrunch Disrupt, startups that were asked mostly growth questions went on to raise about seven times as much as those asked mostly risk questions.

You cannot choose the questions, but you can choose how you answer them. Founders who answered a risk question in terms of growth raised significantly more. Prepare for the themes investors spend most time on: your team, your customers and traction, the competition and why now.

What the research says about pitch questions

Most advice about investor questions comes from lists that founders put together after their meetings. Those lists are useful, but they tell you what one person was asked, not what investors ask in general. A few researchers have looked at it more systematically.

The largest study is by Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark Conley and Tory Higgins, published in the Academy of Management Journal in 2018. They went through the recorded question rounds of TechCrunch Disrupt in New York between 2010 and 2016: 189 startups and nearly 2,000 questions from 140 investors. The study set out to explain why female founders raise less money, and it found that the type of question they were asked explained the gap. Male founders mostly got growth questions and female founders mostly got risk questions, from male and female investors alike.

Two kinds of questions

Growth questions look ahead. "How do you plan to acquire new customers?" and "What's your brand vision?" are examples from the study. Risk questions look for what could go wrong: "How do you plan to retain customers?" or "How long will it take you to break even?"

Both kinds are reasonable, and an investor has to ask both. The difference is where they take the conversation. A growth question gives you room to talk about what the business could become. A risk question pulls you into defending what you have. In the study, startups that fielded mostly growth questions raised an average of $16.8 million, against $2.3 million for those that fielded mostly risk questions.

Answer the question, then bring it back to growth

The researchers also found that founders tend to answer in the terms of the question. Asked about risk, they talk about risk. The founders who answered a risk question in terms of growth raised significantly more.

That does not mean dodging the question. Take "When will you break even?" A defensive answer stops at the date. A stronger answer gives the date and then says what it means: break-even comes at around 400 customers, every customer after that adds margin, and the money from this round decides how fast you get there. The investor gets a straight answer and a reason to keep listening.

What investors spend most time on

The questions follow what investors care about. In a survey of 885 venture capitalists by Gompers, Gornall, Kaplan and Strebulaev, more than half named the team as the most important factor in their decision, ahead of the business model, the product and the market.

DocSend's research on pitch decks points the same way. In its seed report, investors spent 65% more time on the "why now" section than a year earlier, and 88% more time on the competition slide in decks that went on to raise. In its pre-seed report, time spent on traction more than doubled compared with the year before.

Put together, the questions you are most likely to get fall into five themes: why your team, how you will win customers and what your traction shows so far, who else is doing this and why you will win, why now, and how you will make money.

Practice the questions you are most likely to get

Write down two questions for each of those five themes, one growth question and one risk question. Answer each out loud in under a minute, with one number in every answer. Then ask a friend to ask you the risk version of each question, because that is the one founders tend to prepare least.

See which questions your deck invites

A Kuanta report reads your deck the way an investor in your industry would and scores it across eight categories. The free report shows where you stand, your main strengths and weaknesses, and two of the due diligence questions investors are likely to ask you. The full report adds the reasoning behind every score and all the questions.

Questions people ask

What questions do investors ask most in a pitch? Questions about the team, customer acquisition and traction, competition, timing and the business model. Research on pitch Q&A splits them into growth questions and risk questions.

How should you answer a question about risk? Answer it directly, with a number where you can, and then connect it to where the business is going. In the TechCrunch Disrupt study, founders who did this raised significantly more.

Sources

Kanze, Huang, Conley and Higgins, We ask men to win and women not to lose, Academy of Management Journal (2018) · Fortune, 27 June 2017 · Gompers, Gornall, Kaplan and Strebulaev, How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions? (survey of 885 VCs) · DocSend seed and pre-seed reports (2023)