A guide on how to introduce your company to investors with a startup blurb.
A startup blurb is your very first touchpoint with any investor. You're going to introduce your company to investors via startup blurb in both cold emails and warm introductions.
The startup blurb is the thing that will get investors thinking: "I like them. We need to meet ASAPso I can learn more." A good company blurb can double your meeting conversion rate.
According to YC's Michael Seibel, clear communication is what makes TOP startup founders different. Your startup blurb shows this skill to investors.
What is a startup blurb?
A startup blurb (company blurb) — is a summary of your company's core aspects: problem, solution, target customers, business model, market size, traction, team, and funding.
What is a startup blurb used for?
Blurb is the fastest way to introduce your company to investors over cold emails and warm intros. The goal of a blurb is to tell investors enough information about your company, so they can decide if they want to learn more or not.
When investors get a cold email or warm intro, they are trying to understand if the company is a good fit for them or not. They need to find answers to all these questions:
- What do you do?
- Who are your customers?
- How far along are you?
- Do people want what you make?
- Who are you?
- Where are you based?
- What round are you raising?
Blurb answers all these questions in the shortest amount of time, so investors can decide if they want to meet with you or not in under 30 seconds.
Rule #1: Keep your startup blurb SHORT
Investors see dozens of startups per day. Introduce your company in <30 seconds or you'll lose their attention.
Focus on core things: product, customers, traction, team, round details. Get rid of everything else. Watch Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel's video for more on this.
Keep your blurb <30 seconds or less to read.
Rule #2: Keep your startup blurb SIMPLE
You don't know who will read your blurb, so make it so simple any person on the planet can understand it. If investors can't get what you do, they won't invest in you.
Cut the jargon and marketing bullshit, avoid ambiguity, and get straight to the point.
How to write a startup blurb?
Elevator pitch (one-line pitch)
Start your blurb with an elevator pitch. Describe what your company does and who are your customers in one sentence.
My example:
Shizune, an SF-based SaaS platform that helps startup founders get investor meetings by automating investor research and outreach.
It's just one sentence, but it gives investors a complete overview of my company.
- What am I building? A platform for fundraising.
- What is my business model? SaaS.
- Who are my customers? Startup founders.
- What problem do I solve? Getting investor meetings.
- How do I solve it? By automating investor research and outreach.
- Where am I based? In SF.
- Where can I learn more? By this link https://shizune.co/
Traction
Now it's time to show investors your progress. This is where you can wow investors with your traction. List your key milestones and metrics in one sentence or a bulleted list.
The metrics you show here should be meaningful to your business model and stage. Most common metrics: MRR/ARR (post-product B2B), DAU/MAU (post-product B2C), LOIs (pre-product B2B), waitlist signups (pre-product B2C), growth rate, retention, etc.
My example:
Our progress:
$90k in pre-orders growing at a 100% MoM rate.
Launched the MVP two days ago (Nov 2).
Even though Shizune is a SaaS company, we launched the MVP just a few days ago and can't show MRR and retention yet. But I can show our pre-product metrics instead.
I'm trying to make 3 points with my metrics:
- People want what we build (we have lots of preorders).
- My solution is working (founders paid us even without a product).
- We just launched our product.
Team
VCs invest in teams, not ideas, products, or metrics. You need to prove to investors that your team can execute on the idea — build a world-class product and sell it to millions of people.
List all co-founders (and advisors?) that you have on your board. Give a short summary of the relevant experience of each team member.
My example:
Founding team:
Pavel (CEO) — founded and scaled a B2B SaaS company to $200k ARR, sold it in Feb.
Vladislav (CTO) — engineering team lead with 8 years of experience.
Round details
Wrap up your blurb with some details about the round you're raising. If you raised money before, include it too.
Nothing creates FOMO better for investors than other investors committing to invest in you. So don't shy away from showing off your current fundraising progress.
My example (fictional, we're not currently fundraising):
We're raising a $2M pre-seed round to hit the $20k MRR milestone in 9 months. Our raise is moving much faster than expected and we have $500K committed so far after two weeks.
Writing tips:
- Include the round size, so investors can understand if you're within their investment thesis.
- Show what you're going to achieve with this money. A measurable goal + deadline works best.
- Create FOMO with your progress.
A startup blurb example
Shizune, an SF-based SaaS platform that helps startup founders get investor meetings by automating investor research and outreach. Our progress:
$90k in pre-orders growing at a 100% MoM rate.
Launched the MVP two days ago (Nov 2).
Founding team:
Pavel (CEO) — founded and scaled a B2B SaaS company to $200k ARR, sold it in Feb.
Vladislav (CTO) — engineering team lead with 8 years of experience.
We're raising a $2M pre-seed round to hit the $20k MRR milestone in 9 months. Our raise is moving much faster than expected and we have $500K committed so far after two weeks.
Your blurb doesn't have to follow the exact structure I described in this post. I've seen founders omitting the team or the funding parts of the blurb, and they still were able to close their rounds without any problems.
A startup blurb checklist
- Is it short? 30 seconds or less to read.
- Is it simple? No jargon, no marketing language, no ambiguity.
- Does it give investors a full overview of your company?
- Problem / Solution / Product
- Customers
- Business model
- Progress / Traction
- Team
- Funding
- Market size (optional)
More fundraising guides
- How to cold email investors?
- How to get warm introductions to investors?
- How to find investors for your startup?
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