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Guest: Donna Griffit, Corporate Storyteller.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
How Storytelling Strengthens a Hardware Pitch Deck
Donna Griffit explains how hardware founders can structure a persuasive pitch deck around urgency, customer value, traction, and investment potential. The discussion also covers pitch strategy, funding readiness, product milestones, market positioning, investor conversations, and capital planning.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- There’s simply a lot of funding activity right now.
- The importance of telling a story.
- The formula for a great story.
- Relevance is key, why should an investor invest today as opposed to later.
- Find how you fit in three trends: Social, regulatory, and big things happening in or around your space.
- Bring undeniable value to the potential investors.
- Stories have both resonance and a structure, both are key.
- Use your personal story as part of the story.
- The framework: The pain/need/opportunity, then the hero, then the business potential, then the vision for the future.
Episode transcript
This transcript is provided for accessibility and reference. Download the SRT transcript.
Read the full episode transcript
Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to craft the perfect hardware investor pitch from a corporate pitch writer that has helped
Kevin Mako: her clients raise a total of over $1.2 billion.
Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast. The show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with
Narrator: successful inventors, product developers, manufacturers, and hardware industry professionals.
Narrator: Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your product on store.
Narrator: shelves. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business.
Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product
Kevin Mako: businesses. Now, on to the show. Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Donna Griffit to the show.
Kevin Mako: Donna helps write pitches for hardware startups and small manufacturing companies to raise millions of dollars in funding. Before working with small product
Kevin Mako: businesses. She used to do corporate pitch investment decks for Samsung, Cisco, Microsoft, Google, Visa, and more.
Kevin Mako: Today, Donna's going to share some valuable knowledge in how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers should think about how to write a perfect investor pitch
Kevin Mako: through storytelling and what specific story model to use to land those big bucks. Now, on to the episode. Hey, Donna, welcome to the show.
Kevin Mako: Hey, thanks so much for having me, Kevin. Really appreciate you being on the show today to talk about pitch decks and how to really tell
Kevin Mako: your best story when you're raising money, whether it's at the very beginning of the process,
Kevin Mako: if you're just pitching to friends and family, all the way up to raising your first series A round for $10 million in North.
Kevin Mako: It all comes down to telling an incredible story. It all comes down to the pitch. And a lot of that revolves around the pitch deck and your messaging and all that.
Kevin Mako: So who better to come on the show yourself with all these major companies, a lot of small startups, a lot of really big success stories as well.
Kevin Mako: Over a billion dollars you've worked with companies in helping to raise. That's incredible. First and foremost, so I want to
Kevin Mako: talk about the buzz in the industry right now because it seems like everywhere you turn, people are talking about investments.
Donna Griffit: There's like more money circulating right now in the market than ever before. Yeah. I think it's attributed to the fact that COVID initially had
Donna Griffit: a slowdown and then suddenly there was like this surge of money that needed to get out there
Donna Griffit: and people really jumping on the bad one and we're seeing mega rounds and we're seeing specs and IPOs and it just seems like, wow, money's being thrown
Donna Griffit: everywhere. And I also think there's been massive opportunities open up, but because of remote presenting, I mean,
Donna Griffit: Sandhill Road and Silicon Valley wouldn't look at someone 10 miles away from their office before the COVID. Now, it's fair game for everyone. But that comes with the price.
Donna Griffit: And that means you need to up your game. You need to up your story. You need to be ready to tell it in a powerful, compelling way
Kevin Mako: on the spot.
Kevin Mako: Right. Because you never know when these deals are going to come out if I've seen and heard many, many, many deals that happened.
Kevin Mako: Like, the reason the elevator pitch slogan came up is because that's a real thing that would happen. And now more than ever, these meetings are happening quickly. They're
Kevin Mako: happening by surprise.
Kevin Mako: Investors are circulating all over. I mean, I heard one stat. There's more money right
Donna Griffit: now just in American households in savings than there ever has been before in history on average.
Kevin Mako: I guess that happens when you stop eating out and going to on trips. You get to save some money.
Kevin Mako: That's right. You know, there's been, you know, obviously there's been some situations which aren't great and others which are good. But the point is you're going for
Kevin Mako: those who have money and are looking to invest in the next thing. They want to do so they don't want to sit with cash because cash is a depreciating asset.
Kevin Mako: They want to invest in something that is going to grow their money and work for them. So right now, more than ever before, that's a big priority.
Kevin Mako: So we want to get down to the understanding the value of the story. And first and foremost, can you just describe why, even in something like a pitch deck for something
Donna Griffit: like a hardware product, which is all about specs and engineering. Why is the story so important? Oh, but it's so much more than specs and engineering.
Donna Griffit: I mean, take medical devices, for example, which I absolutely love working on in my very first startup client when I pivoted
Donna Griffit: from working with Fortune 500 companies was a medical device, a very well prominent cardiothoracic
Donna Griffit: surgeon who I was hired to work on his speeches, asked me to write his pitch decks. And he had two medical devices that were incredible life-saving and, you know, put
Donna Griffit: him in front of an operating table three times a day and he could save lives, put it in front of a PowerPoint and it was, it was
Donna Griffit: like he was dying. So not everybody has that core competency, but when I work with a medical
Donna Griffit: device company or a company like a company called Ring Gone that I worked with recently that have developed a micronized chip inside of a teeny tiny ring that a
Donna Griffit: child can wear, imagine like a gummy bracelet, but like a ring, that if heaven forbid, they are abducted, they could just go swipe
Donna Griffit: and it'll automatically give audio and location, and it's not so easy to pull off or throw away.
Donna Griffit: So there is tremendous value that you are bringing to the world with your hardware invention, and it doesn't have to be life-saving.
Donna Griffit: It can also be something like I'm working with a company called High Gear that are turning dumb workout equipment into smart connected with sensors.
Donna Griffit: And it's for a fraction of what a Peloton would cost, you can have a fully tracked, fully sensed workshop, workout in your home.
Donna Griffit: So the innovation is everywhere, and it's so exciting to me to see these things. So what I always do first is look for the origin story.
Donna Griffit: What did you recognize that was missing in the world that you could bring value towards
Donna Griffit: before you went on this crazy journey called a startup? up and then show that, okay, your story, whether it happened to you, to a friend to someone
Donna Griffit: you care about, is something that's shared throughout many industries, and it's a very lucrative market as well.
Donna Griffit: So when you start off with that story of the need, of the true gaping wound, the true, oh my gosh, I can't believe nobody's
Kevin Mako: thought of this yet moment, then and show that you can bring undeniable value, that's where storytelling will be your magic.
Kevin Mako: Talk about undeniable value, because I love that expression, and that's a big part in a pitch deck.
Donna Griffit: Explain a bit further what that means and why a startup should be thinking about this when they're putting their messaging into their presentations.
Donna Griffit: So let's look at the last year and a half. It's been quite a wild ride. And the companies that I've seen truly succeeding and managed to get, you
Donna Griffit: know, the funding that we were just talking about are the companies that were able to pivot their product and pivot. their story fast.
Donna Griffit: So for me, for example, when COVID hit, I mean, immediately, March 14th, 2020, I'll never forget it, emails of clients canceling, oh, I can't pay
Donna Griffit: the work you already did. And it was such deja vu for me back to 2008.
Donna Griffit: And I pulled out my 2008 playbook from the attic where it was cobwebby and dusty. And I said, okay, what did I do then? What should I have done then?
Donna Griffit: how can I use that knowledge? And what I realized was, find the need, find the value you can bring to people now. And there were two things I saw.
Donna Griffit: One, my clients were freaking out because nobody, there wasn't money. Investors were like, okay, we'll talk to you after things get clear, obviously.
Donna Griffit: So freaking out about raising funding in uncertain times. So I overnight created a workshop called fundraising during uncertain times. And I started spreading it out there,
Donna Griffit: giving it for free, bringing value, and that brought me incredible visibility and business. And on the flip side, I'm like, okay, let's look at these companies that are going to be
Donna Griffit: working from home, the bigger corporations. People can't present on a good day in face-to-face without putting everyone.
Donna Griffit: It's like most people are not good presenters over Zoom. Oh, my God, just forget about it. So they're going to need to have better presenters.
Donna Griffit: So I took out an old workshop of mine that I had done back before we had video conference. back in the days of we called it the bridge.
Donna Griffit: And I reworked it and repurposed it for the Zoom era on how to really create a story and be able to present it and all the tips for working from Zoom.
Donna Griffit: And I started marketing that to big organizations. And after a few weeks when people kind of realized, you know, we're in this for the long haul
Donna Griffit: and we have to bring value to people sitting at home, it went off like hot cake.
Kevin Mako: So it's being willing to put yourself out there, being willing to say, I have unique assets that
Kevin Mako: I can bring to the table and here's how it can meet your needs right now.
Kevin Mako: So there's a, it sounds like it's key to put some urgency and some knowledge of the local
Kevin Mako: market, what's going on, whether it's, you know, individualized to your specific market or
Donna Griffit: whether it's something that's happening in the broader macroeconomic field or the world or whatever else. You got it.
Donna Griffit: If you can create relevance of time, then that creates, I guess, that urgency around the investor
Donna Griffit: feeling like they need to invest now as opposed to waiting a year or two to see what may or not happen. So urgency is not something that happens.
Donna Griffit: urgency is something that you create. So investors suffer from a chronic phomo fear of missing out.
Donna Griffit: So nobody wants to be the one that missed out on some great deal. So you have to show them why you are that next great deal now,
Donna Griffit: not, you know, and also five years from now that they don't want to be kicking themselves. So you have to create that sense of urgency.
Donna Griffit: And what I usually do with companies is identify three major trends happening now that show that you are a timely investment.
Donna Griffit: The first trend is usually
Donna Griffit: around behavioral, something shifting. People are shopping more online. People are going out less. People are at home working out more.
Donna Griffit: Whatever it might be that we've seen a shift. Another big one is always millennial behavior because they're weird. Sorry, excuse me, millennials, y'all are
Donna Griffit: Wonderful. It's like they have these certain things. And as we see the trends, and then as Gen Z comes in, as a major buying force or a
Donna Griffit: major consuming force, what are the things that they expect? So in terms of sustainability, that's big. In terms of corporate responsibility, that's been big.
Donna Griffit: I've seen much more in that area.
Donna Griffit: The second one I look for is something regulatory.
Donna Griffit: Is something about to change in the law. Well, there have to be sensors in a factory that works on.
Donna Griffit: robotics in order to prove safety is key. And yes, you have a sensor like that and the regulation
Donna Griffit: is coming down the pipes in six months. You better get on that.
Donna Griffit: The third one is kind of a fun and sneaky way. Take a look in your space at the heat in your space. How many competitors or
Donna Griffit: completators, as I call it, have gotten major funding or have been acquired, things that are
Kevin Mako: either your direct competitors or around your space. And if you can show investors, listen, there's a lot of money being poured into this space, we're next.
Kevin Mako: So that's going to be a win as well. It's also you're showing your credibility. You're showing that you really know your market, but also urgency. You don't want to miss this boat.
Kevin Mako: That's really great. I mean, three different verticals that all push back on urgency.
Kevin Mako: And that I can understand how that can tell a powerful story. I mean, really, I think one of the big fallacies when I look at our clients that
Donna Griffit: are raising money for their hardware startup or whatnot is they assume that the investor is a highly educated person in their field.
Donna Griffit: Now, investors generally, yes, they are very sophisticated, but they don't have the time to fully understand your product like you do.
Donna Griffit: So although they are sophisticated in finance, they may not necessarily be sophisticated in your specific industry.
Donna Griffit: Well, and they probably know a lot about your technology, but they don't really care about the circuit board. and the bits and the bites and the architecture and everything,
Donna Griffit: they just care that it works. Once they do due diligence, they'll dive much deeper into your technology. They'll send an expert.
Donna Griffit: But honestly, don't over-detail the technology. Everybody, especially hardware startups,
Kevin Mako: they're super in love with their technology, and rightfully so. It's amazing. Your baby is beautiful.
Kevin Mako: But you don't have to over-detail. You want them to understand, first, why your audience needs it, why they're willing to pay a lot of money for it.
Kevin Mako: What is it replacing now? What service or product is it replacing that they're going to pivot over to working using you?
Kevin Mako: And I think that really comes back around to this message of thinking about your pitch as a story and really defining it as a story book
Kevin Mako: as opposed to focusing on the features or the numbers or whatever else. And that's very common with especially hardware startups.
Donna Griffit: So if you can look at these bigger picture things, really put yourself in the investor's shoes or on a potential customer shoes and paint that picture.
Donna Griffit: And Donna, I know you've got a bunch of information on how to tell a great story. Can you go through that and how that relates to putting a pitch deck together so that we can
Donna Griffit: get into kind of the details of what makes a story really capture that investor and as well capture that relevance or that urgency? I would love to. All right.
Donna Griffit: So just to set the stage on what storytelling is.
Donna Griffit: Storytelling is an ancient art. It's been around for thousands of years. I've just repurposed and harnessed it to work for the business world and the tech world.
Donna Griffit: But we're talking Greek tragedies and Shakespeare and Chekhov and Lear and all the greats and how they wrote.
Donna Griffit: It's in a very specific structure that is geared to work with our poor, overworked, overtired brains and how we take in information.
Donna Griffit: People remember stories. They don't remember facts and things. figures in bits and bites, they remember stories. I still remember origin stories of startups that
Donna Griffit: I worked with 10, 12, 13 years ago because the stories are so compelling. And I probably
Donna Griffit: don't, I'm probably, you know, repurposed the story a few times, but the essence is there because it's something that's a shared experience.
Donna Griffit: So story is both a resonance and a structure. So just like a house has a foundation and a frame before the walls and
Donna Griffit: the roofing is put in, a pitch deck has a structure that should be seamless, just like the
Donna Griffit: frame is. I don't look at the house and say, oh, really nice frame. But if it wasn't there, it would all collapse.
Donna Griffit: So there's storytelling within storytelling. Build the frame of the story, which we'll talk about in a minute, and weave in as many stories as you can, because it adds to your
Donna Griffit: credibility. It's memorable, and it's also relatable. People will be nodding as they listen to you.
Donna Griffit: So the framework, like a four-act play, and it's very much like the hero and the villain's journey.
Donna Griffit: So we start off with the pain, the need, or the opportunity.
Donna Griffit: And that's a great place to tell your origin story. How did you come up with this idea? What inspired it? What motivated the pain, as investors like to call it?
Donna Griffit: So was it something that happened to you, to a family member? So I'll tell an example for one of the hardware startups I worked with called Calmego, who are doing incredibly well.
Donna Griffit: They just were put into CVS everywhere. It's a little device that looks almost like an asthma inhaler, but it helps people with panic attacks,
Donna Griffit: calm down and not have to take meds, which is incredible because kids and anyone that, you know, don't want to be on anxiety pills.
Donna Griffit: So the founder, she was extremely brave in sharing her own story. And her mother, who is also a psychiatrist.
Donna Griffit: And so being able to open up and be vulnerable about the fact that she had panic attacks and it left her immobilized.
Donna Griffit: Now, when we worked on her initial story, she was like, you know, I'm afraid what her investor is going to think.
Donna Griffit: And I said, look, the fact that you were able to overcome this and because of that, be able to help people is extremely inspiring and extremely motivating.
Donna Griffit: If someone's going to say, oh, she suffers from anxiety, that's their loss. And she's gone on to do it. So finding that story of your personal story,
Donna Griffit: someone you love, someone you care about, and then the world at large and how they need it and how many people suffer from anxiety around the world.
Donna Griffit: The ring on, luckily she has not had it happened to her that a child was abducted, but just looking at the stories around her and she's from Houston.
Donna Griffit: Funny, two women-led hardware companies. I love it. This is great. But just seeing the stats of the abductions and what has seen?
Donna Griffit: It's just as a parent, oh my God, I can't even. I just can't even. I was crying. I was weeping as I was writing her pitch deck. I swear. I could not.
Donna Griffit: I was like sobbing. I really get into the story sometimes. So start off with the pain that motivates the story and then back it up with stats that it's a big problem.
Donna Griffit: Act one. Act two, the hero. What is your product? What are you going to do? Explain it simply without all the
Donna Griffit: geek speak without all the underpinnings of how it works, just that it works. Take us on the user journey.
Donna Griffit: How would somebody use this simply so we just get it? And we could pick it up and use it ourselves.
Donna Griffit: And it's easy with hardware because it's usually something very demonstrable if it's portable,
Donna Griffit: if it's a sensor, a robot or something, you know, that's installed in a factory. But you can show us how customers are using it, even if it's in a POC.
Donna Griffit: then act three is the business okay the numbers the market the the business model how are you going
Donna Griffit: to make money and and that's where oftentimes hardware companies that have succeeded are able
Donna Griffit: to lay the investors doubts aside because yes investors think oh gosh hardware that's a lot of
Donna Griffit: upkeep and and who's going to buy it but I think with all the gadget era that we live in. We've managed to kind of usurp that.
Donna Griffit: So it's just being able to show that, yeah, people are willing to buy it. And there's similar use cases and looking at competitors or
Donna Griffit: or competitors or, you know, people that are similar to you and using that use case. So for example,
Donna Griffit: I'm working with an incredible company called Passion, P-A-S-H-I-O-N, like Passion and Fashion. And it's a convertible shoe. So it goes from being a flat to being a high heel.
Donna Griffit: I don't know how much that speaks to you, Kevin, but boy, I was I was out running around. down in heels over Halloween and after, you know, a
Donna Griffit: year and a half of comfort at home, I'm done with that. So it's a huge pain, literally and figuratively.
Donna Griffit: And she here is showing how
Kevin Mako: this, there's been other companies like Albers and Rothes and Third Love and Spanx that are consumer, but they've done incredibly well.
Kevin Mako: And they're VC-backed. And so it's about showing that
Kevin Mako: This is going to be something that is going to revolutionize an industry.
Kevin Mako: And finally, act four, this is the moving forward. This is the vision for the future. This is where do we go from here?
Kevin Mako: How is this going to be this game changer? What's your roadmap?
Kevin Mako: What are your milestones? And how much do you need to fuel that first big milestone? And that's it. That's your four act play. That is your picture.
Kevin Mako: That's incredible because even just laying it out that way, it's fairly simple. And I would encourage everybody when they're thinking of their product,
Kevin Mako: whether it's in mature stages, scale stages, early stages, still in the idea phase, just write down your story in these four quick points.
Kevin Mako: Identify and just think about your product. Obviously, you've been thinking about this project for ages and you've probably been thinking
Kevin Mako: about how much it can help people and how much maybe it can help yourself if it's something that, you know, a pain point that you notice or a pain point that other people have.
Kevin Mako: Just write it down to these four pieces, right? Identify what the true pain is. or the opportunity, then how you're going to solve it, the hero, the business potential,
Kevin Mako: which is really, you don't have to be a business expert to do it.
Donna Griffit: I love Donna, how you mentioned, just look at not necessarily direct competitors, but what
Donna Griffit: are alternative products that people are already using right now that validate that there's a market that exists?
Donna Griffit: And you'll find that that's probably a multi-billion dollar industry, no matter where you're at, if you're providing value in one way that's unique, there's probably a secondary
Donna Griffit: method or something that people are already doing in that space. then you're simply looking at the vision for the future. How do you see this playing out?
Donna Griffit: And I think this fourth one is really key as well because a lot of folks look at an investment opportunity, especially in hardware and say, look, I need 100 grand because I want
Donna Griffit: to get my first production run done and whatever else.
Donna Griffit: That's great. But the investor, they're not investing in that production run. They're investing in what happens to your business later down the road.
Donna Griffit: The production run is a stepping step. And so many people are affluent. to talk about, well, yeah, but we haven't done that yet.
Donna Griffit: Yeah, but what are you building? Do you think that Elon Musk pitched his true vision? I mean, that he just pitched like the autonomous car
Kevin Mako: when he started or just the route. No, he's building. His vision is basically to create a world
Kevin Mako: that is autonomous, that is environmentally friendly, that is basically will be on the moon,
Kevin Mako: a moonshot. So you have to pitch that big crazy business. And I'm sure that there were people that thought he was absolutely bonkered.
Kevin Mako: And a lot of the big ones are, I mean, is think about the pitch for things that we take for granted now. I mean, even think about Peloton.
Kevin Mako: Can you imagine when they first started pitching? Yeah, people are going to spend X amount of money to work out at home.
Kevin Mako: And like, why would they do that when they could just go to the gym for a fraction of that? Why? Why?
Donna Griffit: And look at it now. So you need to be able to paint a really big picture.
Donna Griffit: Yeah, and enjoy the process because it's a really interesting one when you start to think about your future. And an easy way to do it is just map it out by years.
Donna Griffit: A year from now, here's what I want to be. Five years from now, 20 years from now, this is where I want this thing to be.
Donna Griffit: And that's where if you can kind of just think of it in terms of time, it's a fun exercise to visualize how this impact that you're going to create on the
Donna Griffit: world can really change lives and how you're going to be a big key in making that happening. And if you can just describe that to an investor, not necessarily to say
Donna Griffit: that they would agree with you or that they may not have their own ideas. Obviously, you want to be open to that.
Donna Griffit: Not to say that you might not pivot, as you were saying, Donna, is a big key to success with a lot of businesses,
Kevin Mako: especially in a crisis. Not to say that those things are going to happen, but that your initial plan is a good one. And that's what an investor really is putting in my mind.
Donna Griffit: Look at a company like Teranos, as much as, you know, it's right now not in a good place.
Kevin Mako: But how was she able to garner so much support?
Kevin Mako: Because she had a vision of completely transforming people's lives in terms of how blood is taken and measured and people that
Kevin Mako: have to consistently test. And it was a beautiful vision. Unfortunately, the execution wasn't up to that.
Kevin Mako: And people are more reticent and it's really done a disservice to women founders, which I'm a huge.
Kevin Mako: supporter of women founders, and it really irks me that that's now, oh, well, what about all those
Donna Griffit: I was told? But at the same time, we can learn something from how she gave that big vision.
Donna Griffit: Well, an amazing thing that you can, it's right there in front of you is the fact that it was only storytelling that sold that.
Donna Griffit: It wasn't the data or the science, because the science wasn't even there. So just look at the power to even bring that up. But yes, I mean, it's a masterclass in
Donna Griffit: storytelling. I have to say. Absolutely. And so to think about hardware startups, You do have a real product. You do have something that's changing the lives in one way or another.
Donna Griffit: So if you can just enable some, even some, you don't have to necessarily nail it perfectly. But if you can bring in some of the power of storytelling, it just goes to
Donna Griffit: show you that there's no cap to how much money you can potentially raise. Looking at that example is just one. But there's thousands, many good ones, some sketchy ones like that.
Donna Griffit: But there's thousands of examples of the power of storytelling, and especially when you add something really great behind it, which is your product. your invention.
Donna Griffit: So you've got your cake and you can eat it too.
Donna Griffit: And now, I mean, I mean, I just worked with a company last week that have created a mechanical way to treat cancer.
Donna Griffit: Not chemical, not biological, mechanical. They have basically taken a Nobel Prize winning
Donna Griffit: mechanism of a certain molecule that when it's
Kevin Mako: exposed to light, it starts spinning like a submarine and they are able to then use a device that
Kevin Mako: can inject it straight into the area of the cancer and manipulate it to just eradicate the cancer cells completely.
Donna Griffit: I mean, incredible, mind-blowing stuff. And then when I worked with them, again, I asked the founder, okay, what's your motivation here? Where's your personal story?
Donna Griffit: And of course, there was one. His sister, he lost her at the age of 35 to breast cancer.
Donna Griffit: And he watched her go through hell and back with the chemo.
Donna Griffit: And he's like, you know, in an era like this, where we've had so much technical. And he came from a finance background. We've had so much technical progress. How is it that
Donna Griffit: this is still the main way that we're treating cancer?
Donna Griffit: And it's set him on his journey.
Donna Griffit: And it's magnificent. And you are anybody working on hardware or, you know, startups in general, you are truly changing people's lives. You need to own your greatness.
Donna Griffit: It's magnificent.
Kevin Mako: Whether it's a small project or a big one, you've obviously come up with this innovation because you saw a pain point or an opportunity. It's as simple as that. So it exists.
Kevin Mako: And I think a lot of hardware startups, too, they might be a little bit shy or they say, well, my product's not necessarily saving lives, but it doesn't matter.
Kevin Mako: It's part of an ecosystem of improving the world around you, improving other users. And you need to just own your piece of that.
Kevin Mako: How many devices do we have in our house now that we can't imagine our lives without?
Kevin Mako: And they've made our lives so much better, easier, faster, or stronger, hassle-free, and freed up time for us.
Kevin Mako: And that's truly, again, going back to the undeniable value. If you can show the undeniable value, and you can show, by the way, if you get testimonials
Kevin Mako: from people saying this is the best thing ever and they can't imagine life without it, that's the stickiness that you want to show as well.
Kevin Mako: So gather your customer or user testimonials. Those are extremely powerful in telling your story.
Kevin Mako: They tell the story better than you ever can because they don't have that, oh my gosh,
Donna Griffit: is it okay to teet my own horn kind of thing? No, they just want to tooth the horn from what they love. And they're not necessarily doing it for a discount or for free products.
Donna Griffit: They're just doing it because you've truly made their lives better.
Donna Griffit: That's a good tip. A good final tip to leave on as a testimonials. I think if you compare your own story, which is something we always advocate to our product
Donna Griffit: startups, you have a story. You came up with this product. There's always a story behind it. Every one of our clients had some reason.
Donna Griffit: They saw a pain point in the world and they came up with some invention to solve it. A lot of the time, it's a relationship.
Donna Griffit: to their own personal experience, but if not, it definitely is something they were seeing either in their workplace, their family, their friends, or whatnot.
Donna Griffit: So bring that story to light
Donna Griffit: and enhance that with having those qualifiers, which I think is something that you're talking about in testimonials.
Donna Griffit: Very powerful part of storytelling is provide the proof. So you've got the vision and all of this, back it up with proof. And now you've made an ironclad pitch that has both the
Donna Griffit: excitement and the validation behind it. And that's, you know, the two parts that an investor really needs to see to put that hard, cold cash on the table.
Donna Griffit: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kevin Mako: Any other last tips before I let you go, Donna?
Donna Griffit: Yeah. So don't come in having made up their mind for them.
Donna Griffit: Don't negotiate with yourself.
Donna Griffit: Don't come in thinking, oh, yeah, I'm at a disadvantage because I'm a hardware startup. No. Come in with full confidence that you have the best product possible.
Donna Griffit: You are going to change people's lives for the better.
Donna Griffit: and you are going to have a product that anyone that has not invested in five years from now are going to be looking back and kicking themselves for not coming on board.
Kevin Mako: So come in and remember that even if you got a no at the last meeting, don't bring that no in to this meeting.
Donna Griffit: Come in, clean slate.
Donna Griffit: This could be the one. I remember when I was dating, the whole, you know, you have to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find their own friends.
Donna Griffit: So, yes, so you just have to. to keep in. If you go on a date with someone after you had a bad date and you bring that kind
Donna Griffit: of disgruntled feeling, you're going to just, it's a self-propelling prophecy. So come in, clean slate. Just think of it as a process.
Donna Griffit: There's going to be X amount of investors that you have to meet and get a no from until you get your yes. And once you get a yes and you have
Donna Griffit: someone that's committed, it's going to make it easier. I love it. It only takes one yes. It only takes one yes to set the wheels in motion and also see how far
Donna Griffit: you can get before. you go out and try to raise funding from friends and family, grants,
Kevin Mako: sweat equity, whatever you can do to get people on board and have some kind of a proof of concept.
Donna Griffit: And I know that that's hard when it's a physical product because it takes a lot of investment and
Kevin Mako: it's expensive to even create a prototype. But the further along you've gotten, it shows them your commitment and it can really truly show that it works.
Kevin Mako: Great advice. Much appreciated. Donna, if,
Kevin Mako: Our listeners want to reach out to you to help build their pitch for their product. How can they reach you? So my website is Donna Griffit, D-O-N-N-A, G-R-I-F
Kevin Mako: -F-I-T, No-H-A-T-N-O-H-A-T
Kevin Mako: -N.
Kevin Mako: that I've given away. Some people will just be helpful to them. Others will want to come to my restaurant and experience my cooking of it.
Kevin Mako: So if you do want to reach out, you can contact me directly from the site on the contact button or just reach out to Donna at DonnaGriffit.com.
Kevin Mako: And if you mention Kevin's podcast, then please do, then you'll have a special discount waiting for you. Donna, it's very generous to you.
Kevin Mako: Much appreciate. And of course, as always, I will put all the links into the show notes. So you can just simply click through. Donna,
Kevin Mako: Thanks again for all your words of wisdom on this. Thanks for having me. Good luck to everyone out there and go out and change the world. Thank you. Take care.
Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market
Narrator: and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent,
Narrator: the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product
Narrator: business clients. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to MakoDesign.com.
Narrator: That's M-A-K-O Design dot com for a free consultation from one of Mako Design's Ford Design Studios from coast to coast.
Narrator: Thanks for listening and see you next time.
Make the Investor Story Land
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