{"id":13019,"date":"2025-12-30T00:25:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/how-to-make-your-startup-stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-according-to-investors\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T00:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:25:42","slug":"how-to-make-your-startup-stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-according-to-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/how-to-make-your-startup-stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-according-to-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make your startup stand out in a crowded market, according to investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At TechCrunch Disrupt, three investors took the stage to dissect what makes &mdash; and breaks &mdash; a pitch deck. Jyoti Bansal, a founder-turned-investor; Medha Agarwal of Defy; and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures shared with the crowd their candid views on what works in a pitch deck &mdash; and what doesn&rsquo;t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their biggest pet peeve? Buzzword overload.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The more a founder says AI&nbsp;in&nbsp;the pitch, Agarwal said, the less&nbsp;AI&nbsp;the company likely uses.&nbsp;&ldquo;The people who are doing things that are&nbsp;really innovative,&nbsp;they&rsquo;ll&nbsp;talk about it, and&nbsp;it&rsquo;s&nbsp;built in, but&nbsp;it&rsquo;s&nbsp;not the core of their pitch,&rdquo; she told the audience.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bansal, who built and sold multiple companies before becoming an investor, distilled investor expectations into three core questions. First, he asks whether there is a large enough market to tackle. Does the founder&rsquo;s idea have the potential to become a huge company? And is the problem he or she is solving actually worth solving?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second thing investors want to know is why <em>this<\/em> founder&nbsp;is the&nbsp;one who&nbsp;should be building the company. &ldquo;There has to be something unique about you,&rdquo; Bansal told the crowd, adding that this included having special members on the founding team or having&nbsp;special skills. &ldquo;Why would you win? If the problem is interesting, there will be 20 other companies trying to solve it, so why would you win and&nbsp;what&rsquo;s&nbsp;your opportunity?&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The third thing investors want to see,&nbsp;Bansal said, is some validation. &ldquo;Traction with customers,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Validation could be initial customer feedback, revenue, something, but some kind of validation.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These three questions, Bansal noted, all lead to the ultimate litmus test: Could this become a billion-dollar company?<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\" readability=\"5.3\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\" readability=\"24.75\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The panel also addressed how AI startups can differentiate themselves as the space becomes saturated. Bansal emphasized the importance of domain&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;and a clear competitive strategy.&nbsp;Neundorfer&nbsp;said the companies that catch her attention are those enabling new behaviors rather than simply improving an existing process incrementally.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Agarwal offered more tactical advice to founders, saying they should explain how AI technology enables their&nbsp;product; articulate clear go-to-market strategies; and demonstrate how their business will be more efficient than incumbents. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&rsquo;s&nbsp;also&nbsp;very important&nbsp;to be honest about what competitors are out there, she added.&nbsp;Some of you have &ldquo;lost&nbsp;some&nbsp;credibility&nbsp;with me because you didn&rsquo;t have it on your slide,&rdquo; she told the founders in the audience.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, the investors shared advice for navigating the rapidly evolving landscape. Agarwal urged founders to stay on top of industry developments. Neundorfer recommended staying connected to founder networks to share tools and insights. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bansal&rsquo;s advice was simpler: &ldquo;Focus on building your product.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>How to make your startup stand out in a crowded market, according to investors<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At TechCrunch Disrupt, three investors took the stage to dissect what makes &mdash; and breaks &mdash; a pitch deck. Jyoti Bansal, a founder-turned-investor; Medha Agarwal of Defy; and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures shared with the crowd their candid views on what works in a pitch deck &mdash; and what doesn&rsquo;t. Their biggest pet peeve?&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/how-to-make-your-startup-stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-according-to-investors\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;How to make your startup stand out in a crowded market, according to investors&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}