sheXcelerate, a platform that supports women-led startups in Pakistan, has published answers to the three questions it hears most often from female founders preparing to pitch investors. The questions all concern money, how to project five years of revenue for a company that is only three months old, how to value a company at the pre-seed or seed stage without underselling it, and which parts of a pitch deck investors read first. The central message of the series is that investors know early stage numbers are an educated guess, and what they are really looking for is the logic behind the maths.
On projections, the advice is that everyone is guessing at this stage, but there is a clear difference between a wild guess and an educated model. Investors do not expect the revenue figure for the fifth year to be fully accurate. They read the financials to judge how the founder thinks, and in particular how well the founder understands unit economics, the cost of acquiring a customer and the pace at which the team will need to grow. A founder who can explain why each number sits where it does is in a stronger position than one who simply presents an optimistic curve.
On valuation, founders are told not to pull a number out of thin air and to ground it in market realities. That means looking at recent, local data on average pre-seed or seed valuations in the founder’s own industry, and then working out how much capital the company needs to reach its next 18 months of growth targets. The founder should then decide how much equity to give up to raise that amount, with the typical range per round being 15 percent to 25 percent. Building the figure from milestones in this way gives the founder a reasoned answer when an investor asks how the valuation was reached, and helps avoid both overpricing the company and selling too much of it too cheaply.
On the pitch deck, investors usually look first at the team, the problem and, most critically, the financials. A financial slide that is vague or missing is treated as a major red flag and can cause investors to lose interest straight away, so founders are advised to give the numbers the same care as the story. The series reflects the focus of sheXcelerate, which runs a pitch competition called The Pitch and has signed an agreement with National Incubation Center Lahore to support women founders. It follows its masterclass on storytelling at the center in September, and it exists to close a gap in which women-led ventures make up only about 10 percent of Pakistan’s startup landscape and receive a small share of the funding raised.
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