How to make a two-minute pitch video with your phone
The single biggest lever on whether your listing gets read to the end. A script with timings, how to film it in one take with what you already own, and the five mistakes that make founders look less credible than they are.
On Find, listings with a founder video get read to the end and hearted at several times the rate of listings without. That is not because investors are shallow; it is because they are about to decide whether to spend three years with you, and two minutes of you talking tells them more than two thousand words. You do not need a production company. You need your phone, a window, and a script you have said out loud ten times.
What the video is for
It is not a pitch deck read aloud. It answers three questions an investor cannot get from text: do you understand your customer, can you explain your business simply, and would I want to sit in a room with you when things go wrong. Everything in the script serves those three.
The script — 120 seconds, with timings
- 0–10 seconds. Who you are, what the business does. "I'm Priya, I run Kestrel. We make AML software for small accountancy firms." Name, company, one line. No "hi guys", no "thanks for watching", no logo reveal.
- 10–40 seconds. The problem and the customer. A real example if you have one. "Every firm under ten staff has to do identity and risk checks on every client. Most do it in a spreadsheet and a drawer, it takes six hours a week, and four in ten fail their first supervisory visit."
- 40–80 seconds. What you've built and the proof. The product in a sentence, then the number with the date. "One flow, fifteen minutes, with the audit trail the supervisor asks for. Sixty firms pay us £250 a month; MRR is £18k, double what it was in January."
- 80–105 seconds. The raise and what it reaches. "We're raising £600k to hire two salespeople and a developer. On our current conversion rate that gets us to £60k MRR in fourteen months."
- 105–120 seconds. Why you. One sentence on the relevant thing. "I spent nine years as a compliance officer in a firm exactly like our customers." Then stop. Do not say "thanks". Do not say "any questions". Just stop.
Write it down. Say it out loud ten times until it sounds like you talking, not you reading. Cut anything that doesn't survive being said aloud — which will be about a third of what you wrote.
Filming it — one take, one phone
- Phone, landscape, at eye level. Prop it on a stack of books. Nobody wants to look up your nose.
- Face a window. Daylight on your face, never behind you. If it is dark, a desk lamp bounced off a white wall.
- A quiet room with soft things in it. Curtains, a sofa, books. Bare rooms echo. Switch off anything that hums.
- Sound within a metre. If the phone is further than arm's length, use the wired earphones' microphone, or move closer.
- Look at the lens, not the screen. A small dot of Blu Tack next to the camera helps.
- One take. Stumbles are fine — they make you human. Editing five takes together makes you look like you are hiding something. If you truly fluff it, start again from the top.
- The background is your business if possible. The bakery, the workshop, the office. It is worth a thousand words of "traction".
Uploading
YouTube set to unlisted, Vimeo, or Loom. Unlisted means it is not searchable and not on your channel page, but anyone with the link — your investors — can watch. Paste the link into the video field on your listing; Find embeds it on the card and in the deal room. Do not upload it as a file to the documents section; it will be huge and nobody will download it.
Five mistakes that cost credibility
- Stock footage and music. Investors want to see the founder. Anything that is not the founder is padding.
- A voiceover over slides. That is a deck. Make a deck.
- Over three minutes. The second minute is watched by half as many people as the first; the fourth by almost nobody.
- Reading from a script off-screen. Your eyes move and it shows. Learn it, or use bullet points you glance at, not sentences you read.
- "Disrupt", "revolutionise", "journey", "passionate". Say what you do in the words your customer would use.
When you've made it
Watch it once on your phone with the sound down. If you can tell what the business is from your face and the background alone, it is a good video. Then watch it with the sound up and check you said the number with the date. Then publish it and stop fiddling. Done beats perfect, and an investor who likes you will forgive the lighting.
Questions founders ask
"I hate being on camera."
So does almost everyone who has ever made one of these. The fix is repetition, not talent: say the script aloud until it stops sounding like a script, then film it five times and keep the fourth. Investors are not judging your presenting; they are judging whether you understand your customer and can explain your business. Nervous and clear beats polished and vague.
"Can my co-founder be in it?"
Yes, if you split it cleanly — one does the problem and product, the other does the numbers and the raise — and you stay under two minutes. Two people talking over each other is worse than one person alone. Three people is a panel; don't.
"We have a product demo. Should that be the video?"
Link the demo separately in the documents if it matters. The pitch video is you. An investor can watch a demo of anything; what they cannot get elsewhere is two minutes of the founder explaining why this, why now and why them.