Handling Investor Questions
Navigate tough Q&A sessions after your pitch with confidence and strategic answers
Who it's for
Written for B2 (upper-intermediate) students who can discuss most topics and now need precision and range.
English for founders: pitches, investors, demos and startup vocabulary. More Startup English lesson plans
Skills it practises
- Speaking: discussion questionsevery lesson
- Vocabulary: a target word listevery lesson
- Reading: a text or news storyevery lesson
- Controlled practice: gap-fills, matching, sorting and moreevery lesson
- Role-play: a dialogue to act outevery lesson
- An answer framework to structure what they say1 of 8 lessons
Lessons
- Common Investor QuestionsGoal: answer the five core investor questions — market, model, traction, team, risk — with the ABD method and data-backed delivery, under rapid fire.1 hr 13 minFree
- Financial QuestionsGoal: defend your financials under scrutiny — CAC and LTV with methodology, burn and runway tied to milestones, projections with named levers, and a stress-test you volunteer first.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Market and CompetitionGoal: defend market size bottom-up and survive the classic attacks — crowded market, incumbent threat, better-funded rivals — with concede-then-reposition answers and a layered moat.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Team QuestionsGoal: answer the team questions — why you, co-founder dynamics, gaps, equity — with specifics instead of adjectives, naming weaknesses before investors do.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Technical QuestionsGoal: explain your technology to both audiences — business outcomes for non-technical investors, honest architecture and tradeoffs for technical ones — without jargon or perfection claims.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Buying Time GracefullyGoal: handle unanswerable questions with composure — bridge phrases, honest partial answers, dated follow-ups, and never an invented number.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Turning Weaknesses into StrengthsGoal: answer your startup's three hardest true criticisms with the judo move — acknowledge, context, flip to advantage or a dated plan — without a defensive word.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Post-Pitch Follow-UpGoal: master the four investor follow-ups — the 24-hour email, the concern-answer, the graceful pass response, and the quarterly update — each with dates, data and zero desperation.1 hr 7 minOutline
How to use it in a lesson
- Lessons run 67 to 73 minutes, with a timing on every stage, so you can see before you start what fits your slot.
- Start with "Common Investor Questions": its whole plan is on this site, stage by stage, with the target vocabulary, free to read and to teach from on any video call.
- For a shorter slot, skip a practice stage or cut the discussion short: the stages are a guide, not a script.
Teach Handling Investor Questions with your student
Lesson 1 of this course is free. A free account opens it in the interactive player, and the rest of the course is included with Starter. Teaching it live with your student in the Tuton classroom starts with a 7-day free trial.
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