A Small Service for Managing Questions After Your First Investor Pitch

The door to first investor meetings has opened wider

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Korean government ministry responsible for small businesses and startups, will run the Challenge IR Project (도전의 IR 프로젝트) from September 16, 2026. An IR pitch is a presentation in which a startup builder explains the business and growth plan to investors. It is open to leaders of technology startups and prospective founders with concrete business plans who have not previously received investment from an institutional investor or investment fund.

The first round of investor pitches began at 9 a.m. on September 15, and selected applicants will meet TIPS operators in person in October. TIPS is a Korean programme in which private operators invest in technology companies while the government also supports research and development and commercialisation. Applications for the second round begin on October 26, with pitch sessions held in November.

The application cap for each operator matters more than the common deadline. If applications surge, an individual operator can close submissions first. In practice, the first-round window runs from September 15 until each operator reaches its cap. The second round similarly runs from October 26 until the cap for November sessions is filled.

The Ministry’s initial plan calls for 142 TIPS operators to hold more than 300 in-person pitch sessions by the end of the year. This is an operational target for the end of 2026, not a completed result or a number of investments. Applicants can pitch to only one operator in each round, and people selected to pitch will be notified by seven days before the event.

Receiving an investment through this process is expected to lead to connected support, including additional points in the 2027 TIPS research and development selection review. But joining a pitch session does not guarantee investment or selection for TIPS. The platform does not guarantee or take responsibility for completed investments, investment terms, or an operator’s investment decision.

The work after one pitch lasts longer

Consider the head of a three-person industrial leak detector company. There is a prototype, but the company has never met an institutional investor. The same person handles sales, product explanations, and applications for support programmes. To apply for the Challenge IR Project, they first need to choose one operator whose focus fits their technology from among several options.

Today, that means opening operator profile pages and lists of portfolio companies in multiple browser tabs, then copying focus areas and pitch dates into a notes app. Each time the pitch deck changes, they add a date to the file name and send it again to a co-founder in a messenger app. Because only one operator can be chosen per round, a poor comparison means waiting until the next application period.

Once selected to pitch, the work gets more complicated. Investors ask one question after another: How accurate is leak detection? What does installation cost? Will the first customers actually pay? How is this different from existing equipment? The company head writes down only a few words while answering, then tries to remember back at the office which question came from whom.

What is needed here is not a large service that scores pitch performance. A small record-keeping tool could sort investor questions into: changes to make directly in the materials, questions to ask customers, technical figures to verify, and answers to send in the next follow-up. Adding an owner and response deadline to each question makes the work after the pitch visible.

If an investor says installation costs are too high, for example, the company head should not simply change a number in the deck. They can ask three prospective customers what installation cost they would accept, then put those answers into the next version of the materials. A week later, instead of sending the investor only a revised file, they can send what was asked and what they learned.

At the second pitch, questions from the first become a preparation list. Frequently asked questions can be supported with customer interviews or test results. For items that still cannot be answered, the company can state the planned verification date rather than hide them. This makes it possible to organise questions from an October pitch and reuse them for the second-round application beginning October 26 or for meetings with other investors.

Much of the work still remains human. Deciding which questions matter, meeting customers directly, and choosing the wording of an answer to an investor do not become automatic. The service can reduce not the judgement itself, but the risk of forgetting questions or letting materials and follow-up drift out of sync.

Elsewhere, the work after the meeting is managed

DocSend in the United States is a paid subscription service that lets users send pitch materials by link and see who read which parts. Builders can update the material at the same link, see which investors opened it again, and decide the order for follow-up outreach. Its focus is not simply file delivery, but deciding who to contact again and when.

In a free investor connection programme run by DocSend, UserGems received specific feedback within 48 hours of submitting materials and was introduced to investors. DocSend said that 21 investors showed interest, leading to eight meetings and two investment term-sheet offers. Because this is the service provider’s own customer case study, the figures need separate verification. Still, its approach of connecting material review, feedback, introductions, and follow-up in one flow is useful to examine.

Attio in the United States is a paid service that brings email and calendars together to manage records of contact with people and companies. Investment firm Union Square Ventures used it to connect information on founders, investors, and events, and to let the organisation see who met whom and when. It created a relationship record the team could continue to use, rather than a set of private notes.

Attio disclosed that 90% of the investment firm’s team used the service within three months of adoption and that it managed more than 100 events annually in the same system. This too is a service provider’s own statement, so its effect cannot be generalised directly. But it shows why a structure that does not lose previous conversations and next actions when the person responsible changes is needed.

MassChallenge in the United States runs collaboration programmes funded by companies and public institutions, without charging startups participation fees or taking equity. A company presents a problem it wants solved, startups are selected to meet with it, and the programme then manages whether a pilot or joint development follows. It earns revenue from moving beyond a pitch event toward practical collaboration.

MassChallenge says that more than 65% of its corporate collaboration programmes lead to follow-on pilots or partnerships. The figure is self-reported and needs independent verification, but the important point is that it treats follow-up action, not the number of connections, as the outcome. A service could similarly track the share of questions answered, the number of customer validations, and whether a next meeting is secured rather than simply counting pitches.

Four things you can build now

1. An operator selection comparison note

• What it does: It lets users compare each operator’s areas of interest, schedule, application status, and reasons for choosing it on one screen.
• Who it is for: Technology startup builders with no prior institutional investment who must select their first TIPS operator through the Challenge IR Project.
• Why now: Each round allows a proposal to only one operator, and applications can close early when an operator reaches its cap.
• First screen: Place three operators of interest side by side with application availability and unanswered items needed to make a choice.

2. A pitch-question organiser

• What it does: After a pitch, users enter questions they remember and the tool sorts them into material revisions, customer validation, technical verification, and follow-up answers.
• Who it is for: Leaders of technology companies with five or fewer employees who take investor questions themselves and also revise the pitch materials directly.
• Why now: Pitch sessions continue in October and November, so questions from the first pitch need to be used immediately to prepare for the next one.
• First screen: Show an “Add a question I just received” button first, followed by unanswered questions and items to complete this week.

3. An investor follow-up calendar

• What it does: It records who was promised which material and prepares outreach copy on the promised date.
• Who it is for: First-time investment-seeking builders whose different investor questions and requested materials are scattered across messenger apps, email, and notebooks.
• Why now: Even if more in-person pitches are available, missed follow-up makes it difficult for a meeting to continue into investment discussions.
• First screen: List people to contact today, materials promised, and questions remaining from the last conversation in time order.

4. A record that turns questions into customer validation

• What it does: It turns an investor’s uncertainty into questions for customers and stores the answers as evidence for the pitch materials.
• Who it is for: Industrial equipment and business-to-business technology builders who have made a product but have not gathered enough feedback from paying customers.
• Why now: Before the second-round application, they can attach real customer answers to market-demand questions raised in the first pitch rather than answer only verbally.
• First screen: Show one investor question, three customers to meet this week, and the criteria to verify as one group.

What to check in 30 minutes today

On the official Challenge IR Project platform, choose ten operators of interest and note their focus areas, pitch schedules, and whether applications are available. If it takes more than three minutes to organise one operator, or if three or more of the ten lack information needed to choose, it may be worth building the operator selection comparison note first.

Why this matters where you are

Check whether first-time investor programmes in your market limit applicants to one investor, operator, or cohort at a time, and whether they close when capacity is reached. The institutions and funding schemes will differ, but the work after a pitch is similar: record the questions, test them with customers or data, and make the next contact specific. A small tool can start with that workflow without needing to predict investment decisions.