How Can I Make My App Look More Attractive to Funders?

A healthcare app for managing chronic conditions had 50,000 downloads and decent user reviews, but struggled to secure Series A funding. The problem wasn't the product—it was that the founders couldn't clearly articulate their unit economics or explain why users would stick around long-term. Investors passed within fifteen minutes of the pitch deck. Its a pattern I've seen dozens of times, and its completely avoidable if you understand what funders are actually evaluating when they look at your app.

Investors don't care about your app being pretty or having cool features. They care about whether it solves a real problem that people will pay to solve. This means you need to demonstrate three things right from the start—market validation, a clear path to revenue, and defensibility. Market validation isn't just downloads; its proof that users actively engage with your app and would be upset if it disappeared tomorrow. A fintech app I worked on had modest download numbers but showed that 78% of users returned daily and spent an average of twelve minutes per session. That engagement data was worth more than a million installs with poor retention.

Investors are looking for evidence that you've built something people genuinely need, not just something they'll download once and forget about

The revenue path matters more than most founders realise. Even if you're not monetising yet, you need to show you've thought deeply about how you will. Subscription models? In-app purchases? B2B licensing? I've seen brilliant apps fail to get funding because the founders just said "we'll figure out monetisation later" which basically tells investors you haven't done your homework. And defensibility—thats your moat. What stops a competitor with more money from copying your app in six months? Sometimes its network effects, sometimes its proprietary data or algorithms, sometimes its partnerships or regulatory advantages. Whatever it is, you need to articulate it clearly because if you cant... well, investors will assume there isnt one.

Show Them Real Users and Real Growth

Funders don't care about your download numbers if those users disappeared after one session. I learned this the hard way with a fitness app we built years ago—we hit 50,000 downloads in the first month and the founder was thrilled, ready to show investors. But when we looked at the data properly, only 3% of users came back after day seven. That's not traction; that's a leaky bucket.

What investors actually want to see is proof that people need your app and keep using it. Your day-one retention (how many users come back the next day) and day-seven retention tell them if you've built something that solves a real problem. For most apps, getting above 40% day-one retention is solid, and anything above 20% day-seven retention shows you're onto something. I've seen fintech apps we built achieve 60% day-one retention because they solved an immediate pain point—but that didn't happen by accident; it required weeks of testing different onboarding flows.

Monthly active users (MAU) matter more than total downloads because they show sustained interest. When pitching, show funders your MAU growth over time and be honest about what drove those numbers. Was it organic? Paid ads? A press mention? One e-commerce client we worked with had only 2,000 MAU but 70% of them made repeat purchases—that conversion rate made investors sit up and pay attention. To maintain this momentum, you'll need to understand which marketing channels drive the most valuable users rather than just the highest volume.

If you haven't launched yet, show them waiting list sign-ups or beta tester feedback. Real quotes from users saying "this solved my problem" carry more weight than any feature list. And if your metrics aren't great yet? Don't hide them—explain what you've learned and what you're changing. Investors fund people who understand their users, not apps with perfect numbers.

Build a Prototype That Actually Works

Here's the thing about prototypes—investors have seen thousands of them, and they can spot a fake within seconds of picking up your phone. I'm not talking about pixel-perfect designs here; I'm talking about something they can actually tap through and experience. The difference between a clickable mockup and a functional prototype is massive when it comes to securing funding, and honestly most founders get this wrong.

A working prototype doesn't mean you need to build the entire app with every feature you've ever dreamed of. That's actually one of the biggest mistakes I see. What you need is a prototype that demonstrates your core value proposition—the one thing that makes your app different—and does it reliably. When I built a prototype for a healthcare booking app, we focused exclusively on the search and booking flow; we skipped user profiles, we skipped payment integration, we even faked the confirmation emails. But that core flow? It worked perfectly every single time an investor tested it.

The technical side matters more than you might think. If your prototype crashes when an investor tries to use it (and I've seen this happen more times than I care to remember) you've just told them you cant execute on your vision. Test it on different devices, make sure it loads quickly, and for the love of all things holy, make sure it works without an internet connection if it needs to. Investors will test it in lifts, in basements, in the back of taxis.

What Your Prototype Must Include

• The main user journey from start to finish—no broken links or dead ends that make investors wonder if you know what you're doing
• Real-looking data that makes sense for your use case; generic placeholder text screams "we haven't thought this through properly"
• Your unique feature or differentiator working flawlessly—this is what they came to see, so it better work
• Basic error handling so it doesn't crash when someone taps something unexpected (they will try to break it, trust me)
• Loading states and transitions that feel polished; jerky animations or blank screens make everything feel unfinished

Build your prototype using tools like Flutter or React Native rather than native code—it lets you iterate faster when investors give feedback, and you can demo on both iOS and Android devices without doubling your development time. I've seen founders lose funding opportunities simply because they built for iPhone and the investor only had an Android device in their bag.

Testing Before You Present

Before you put your prototype in front of investors, you need to test it with real people who aren't your mum or your best mate. Give it to someone who's never seen it before and watch them use it without explaining anything. Where do they get confused? What do they tap that doesn't work? These are the exact same pain points an investor will hit, except they won't give you a second chance to fix them.

I always tell clients to prepare for the "hotel room test"—can you hand your phone to an investor in a busy coffee shop or hotel lobby, and will it work without you hovering over their shoulder explaining things? Because that's exactly how it'll get tested. The wifi might be rubbish, there might be background noise, and they'll have about three minutes of patience before they form an opinion about your entire business. Make those three minutes count. Creating memorable moments in your app can help ensure investors remember your demo long after the meeting ends.

The Numbers That Matter to Investors

I've sat in enough pitch meetings to know exactly which slides make investors lean forward and which ones make their eyes glaze over. Here's the thing—funders aren't impressed by vanity metrics like total downloads or social media followers. They want to see numbers that prove people actually use and value your app. The metrics that matter most are daily active users (DAU), monthly active users (MAU), and the ratio between them. A healthy DAU/MAU ratio of 20% or higher tells investors your app has become a habit, not just something people tried once and forgot about.

Retention rates are absolutely critical. I've worked on apps that hit 100,000 downloads in their first month but lost 95% of users within a week—that's a disaster in investors eyes. What funders really want to see is your Day 1, Day 7, and Day 30 retention numbers. If you can show that 40% of users are still active after a day, 20% after a week, and 10% after a month, you're doing better than most apps out there. For context, I built a healthcare app where we managed to push Day 30 retention to 15% by focusing heavily on the onboarding experience and its made all the difference in funding conversations.

Key Metrics Investors Actually Care About

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) vs Lifetime Value (LTV)—investors want to see LTV at least 3x higher than CAC
• Churn rate—losing more than 5-7% of users monthly is a red flag for most subscription-based apps
• Revenue per user or Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)—shows whether your monetisation strategy actually works
• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) growth rate—particularly important if you're running a subscription model
• Time spent in app—longer sessions generally indicate higher engagement and stickiness

The biggest mistake I see founders make? Presenting growth metrics without context. Sure, you grew 200% last month, but if that's from 50 users to 150 users its not particularly impressive. Always include the absolute numbers alongside percentages. And be prepared to explain any dips or plateaus—investors will spot them immediately and want to know what happened and more importantly, what you learned from it. Understanding what users are willing to pay is crucial for demonstrating your revenue potential to investors.

Create a Pitch Deck That Tells Your Story

Right, I've sat through hundreds of pitch presentations—some brilliant, some that honestly made me want to check my phone after slide three. The difference between the two? Story. Not just data dumps or fancy animations, but a proper narrative that makes investors lean forward in their chairs. Your pitch deck needs to take people on a journey from "here's a problem people actually have" to "here's why we're the ones who can solve it" to "here's the money we need to make it happen." Simple as that.

Most founders make the same mistake; they either go too technical (showing me API architecture when I need to understand the business) or too vague (generic market size stats without explaining why they're positioned to capture any of it). I worked with a healthcare app founder who initially had 40 slides of clinical data. We stripped it down to 12 slides that told the story of one patient's journey, backed up with the metrics that mattered. They raised £800k in their seed round because investors could actually see the problem and its solution, not just read about it.

Your pitch deck isnt a document you send—its a conversation starter that makes investors want to know more about you and your app

Keep your deck to 10-15 slides maximum. Start with the problem (make it real, not theoretical), show your solution with actual screenshots or a demo, prove theres traction with real numbers, explain the market opportunity without inflating it, introduce your team and why you're credible, then finish with what you need and what you'll do with it. Each slide should pass the "glance test"—can someone understand the main point in 3 seconds? Because that's all the time you've got before they start forming opinions. And for goodness sake, don't put your full financial projections in the deck itself; save those for the appendix or follow-up conversation.

Understanding Your Market and Competition

Funders will tear apart your market analysis if you haven't done your homework properly—I've watched brilliant app ideas get rejected because the founders couldn't answer basic questions about their competition. When I work with clients preparing for funding rounds, this is where I see the most pushback from investors. They want to know you understand exactly who you're up against and why you're different.

The mistake I see most often? People say they have "no competition" because nobody else has built the exact same app. That's not how investors think about it. They're looking at who's solving the same problem, even if its in a completely different way. I worked on a healthcare booking app where the client initially said their competition was other booking apps; but actually, their real competition was the phone—people were just ringing their GP directly. Understanding that shifted our entire approach to user acquisition and convinced the investors we knew what we were doing. Proper competitive research helps you understand the market landscape while avoiding the pitfalls others have already encountered.

What Investors Want to See

You need to show them a proper competitive analysis, not just a list of similar apps. I always recommend building this out properly:

• Direct competitors who solve the same problem the same way
• Indirect competitors who solve the same problem differently
• Your specific advantages over each one (and be honest about where you're weaker)
• Market size data with credible sources, not just the "total addressable market" number everyone uses
• How you'll capture market share with your available budget

The funding committees I've presented to don't just want to hear about market size—they want to understand market dynamics. Who has the biggest share now? Why? What's changing that creates an opportunity for your app? One fintech client we worked with got funded partly because they could demonstrate that regulatory changes were forcing their competitors to rebuild their entire infrastructure, giving us an 18-month window to establish ourselves. That's the kind of insight that gets attention. Once you've established your foothold, you'll need to consider which markets to expand into next as part of your growth strategy.

Your Team and Why They're the Right People

Investors don't just fund ideas—they fund the people who can actually deliver them. I've seen this firsthand when working with startups; a brilliant app concept with a weak team gets passed over, whilst a decent idea with the right people behind it gets funded. It's mad really, but it makes sense when you think about it. Funders know that most apps pivot at least once, sometimes twice, before finding product-market fit; what they're betting on is your team's ability to adapt and execute when things inevitably change.

The team composition matters more than most founders realise. You need someone who understands the technical side—whether that's an in-house CTO or a trusted development partner like us who's been working with the startup from day one. Then you need someone who gets the business side, the market dynamics and user acquisition. And honestly? Having someone on the team who's failed before is actually a plus. Investors love seeing founders who've learned from previous ventures because they dont make the same mistakes twice.

When presenting your team, be specific about what each person brings. Don't just say "10 years experience in fintech"—say "built the payment infrastructure for X app that processed £2M in its first year" or "led user acquisition for Y app from 0 to 100k users in six months". Numbers and concrete achievements matter far more than vague credentials. And if you're missing key skills? Address it head-on. Tell investors how you plan to fill those gaps, whether its through advisors, hiring, or partnerships. Remember that maintaining stakeholder enthusiasm is crucial throughout the development process.

If your team lacks certain expertise, show you've already got advisors or partners lined up to fill those gaps; investors appreciate founders who know what they don't know.

One thing I tell clients is that team slides in pitch decks need photos. Real ones, not stock images. Investors back people they can connect with, and seeing your teams faces makes you more memorable. Include brief bios that highlight relevant experience but also show personality—maybe someone on your team worked at a competitor and understands the market intimately, or they've got domain expertise from working in the industry you're disrupting.

The Technical Foundation Investors Care About

Funders don't need to understand how to code, but they absolutely need to know that your apps architecture won't fall apart when you scale from 1,000 users to 100,000. I've seen brilliant app ideas crash and burn because the technical foundation was built like a house of cards—it worked fine in testing but completely collapsed under real-world pressure. When I'm pitching the technical side to investors, I focus on three things: security, scalability, and maintainability. These aren't just buzzwords; they're the difference between an app that can grow and one that needs a complete rebuild six months after launch.

Security matters more than ever, especially if you're handling user data or payments. I worked on a fintech app where we had to explain our encryption methods, authentication systems, and how we were handling sensitive financial information. Investors wanted to know we weren't going to become the next data breach headline. You don't need to bore them with technical jargon, but you should be able to explain that you're using industry-standard security practices and that you've thought about GDPR compliance from day one. Actually, its surprising how many founders skip this bit entirely and it shows. If your app handles transactions, understanding secure payment integration is essential for building investor confidence.

What Your Tech Stack Says About You

The technologies you choose send a message about your priorities. When we build apps, we consider whether native development (Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android) or cross-platform tools like React Native make more sense. Native gives you better performance and access to latest features, but it costs more because you're essentially building two apps. Cross-platform is faster and cheaper but you sacrifice some polish. Investors want to know you've made this decision deliberately, not just gone with whatever your developer happened to know. One e-commerce app we built needed native because the camera features were complex; a healthcare portal we made worked perfectly in React Native because it was mostly forms and data display.

The Questions They'll Actually Ask

Here's what technical questions I see come up most often from investors:

• Can your backend handle sudden traffic spikes without crashing or slowing to a crawl
• What happens to user data if your servers go down—do you have proper backup systems
• How quickly can you push updates and fix bugs when things go wrong
• Are you locked into expensive proprietary technology or using flexible, well-supported tools
• What's your plan for maintaining the code as your team grows and changes

The honest answer is that most early-stage apps don't need enterprise-level infrastructure from day one. But you do need a clear path from where you are now to where you'll need to be. I always recommend starting with cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud because they let you scale up gradually—you're not paying for capacity you dont need yet, but you can add it quickly when growth happens. The worst scenario is having to rebuild your entire backend because you outgrew your initial setup; I've seen that delay launches by months and cost tens of thousands in unplanned development. Understanding how your server costs will scale helps demonstrate to investors that you've planned for sustainable growth.

Making Your Ask and What Comes Next

When you finally sit down with investors, the number you ask for needs to make sense—and I mean really make sense, not just a figure you've plucked from thin air because it sounds impressive. I've seen founders ask for £500k when they actually need £750k, which means they'll run out of money halfway through development and have to go cap-in-hand for bridge funding. Not a good look. Break down your costs properly: development costs (and add 30% because something always takes longer than expected), marketing spend for your first six months, operational costs, and a buffer for when Apple changes its review guidelines the week before your launch. Its happened to me more times than I'd like to admit.

Be specific about what investors are getting for their money. Don't just say "we need £400k for development"—show them that £180k goes to the core platform build, £80k to the payment integration and security infrastructure, £60k to initial user acquisition, and £80k keeps the lights on whilst you prove traction. I worked with a fintech startup that broke down their ask into clear milestones: £150k got them to beta with 1,000 test users, another £200k would fund the full launch and first marketing push, and the final £150k covered scaling infrastructure when they hit 50,000 users. Investors loved it because they could see exactly where their money was going and what they'd get at each stage. Don't forget to budget for ongoing support costs as your user base grows.

After your pitch, dont disappear into a black hole. Send a follow-up email within 24 hours with the deck, your financials, and answers to any questions that came up. If they say no, ask why—the feedback is often more valuable than the money would have been. And if they say yes? Get everything in writing before you celebrate, because a verbal yes means absolutely nothing until the contracts are signed and the money hits your account. Once funded, you'll need to ensure your launch momentum sustains beyond the initial excitement.