Entrepreneurship. Rhonda Abrams

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СКАЧАТЬ Who they are, past successes and experience, and why they’re qualified to do the job 8. The Business Model How you’ll distribute your product, pricing strategies, how you’ll reach your customers 9. The Time Line When you expect to reach key milestones 10. Financials A brief summary of key points from your income statement, balance sheet, or cash flow projections 11. Funding How much you’re asking for in this round, how many future rounds you expect, how much you’ll request during those rounds, and how you’ll use the funds 12. The Investment Opportunity Potential exit strategies and financial return for investors

      Of course, the presentation should contain all the major points of your business plan. You need not present them in the exact order of the written plan, but you may have to explain some elements before other points will be understandable. If you make your presentation in person, the investors will interrupt you to ask questions, challenge your assumptions, and so forth, so make certain you get to your most important points early in your slides.

      Adjust the content of your slides according to the knowledge base of your audience. You don’t want to bore them with information they already know (or don’t need to know), such as the nitty-gritty details of your day-to-day operations. You can, however, include background information for those recipients who need it. And do your homework. Some quick research on your potential investors can reap big rewards. If you include some of this information in your presentation, your credibility increases dramatically.

      Remember, your slides are meant to whet their appetite. While there’s no exact number that will be right for every business, you should be able to convey all the key details of your company in 12 slides. If you have too many and you present in person, you’ll feel as if you have to rush through your presentation to get to them all. Present your text primarily in short, bulleted points. You rarely need whole sentences. Put no more than three to five bullet points on a slide.

      If you present your slides in person, practice first. Make certain you feel comfortable working with the computer and the software so that you’re not distracted during your meeting.

      REAL-WORLD RECAP

       What to include in your pitch

      ■ What your business makes or does

      ■ What market you serve

      ■ How you plan to make money

      ■ How your business compares to other, familiar businesses

      ■ Why you will succeed

      ■ Your ultimate goals for the business

Your elevator pitch

      Before considering a prospective investment, venture capitalists and other investors often want to hear what they call the elevator pitch. This is the concise description of a company—its product or service, its market, its competitive advantages—that an entrepreneur could give in the time it would take to ride up an elevator (and not an elevator in a skyscraper!). An elevator pitch shows that you understand your business. (If you’re unclear on your strategic position, you’d still be mumbling as you pass the fifteenth floor.)

      Your elevator pitch doesn’t have to be made in an actual elevator to be useful. You’ll find you’ll use it often: in emails to prospective financing sources, to introduce yourself and your company at networking events, and to deftly and briefly describe your business to potential customers.

      It takes some thinking to decide which aspects of your business to mention in an elevator pitch. Even more frustrating, you have to decide which parts of your company to leave out. Often, these can be the things you’re most excited about—a new technology, a great location, and the fact you get to go to Europe on buying trips. But if they’re not central to the core of your business, they don’t belong in an elevator pitch.

      Your elevator pitch must not only be short, it must be clear. Unless you operate in a highly technical field, your neighbor or grandmother should be able to understand your business well enough to be able to describe it to someone else. A good elevator pitch offers the following information:

       Sample elevator pitches

      ■ “We design, install, and maintain landscaping for high-end residences and estates.”

      ■ “We audit manufacturing facilities for energy efficiency and find solutions for increased energy efficiency.”

      ■ “We build high-quality oak furniture in the Mission style for people with traditional tastes.”

      ■ “We create cloud-based software to automate bookkeeping and accounting for small- to medium-size businesses.”

      ■ What your business makes or does. This should be very brief: “My company manufactures water- and weather-proof, solar-powered outdoor lights.”

      ■ What market you serve. You should be very specific about this: “Fifteen-to 30-year-old males who daily play video games” or “Small businesses with five to 10 employees.”

      ENTREPRENEUR’S WORKSHEET

       Your Elevator Pitch

       Use this worksheet to develop the main components of your elevator pitch. Then edit your responses to fewer than 100 words. Remember to keep your pitch short. Focus on what customers get, not on what you do. And make your pitch easy to remember.

      ■ How you plan to make money. This is very important if you give your elevator pitch to potential investors. Because they’ll want to know how you will earn a profit, you need to be very explicit about the business model you plan to employ. For example, “We will charge a monthly subscription ranging from $5 to $25 per user.”

      ■ How your business compares to other, familiar businesses. If you compare your business to other similar businesses, people may more easily understand what your product or service is all about. For example, a new social networking site for lawyers might be described as “Like Facebook for law-firm employees.” Or a new airline might be described as “A discount carrier with more frequent service than XYZ regional airline.”

      ■ Why you will succeed. What СКАЧАТЬ