How to develop a winning pitch

I recently had the opportunity to sit on a judges panel for a business plan competition. In my category, we had over 20 business plans to judge, all based on a short executive summary, a 10 minute presentation by the entrepreneur and a 5 minute Question and Answer interaction between the judges and the entrepreneur.

As you can imagine,there was a lot of pressure on both the contestants and judges to do things right. At the end of the day however, I couldn’t help but get a sense of loss because I could tell some of the  business ideas were really good, but so badly presented they never caught the judges’ attention. From that experience I compiled a few pointers that I wish to share on the five things you should talk about when you have only 10 minutes (or less) to convince an investor that your business is viable.

1. Start with a short problem statement. I wrote here , that a viable business must provide a solution to an existing problem that either no one has thought of solving, or one that  is currently being solved ineficiently. If you can’t come up with a problem statement for your business, then chances are, its not a business. A problem statement doesn’t have to be more than 1 or 2 sentences long, must be clear and concise. Avoid unnecessary history at this point. For example, if you’re presenting a maize processing idea, it’s not very useful to point out the date when the first maize processing plant was launched.

2. State how you intend to solve this problem. The key here and throughout the presentation is to keep it simple. Remember you have a very short time, and you don’t want to waste time explaining jargon to an investor. Use of jargon triggers the imagination of your audience. Until very recently, I didn’t know what Crowdmap was, and whenever that word was used, my imagination would go wild, trying to imagine crowds around a map. If this is in an investor presentation, then you lose me for a full minute by using the word Crowdmap. Assume that your audience only knows one language: English, and explain your business in plain English. Don’t be afraid to sound simple. Good business ideas are often simple.

At this point, it’s useful to point out related ideas that are already in the market, and how you intend to stand out. The biz talk for this is Competitive Advantage.

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3. Keep away from the technical details.  Even when your audience has the know how,  technical details distract. I once sat in an IT businesses judging panel where 2 of my co-judges were in IT, and whenever a contestant got technical (especially where this aspect wasn’t well thought out), my fellow judges would get sucked into discussing the technology and execution, and in the process either invalidate the business or miss the point entirely. If I’m selling the idea of a Hotel to investors, I don’t think they’re very interested in the wood veneer finishes and round corners in a 10 minute presentation. God forbid there’s a building contractor or architect in the audience who prefers rectangular corners to round ones. We’ll be forced to discuss corners and this is totally irrelevant to the presentation. Reserve those for the detailed business plan.

4. Talk about why you are best placed to solve this problem. This is where you talk about your education if relevant to the idea, work experience, and partnerships you are going to need to make your business idea a reality. Be factual,without making it a bragging fest. You want the investor to realise you have what it takes without sounding arrogant.

5. Finally, talk about the money. You have no idea how often this gets left out in presentations. First, talk about how much money you need, second, how you intend to use it, and third, what the investor stands to benefit from it. Human beings are innately selfish, at the end of the day, we want to know how this will benefit us. Once more, keep it simple, and realistic. One interesting observation from reading possibly thousands of business plans is the fact that no entrepreneur likes to think or talk about losses. Everyone projects a profit from year 1, which in my opinion isn’t realistic. Most businesses will experience losses in the first year or two, its important to be prepared and to prepare your investor for this.

Good luck as you pitch!