Presenting to the Boise Angel Alliance
If your application passes our initial review process, you will be invited to pitch your investment to the Screening Committee. The Screening Committee consists of a subset of our members. The members will review your application, listen to your pitch, ask questions and finally vote on whether to advance your application to due diligence.
The following information may help you prepare your pitch. Above all else, practice, practice, practice. This will be your one opportunity to impress a group of investors who have looked at dozens of deals. While they will be evaluating your deal, they will also be evaluating you personally. Your ability to communicate your opportunity succinctly and compellingly is a key to your success.
We recommend you read the book The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki (2004, published by Portfolio Books, isbn 1-59184-056-2), especially Chapter 3, “The Art of Pitching.” The book is readily available from Amazon.com, and local libraries and book stores.
We recommend that your presentation follow Kawasaki’s ten slide investment pitch model (pp. 51-52).
From our experience, we offer you the following thoughts:
Idaho Small Business Development Center Director Betti Newburn is available to help you construct and practice your pitch. You can make an appointment to meet with her by calling 208-426-3875. We strongly encourage entrepreneurs take advantage of this no cost resource.
Updated November 6, 2012
If your application passes our initial review process, you will be invited to pitch your investment to the Screening Committee. The Screening Committee consists of a subset of our members. The members will review your application, listen to your pitch, ask questions and finally vote on whether to advance your application to due diligence.
The following information may help you prepare your pitch. Above all else, practice, practice, practice. This will be your one opportunity to impress a group of investors who have looked at dozens of deals. While they will be evaluating your deal, they will also be evaluating you personally. Your ability to communicate your opportunity succinctly and compellingly is a key to your success.
We recommend you read the book The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki (2004, published by Portfolio Books, isbn 1-59184-056-2), especially Chapter 3, “The Art of Pitching.” The book is readily available from Amazon.com, and local libraries and book stores.
We recommend that your presentation follow Kawasaki’s ten slide investment pitch model (pp. 51-52).
From our experience, we offer you the following thoughts:
- “I’ve never heard a pitch that was too short.” A pitch can’t be too short because a good one will motivate listeners to ask questions that extend it.” (Kawasaki, p. 48).
- Most entrepreneurs devote too much time describing the product or service and not enough time describing the opportunity. By “opportunity” we mean we are more interested in the problem the customer has and how important it is for the customer to solve this problem.
- A key issue for every business is how the product or service will reach the customer. We will be very interested in how you intend to distribute your product.
- You will have 15 minutes to present. Keep presentation concise and to the point as we will stop you at 15 minutes. This will be followed by up to 45 minutes of questions and answers.
- Assume your audience is business people without direct experience in your industry. Keep presentation ‘jargon-free’. Remember, we don’t know your industry.
- The point of the presentation is not to demonstrate your prowess with Power Point. While slides may be helpful in reinforcing your point, we are primarily interested in your ability to explain your proposition. You may want to have some additional slides readily accessible to support your answers during the question and answer session.
Idaho Small Business Development Center Director Betti Newburn is available to help you construct and practice your pitch. You can make an appointment to meet with her by calling 208-426-3875. We strongly encourage entrepreneurs take advantage of this no cost resource.
Updated November 6, 2012
