The classy part about internet is that one can share their learning and make sure that the mistake done by one are not repeated by others. So last week I had my first business plan presentation to an investor. Went pretty decent but I am sure I could have done far better by just keeping in mind few things which I already knew but did not implement.
1) Back to MBA days where we were taught this 10/20/30 rule - 10 slides, 20 minutes and 30 font size. My presentation went to about 45 min and I realized that after 25min, the presentation was not required. Most of these guys are always in a hurry and guess tight on time and attention.
2) My presentation included brief introduction of the company, team, description about me, Comprehensive project description: what I plan doing, what is my product/service, what are your major competitive advantages, my customer profile, how much investment and what is the proposed funding structure like own capital, direct investments, etc and other topics like all business plan have. What I conveniently missed is is the payback period. That was a real disaster on my part. I knew it but forgot to include in my presentation.
3) Apart from the negatives stated above, I think I was very good at the visual element of the presentation. Good creativity and the graphics communicated the same ideas and values as the bullet points. A pat on the back for that :-).
4) It took to a while to tell the marketing personality in me to shut up! This was consciously decided because I really did not want to sound to boastful. One of the slides had the word "game-changing". Not that the investor complained but when I just saw it right now, I did smile at myself. How funny I could have been to include this!
5) I could have done far better in my "Call to Action" section slides. A lot of things came up in the discussion which I realized they were there but not organized well. So make sure you put in 80% of the time for this final section. This is only what your investors are interested to know.
All the best guys and hope you guys learn from this too :-) !
1) Back to MBA days where we were taught this 10/20/30 rule - 10 slides, 20 minutes and 30 font size. My presentation went to about 45 min and I realized that after 25min, the presentation was not required. Most of these guys are always in a hurry and guess tight on time and attention.
2) My presentation included brief introduction of the company, team, description about me, Comprehensive project description: what I plan doing, what is my product/service, what are your major competitive advantages, my customer profile, how much investment and what is the proposed funding structure like own capital, direct investments, etc and other topics like all business plan have. What I conveniently missed is is the payback period. That was a real disaster on my part. I knew it but forgot to include in my presentation.
3) Apart from the negatives stated above, I think I was very good at the visual element of the presentation. Good creativity and the graphics communicated the same ideas and values as the bullet points. A pat on the back for that :-).
4) It took to a while to tell the marketing personality in me to shut up! This was consciously decided because I really did not want to sound to boastful. One of the slides had the word "game-changing". Not that the investor complained but when I just saw it right now, I did smile at myself. How funny I could have been to include this!
5) I could have done far better in my "Call to Action" section slides. A lot of things came up in the discussion which I realized they were there but not organized well. So make sure you put in 80% of the time for this final section. This is only what your investors are interested to know.
All the best guys and hope you guys learn from this too :-) !
1 comment:
Awesome...what i like is the frankness.
All the Best Purwa for your new Endeavour
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