Startup Professionals Musings: Investor Presentation – 10 Slides is Just Right

Twitter is truly amazing – the opportunity to find GEMS on the internet from a simple connection request is AMAZING – so for all those startups seeking to present how investors like to be pitched to below is one guys thoughts which look pretty good to APLINK…

An alternative approach, which I prefer, is to build the investor presentation first, by iterating on the bullets with your team, and then fleshing out the points into a full-blown text-based business plan document. Here are the ten slides you need:

1. Market Need and Solution. Define the problem or the market need, and outline your solution. Give the “elevator pitch” for your startup.

2. Company & Business Model. Name of the company and organization, product or services, how you will make money, who pays you, and gross margin.

3. Product & Technology. Define the technology behind your product or services (past, present, and future development phases). Make sure to communicate the relevance of your product / services to market needs. Describe your technology patents and “secret sauce”.

4. Industry & Market Sizing. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. The investor needs to understand the industry of your company. Use data from third parties like Forrester or Gartner.

5. Marketing, Sales, and Partners. Describe marketing strategy, sales plan, pricing, and partnership plans. Here is also a good place for a rollout timeline with key milestones.

6. Competition and Competitive Advantage. List and describe your competition. Describe some of your company’s competitive advantages.

7. Management Team. Qualifications and roles of the top three executives and top three on your Board of Advisors.

8. Funding Requirements and Use of Funds. How much money (if any) has management put into the venture? What is the level of capital funding sought during this stage? What is the company willing to give in return for the investment?

9. Financial Forecast and Metrics. Project both revenues and expense totals for next three years, and past three years. What is the current valuation of the company? Show breakeven and growth assumptions.

10. Exit Strategy. What is the timeframe of return on investment? What is the planned exit strategy (IPO, merger, sale, etc…)? What is the timeframe for the exit? What is the rate of return expected for the investor?

via Startup Professionals Musings: Investor Presentation – 10 Slides is Just Right.

Forbes Layoff Tracker

Compiled by Klaus Kneale, 02.06.09, 03:20 PM EST
Allergan fires 460; Cisco Systems cuts 2,000; PNC Financial pink-slips 5,800.

Number of layoffs since Nov. 1, 2008, at America’s 500 largest public companies*:

382,691

Latest layoffs: click here: http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/17/layoff-tracker-unemployement-lead-cx_kk_1118tracker.html?feed=rss_popstories

Does this mean a flood of NEW entrepreneurs hitting the global market ?

Top 10 tips on how to be an isolated Entrepreneur anywhere – itsReal

Until recently the only tools for those remote from the centre were telephone, e-mail, virtual offices and easyJet. The explosion in forms of communication has changed this fundamentally, but you still need to follow some rules. Here are my top ten tips for using them:

# People still work with people – so concentrate on building contacts, and sustaining them when they are made.

# Do this by being visible – publish yourself via a blog, Twitter, IM, LinkedIn and other appropriate sites. Facebook and Bebo don’t count. Make sure you post comments on other people’s blogs to draw attention back to yourself and show off your knowledge and wit.

# Ensure you are using the right channels – Twitter is great for letting people know you are around, blogs are great for showing your thinking skills, but nothing beats a phone call for direct contact.

more….

TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Startup in the sticks – Top 10 tips on how to be an isolated Entrepreneur in the UK.