Organization Name

Your Name

Title

Contact Information

Date

• Name of the company• Logo• Company description (one sentence)• Date founded• Sales• Employees

Introduction

Problem

• Describe the pain that you’re alleviating. • The goal is to get everyone nodding and

“buying in.”• Personalize the problem.

Example:

“If you go to five travel sites, you will be presented with 5 completely different offers. Traveling to each site and comparing trip packages is time-consuming and confusing.”

Solution

• Explain how you alleviate this pain and what you deliver.

• Ensure that the audience clearly understands what you sell and your value proposition.

Example:

“We are a discount travel website. We have written software that searches all the other travel sites and collates their price quotas into one report.”

Business Model

• Explain how you make money: – who pays you?– What are your channels of distribution?– What is your gross margins.

• Generally, a unique business model can be hard to describe. If you truly have a revolutionary business model (unlikely), explain it in terms of familiar ones.

Example:eBay: “We charge a listing fee plus a commission.” End of story.

Underlying Magic

• Describe the technology, “secret sauce”, or “magic” behind your product.

• How does it create value for the customer?

Example:

“The delivery of a wine’s ‘message, it’s bouquet and taste, depends on the form of the glass. The secret to Reidel glasses is that there is a perfect shape for every beverage. Through ten generations of glassblowers, we have discovered the timeless forms of glass to convey the wine’s message in the best manner to the human senses.”

Competition

• Provide a complete view of the competitive landscape.

• Never dismiss or underestimate your competition!

• People want to hear why you’re good, not why the competition is bad.

Positioning

• Describe your position in the market.– Competitive Positioning: What stories are the

prominent competitors selling?– Creative Positioning: What story will you tell that

customers will find either more important or different than the stories already being told in the market?

• Why do people buy from you???

Example:

“Wal-Mart is telling the story of low prices everyday. We are telling a story of convenience.”

Marketing and Sales

• Explain how you are going to reach your customer – What are your marketing leverage points?

• Convince the audience that you have an effective go-to-market strategy that won’t break the bank.

Example: “A majority of the primary buyers of our educational software can

be reached through two national trade shows and four primary regional shows.”

Management Team

• Describe the key players of your management team, board of directors, advisors, as well as any major investors.

• Describe how your team completes the “management trinity”: production expertise, marketing expertise, and financial expertise.

Financial Projections

• Provide a three year forecast containing not only dollars, but also key metrics such as numbers of customers and conversion rate.– This should be a bottom-up forecast taking into

account long sales cycles and seasonality.

• Making people understand the underlying assumptions of your forecast is as important as the numbers themselves.

Milestones

Describe:• Is your product or service ready

for the US market?• What does the near-term future

look like?• What accomplishments have you

seen so far?