What you don't need

- Business plan (nobody reads it)
- Executive summary (nobody reads it)
- NDA (no one will sign it)

Summarize the company’s business on the
back of a business card.
— Sequoia Capital


The elevator pitch forms everyone’s first
impression of your venture. It needn’t be
a single sentence, but the delivery ought
to be measured in seconds, not minutes —
like any good TV or radio commercial.

I know it sounds a little crazy, but I’ve
come to believe that a clear, compelling
elevator pitch is essential to growing a
business. And I’ve paid dearly for the
evidence.

— David Cowan, Bessemer
You're going to have a hard enough time
convincing your management team to work
on the problem that you've decided to
pursue, let alone having competitors go
steal your idea and do the exact same
thing.
— Dharmesh Shah
Hone it to absolute purity
“Friendster for dogs.”
“Flickr for video.”
“We network networks.”
“The Firefox of media players.”
“Massively Multiplayer Online Learning.”
“The entrepreneurs behind the entrepreneurs.”
“Create your own social network.”
“Venture Hacks.”
The Presentation Doesn't Matter
Honing the Story
Premise
- To get good terms, you need multiple offers
- To get multiple offers, you need to tell a good story to
several investors at the same time
- Investors invest in stories, not businesses
Tools of the Trade
What you do need 

- Introduction (Typically an entrepreneur or investor)
- High-concept pitch (3 words: “Flickr of video!”)
- Elevator Pitch 
- 10-slide deck (20 minute pitch)
- Getting past no (Read bit.ly/pmarca)
what you'll need later

- a bottom-up, assumptions-driven model (how you think your business might work) 
- an operating plan (how you are going to spend that cash)
- very clear milestones / deliverables
- an explicit tech roadmap
- a clean and recent sales pipeline (where applicable)
- an elegant and relevant set of KPI's
- your cap table

and possibly:
- a detailed market mapping of your ecosystem
- a collection of interesting articles and research you can share
- a credible market sizing dataset


You
Social Proof
Product 
Market 
Traction
High concept Pitch
Telling the Story
It's show business
Do:
- Tell a story
- Release your inner actor
- Smile 
- Be true to yourself
- Raise pulse levels
Don't
- spend too much time on macro
- use abstractions, generalities or buzzwords
- ramble on in answering questions
STAY ON TOPIC
STAY ON MESSAGE
TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN
Let me have a go
who are you ?
Part 1: Nailing the Pitch
On the day
45 min pitch
15 min QA
right ?
5 mins next steps & social banter 

PITCH ENDS

5 mins sidetrack

3 mins first interruption

PITCH STARTS 

5 min one partner is late 

5 min social banter 

5 min gather folks

5 min tech setup 

35 mins 
usable time
unendorsed by @venturehacks
under-delivered by @fdestin
Thank you -- end of part I

Fresh for my friend Laurent and #lift10
from @fdestin and www.freddestin.com
"Open Sourcing Venture Capital"

Part II: hacking the deal -- 5 mins break