Garage :: Perfecting Your Pitch

URL

http://www.garage.com/resources/perfectingpitch.shtml

Description

Endless articles, books, and blogs have been written on the topic of business plan presentations and pitching to investors. In spite of this wealth of advice, almost every entrepreneur gets it wrong. Why? Because most guides to pitching your company miss the central point: The purpose of your pitch is to sell, not to teach. Your job is to excite, not to educate.

Pitching is about understanding what your customer (the investor) is most interested in, and developing a dialog that enables you to connect with the head, the heart, and the gut of the investor. If you want advice about pitching, you can ask a venture capitalist, but you probably won’t get a very good answer. Most VCs are analytic types, and so they will give you a laundry list of topics you should cover. They won’t tell you what really floats their boat, mainly because they themselves can’t articulate it in useful terms. “I know it when I see it,” is about the best answer you’ll get.

What is the investor most interested in?