Speaker: Veronika Litinski, MaRS Advisor
High tech entrepreneurs need 5 essential communication tools:
* the "elevator pitch"
* the executive summary
* the presentation
* the technical white paper
* the business plan
This lecture focuses on how to create them, and how to use them effectively to grow your business from an idea to a funded business plan.
Part of the CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101 lecture series. For more information on this event, including video see http://www.marsdd.com/Events/Event-Calendar/Ent101/2009/written-tools-02112009.html
3. The Idea
1:30 -2:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc
4. Essential Communication Tools
for Entrepreneurs
The ‘Elevator Pitch’
30 second outline of business concept
Executive Summary
3-5 page overview of your business
White Paper
Layman’s summary of your technology, product(s), the uniqueness and the value
PowerPoint Presentation
~15 slide outline of your business plan
Business Plan
Detailed description of your business plan: product plan, go-to-market strategy,
management team and financials.
Slide 4
5. How do the tools work?
The tools EXPLAIN and ILLUSTRATE:
What is unique about your business?
Who cares?
How will you execute?
DIFFERENTIATED
SUSTAINABLE
VALUE PROPOSITION
Slide 3
6. Selling vs. Planning
Be conscious of the huge difference between communicating your
business concept and building your business plan.
The primary purpose of the Toolkit is to communicate the value
of your business idea – EXCEPT THE BUSINESS PLAN.
A business plan is an internal planning document seldom shown
to anyone outside the company
The other documents are external communication documents
used to sell the value of your business idea to outside parties
Slide 6
7. Why do we need these tools?
Solicit Communicate
investment to partners
Communicate
Communicate
to employees /
to customers
potential hires
Tools
Slide 7
8. Principles for Business Planning and
Communication
No hype - factual statements. Enthusiasm will be generated
FACTUAL
by the investor realizing the opportunity on his/her own
Business planning is an iterative and adaptive process that
DYNAMIC
requires constant update and adjustment work
A clear, precise structure is a courtesy to those investing
VISUALLY
their time in reading the proposal
COMPELLING
The storyline and all the facts presented must fit together
CONSISTENT AND
and generate a well rounded impression
CONCISE
Not the quantity of analyses, but the clarity and preciseness
CLARITY
of the pack are important
Those who allocate investment resources rarely are
EASE OF
technical experts for the technology used in the proposal
UNDERSTANDING
Slide 8
10. Make your message memorable
ENGAGE your audience
Make information meaningful to them
Case studies
Address knowledge gaps
Visuals, charts, graphs
Let them arrive at their own conclusions
Pace your delivery
Slide 8
11. Know your audience
Speak to your audience in language that they understand:
Institutional investor – do not speak ‘techie’, tie everything
back to money
Strategic investor – may be more technical; will be interested in
your ideas as they impact their business
Strategic Partner – mix of technical and business; understand
how a relationship will be mutually profitable to both parties
Angel Investors - access their background; understand their
interests
Customer – understand their industry and pain points
Slide 11
12. Case Study
Before…
Product and Technology
A prototype is currently available at www.tryme.com which monitors blogs from Blogger (Google’s
blog hosting service) which includes approximately 13 million blogs. Our proprietary crawling
technology monitors approximately 90% of the blogsphere through livejournal, wordpress,
livespaces and…
After…
Product and Technology
Inc. can collect, clean, aggregate and processes vast amounts of text
information and extract the actionable insights that these marketers and
information services companies seek. Inc.’s platform is uniquely sensitive to
changes in individual sentiment.
Slide 12
13. Know your audience
Give your audience the information they are looking for:
Do not assume they want to see the depth of your scientific
knowledge
Speak to them with their interests in mind, not your interests
in mind
Whenever possible, communicate with numbers and
graphics
“the market is huge and growing”, you could say “the total
market is $3B and is projected to grow at 12% per annum”
show a graph of the historic and projected market size broken
down by segment
Slide 13
14. Case Study
Before…
Addressable Market Segment
Social networking and user-generated content applications have rapidly changed use and
perception of online technologies. BLOGs have been increasing at a rate of 100,000 a day and
currently range in the order of 80 million…
After…
Addressable Market Segment
The market opportunity for this technology is vast. Annual spending on
market research in the US is estimated to grow by approximately 25%
going from $8.7B 2007 to $10.9B in 2009…
Slide 14
15. Case Study
Before…
Competitive Advantage
Inc. provides brands a simple tool for real time sentiment monitoring in places like Facebook etc.
After…
Competitive Advantage
Inc.’s competitive advantage is rooted in the expertise of its principals and its
proprietary platform technology, benefits include:
First fully automated online solution for media analytics. Via simple
fully configurable dashboards, users can start monitoring their brand….
Advanced data analytics and language processing. The software utility
can efficiently track sentiment
Slide 15
16. Communication tools help you build
relationships
Be strategic about what you provide and when
you provide it
Not everyone should see your white paper or business
plan
Leave some details for later, don’t give away everything in
the first meeting
Your documentation should radiate
professionalism
Ensure accurate grammar, spelling, diction, illustration,
layout, etc.
Slide 16
19. Inc. has developed hand-held devices
that are designed to quickly assess a
patient’s brain function and
potentially identify dysfunction to help
medical professionals to prescribe
appropriate treatments.
Slide 19
20. The Elevator Pitch
What:
A 30 second overview of your business concept
Why:
To get a follow–on meeting
When:
In a cold call to an investor, customer, potential partner, etc.
Good for networking at trade shows, business functions, etc.
Dos and Don’ts:
Do not spend forever practicing and refining this – should come naturally;
Figure out a few key messages you would like to get across to use as a loose
script
Distribute key messages to outward facing employees – standardize message
Slide 20
22. The Executive Summary
What:
3-5 page summary of your technology, product, sales plan, revenue path and
financial requirements
Why:
A ‘teaser’ document meant to generate a request for more information or a
meeting
Readers will want to get their head around the concepts quickly
When:
When you have a ‘warm’ intro or an invitation to contact someone
Integral first interaction with an investor
Rides the line between confidential and non-confidential – some degree of
trust
Dos and Don’ts:
Has to have the right emphasis given the maturity of the business concept
Keep it current
Slide 22
24. The Whitepaper
What:
A fairly concise layman’s summary of your technology, product(s), the
uniqueness of the technology and products and the value proposition
Why:
Helps investors to understand how a concept or technology works
When:
After investors are curious about details or have bought into the big picture
business vision
Dos and Don’ts:
Put the whitepaper on your website
Don’t go so deep as to give away all of your trade secrets/IP – consult your IP
professional
Keep it as short as possible and fully explain all acronyms
Slide 24
26. The PowerPoint
What:
A ~15 slide outline of the key aspects of your business plan
Why:
Provides an overview of the business plan in point form
Allows people to absorb a lot of key information in a short period of time
When:
Usually the second piece of information an investor receives after the executive
summary
Investors love these because they can flip through them very fast and get highlights
Dos and Don’ts:
Critical document in the fundraising process – present a sound story; make it look
good
Practice speaking to it, preferably in front of friendly people who will ask lots of
questions
Use graphics as much as possible
Slide 26
28. The Business Plan
What:
A rigorously prepared and executable description of how you will build your
business
Why:
This is your roadmap for how you are going to build your business
Describes roles and responsibilities for building various aspects of the business
When:
When you have assembled enough solid information to write it
Highly proprietary; later stages of diligence
Wait for the investor to to ask for it
Dos and Don’ts:
Often made a condition of financing or a board action item
Re-write with every major change in strategic direction
Avoid the temptation to turn this into a sales tool – preserve its integrity as an
execution plan
Slide 28
29. How to build and use your toolkit?
Do not start by building your business plan
You will not have the information you need
You will examine issues out of priority
You will expose lack of understanding
Do not offer to supply a business plan off the bat
Use the PowerPoint Deck as receptacle for all ideas and information
that comes to light – easy to manipulate, organize and adapt
Build your executive summary and eventually your business plan
based on your PowerPoint deck
Give investors your exec summary and offer to walk them through
the PowerPoint slides in person or on the phone
Slide 29
30. Advice from the trenches
Do not overload the documentation
Try to get across a few key messages instead of telling
the whole story
Your audience will only absorb the key messages
Templates exist for all of these documents
Don’t re-invent the wheel
MaRS has developed templates based on extensive
review of industry best practice materials
Slide 30
31. Evaluation criteria for a new venture
Large and Growing
1
Market Opportunity
Your business addresses a large,
growing and global market. You
have a clear understanding of the
customer segments and competitive
landscape in the target market.
Experienced Sustainable Competitive
4 2
Management Team Advantage
Your team has people who are leaders You have a protected technology that
Key Opportunity
in their field. They have a strong will provide sustainable competitive
customer focus and specialized advantage for the business and its
Requirements
knowledge of relevant sub-sectors in customers. You have a product
the industry. Ideally, your team should development roadmap that
have people with prior experience in a addresses regulatory hurdles and
technology start-up. demonstrates your ability to grow
Financial Return on your business.
3
Investment
You have defined how the company
will make money. You have
developed financial projections that
demonstrate Value Creation based
on real-market validation and input
from paying customers.
Slide 31
32. Outline
Executive Summary
Company & Opportunity Summary
Product & Technology
Market Size and Growth
Sales and Marketing Plan
Competitive Overview
Operations Plan
Management Team
Financials & Investment Requirements
Business Plan
Slide 32
34. Outline
Company Description (1 paragraph)
Basic Need & Company Solution
(1 paragraph)
Technology and Product(s) (1 paragraph;
diagram)
Value Proposition (couple of bullets)
Market Size and Growth (diagram)
Sales Plan (1 paragraph)
Competitive Advantages (couple of bullets)
Management (detailed bullets)
Revenue Growth Projections (diagram)
Financing Requirements (1 paragraph)
Executive Summary
Slide 34
35. Advice from the trenches
Practice, Practice, Practice
Different versions for different people
Management vs. finance vs. technical
Version control
The main idea of all of this is to entice investors/
partners to take a deeper look
Slide 35