If you’re an entrepreneur looking for funding, you know how important—and involved—the pitching process can be. Designing a convincing pitch deck and identifying an effective hook is just the start. Actually testing your pitch to see if it resonates with investors is the next step.

Why get feedback on your pitch deck?

You want feedback. On paper, your pitch may seem like a slam dunk, but until you put it all together, your deck, your plan, and your presentation are all hypothetically solid. 

You want to vet your metrics with experts in your industry, see if there are any holes in your presentation, and make sure it reads well before you pitch your investors.

The more people that evaluate your pitch before investors see it, the better chance you have of succeeding. The more chances you have to catch any errors in reasoning, assumptions that are unclear to your audience, or things that just simply don’t make sense or flow well.

What feedback should you ask for?

Before approaching someone to review your pitch, you should know what type of feedback you want from them. This will ensure that they look at specific elements of your pitch and answer any outstanding questions you need to be answered. Here are a few elements to consider focusing on.

Overall aesthetics

Style can easily overshadow substance. You may have a visually stimulating pitch deck that is so overwhelming or off base that it becomes useless. So, try to set aside your personal investment in the deck and try to answer the following questions.

Does your pitch deck fit your current brand? Are the graphics clear, consistent, and useful? Does the imagery choices match the focus on each slide? Do the color choices make it easy to read and skim through?

You want it to still be stylish and captivate your audience. But, you need to consider the readability of your slides, how it connects with the story your telling, and overall conveys the focus of your brand. 

Clarity of content

This somewhat ties into the visual aesthetic but with a greater focus on the content your covering. It can be easy to stuff your deck with countless slides of information that serve very little purpose. So, you need to ask your audience to identify any sections that seem redundant, unfocused, or meaningless.

In the end, you want a streamlined and digestible pitch deck to present to investors. Yes, you do need to consider, an expanded appendix, similar to your business plan, that investors can peruse at a later time. But when presenting, it needs to be straight to the point and not just a copy of what you intend to verbally cover.

Unanswered questions

One of the biggest issues you may overlook is not including the right information in your pitch. A gap in your roadmap, no outline of how you intend to use funds or even an unspecified target market can sink your pitch. 

So, ask those reviewing your pitch to write out any outstanding questions they have about your business. If you see a consistent gap, or even one call out that presents a major issue, find ways to add it in.

Where to get feedback on your pitch

So who are the best people to review your pitch? Drawing on advice from our own Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software, and Josh Cochrane, our VP of Product Development, I’ve broken down a few of the different options for entrepreneurs looking for feedback on their pitch. I’ve also included advice from a few entrepreneurs, who shared what resources worked best for them.

1. Do a “practice pitch” for potential investors

A great place to start vetting your business pitch is with those investors that you hope will invest in your business.

After all, they are going to be the ones ultimately determining if your business is a viable investment, so why not find out early if there are holes in your data, or areas you should be covering more thoroughly?

Tim advises asking potential investors to sit in on a “pre-pitch” before the formal pitch session, a strategy that worked well for Dune Sciences, which won the 2014 Willamette Angel Conference investment.

“[Dune Sciences] asked at least three of the member investors to drop by their offices in the week or two preceding the due diligence and pitch session,” says Tim. “They were invited separately, and each of the three sat for the pitch and commented on it. The three who agreed to do it had some semblance of a relationship with the founders beforehand. They ended up with a nice pitch, and approximately $300K in seed money.”

Additionally, it may be worth your time to speak with investors outside of your industry. Seeking out investors who invest in a different space, can sometimes provide feedback from a new angle that those in your industry might have missed.

We’ll go over this more when we discuss angel investors, but it’s a good idea to keep in mind both the investors you have pegged for potential investment in your company, and those outside your field that may still be able to help in an advisory capacity.

2. Ask an angel investor

Targeting a particular angel investor can be a good tactic, as they are often willing to evaluate your pitch.

While every angel investor may not be one who will invest in your business, as they may have a different focus, they can still give valuable feedback. Again, this would be a prime opportunity to focus on the expertise of the investor rather than the industry. Working with them to identify holes in your business, versus pursuing funding through them.

Tim advises checking out Gust, which lists regional and local angel groups. From there, you can reach out to an angel in your area.

Similarly, AngelList allows you to search by region and search for angels in an advisory capacity; by doing so you’ll be able to find angel investors in your area who may be willing to give you feedback.

3. Find a mentor and establish a relationship

Having a mentor can be invaluable for your progression as an entrepreneur. Finding a person in your industry that you can rely on to get advice, answer your questions, and discuss your ideas with may well be your most valuable asset.

If you have a mentor that you’ve built up a good rapport, this may be the person who will give you the honest, sometimes disheartening feedback that will ultimately help make your business pitch better. According to Sean Higgins, the co-founder of ilos Videos, “you’ll want to connect with people who aren’t afraid to tell you that your projections are too aggressive or that you’re shooting yourself in the foot with slide XYZ.” “Usually it’s hard to get this kind of feedback from an outsider.”

Where do you find a mentor? Bryan Conklin, founder, and CEO of Zylo recommend SCORE, which helps entrepreneurs get in contact with potential mentors. “I recently got assigned a mentor from SCORE who has given valuable feedback on my pitches and plans for the business,” he says. “I plan on utilizing SCORE’s resources and my mentor to further refine my approach towards the business.”

4. Ask your intended customers for feedback

So far, we’ve covered a variety of ways that entrepreneurs can vet their pitch through industry professionals. But, while it is important to ask investors or other prominent thinkers in your industry for feedback, that’s only one piece of the puzzle—it’s also important to ask your potential customers for feedback.

Josh says, “I usually advise entrepreneurs to test their concept by getting feedback directly from their intended customers. Those are the best people to validate the company’s opportunity.” 

Now, while we aren’t advising that you necessarily sit down with potential buyers and run them through your entire pitch deck, you should be asking them some key questions early on.

Josh suggests asking the following questions:

• This problem we’ve identified, is it a real problem for you?
• How big of a problem?
• Would you pay to solve it?
• What are the existing options to solve it? Have you tried them? How do they fall short for you?
• What do you think of our proposed solution?
• Does it strike you as a great solution to the problem?
• Would you pay for our solution?
• Any sense of how much you’d be happy paying for it?

Not only will this process help you get feedback on your product, but it will also inform your pitch. If you spot recurring themes in your feedback from potential customers, be sure to address that upfront in your pitch.

For example, do your potential customers say they would buy your product, even at its high cost, because they believe it will really and truly solve their problem? State this early on in your pitch, and you may have assuaged a lot of investor concerns from the get-go.

5. Head down to your local Small Business Development Center

An old standby for a good reason—your local Small Business Development Center is an excellent resource for information on a variety of business-related topics.

Operated by the U.S. Small Business Administration, SBDCs provide entrepreneurs and business owners with a variety of free or low-cost services, such as consulting, business plan development, and assistance with finding lenders and investors.

Schedule a time to visit your local branch. According to Tim, nearly all the locations will have someone who can assist you in polishing your pitch, though of course services vary by location.

6. Get involved with a university entrepreneurship center

If you are still at university, your school likely has plenty of resources for you to take advantage of.

From MIT’s Martin Trust Accelerator to University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship—which offers students a chance to participate in events like the New Venture Championship—your college is likely to have resources through its school of business.

Not currently a student? Touch base with your alma mater; plenty of schools allow former students access as well. Or, check out the programs for local universities in your area, even if you haven’t attended—you may still be able to access certain resources, or contact faculty that can help give you feedback personally or point you in the right direction. University entrepreneurship centers are also a great place to get information about upcoming competitions you may be able to enter.

7. Join a coworking space

Coworking spaces offer many benefits; not only do they give you a place to work outside of your home (often a “must” for new entrepreneurs, who don’t yet have an office), they give you an opportunity to network, build connections, and yes, get feedback.

Bryan has had great success since joining a coworking space and recommends it to entrepreneurs looking for pitch feedback. “I joined a coworking space in West Palm Beach, FL in February 2014 and received great feedback from other startups as well as visiting mentors on my pitches,” he says. “Coworking is great because you have other like-minded entrepreneurs to help vet your ideas, your pitch, and who can empathize with your struggles.”

Not only will you be in a position to build connections, speak with potential mentors, and get the word out about your business, but you can also get feedback from a variety of sources, from potential customers to potential investors.

8. Enter a competition

Business plan and pitching competitions are a great way to get targeted, specific feedback; after all, you are putting yourself into a context where getting feedback is the main goal, as opposed to getting funding (though plenty of competitions do include a monetary prize).

Tim advises entrepreneurs to check out this list of competitions. He warns that although quality and prize money varies from competition to competition, they can be a great way to practice pitching in a setting designed for getting feedback.

Sean Higgins, participated in the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management MN Cup, a new venture competition which he says was a huge help in getting advice. “The process gives you a ton of feedback, everything from what needs to go in your executive summary to how you actually presented your information.” 

“Don’t sleep on pitch competitions!” he says, and we agree.

9. Deliver your pitch to friends and family 

You might have heard it said before—your product concept should be broken down into language easy enough for a child to understand. After all, while you are deeply invested in your startup and know the ins and outs, your investors may not be as familiar with jargon as you are.

Now, take it a step further and consider giving your pitch to family members, friends, children, and anyone not in your industry who is willing to listen (but, ask permission—we don’t advise simply approaching strangers or pitching to a crowded street, as you might get a few funny looks).

Delivering your pitch to people unfamiliar with your industry is a great way to spot holes in your description of your business. While you may think something is obvious, those less immersed in your industry may not, and it’s important to be as inclusive as possible when pitching your business. After all, you don’t want to lose out on an investor because they aren’t quite clear what your product or service does.

What kind of feedback is best?

That’s a trick question—there isn’t one “best” way to vet your pitch before you pitch your business to potential investors. Ideally, try a combination of these, as that will get you the most well-rounded, complete feedback possible. 

Ultimately, your goal is to cover all your bases, make sure your numbers check out, and that your ideas are clear and easy to understand—and getting feedback from a variety of sources is a great way to do this.

Need help developing your pitch? We’ve got you covered. Download our free Pitch Deck Template to get started on yours today.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in2015 and updated for 2021.

Most people think that writing a business plan has to be hard. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be.

In fact, it’s possible to write your initial business plan in less than an hour. After all, you’re always thinking about your business and the strategies you’re going to use to grow, so getting those ideas down on paper shouldn’t be hard—it can even be an enjoyable experience.

Listen to Peter and Jonathan discuss this article and try to make their own business plan on the second episode of The Bcast, Bplans official podcast:

Click here to subscribe to The Bcast on iTunes »

A new kind of business planning

A business plan no longer needs to be a long document that takes weeks to write and research. It’s not something that you print, bind professionally, and then stick on a shelf. You probably only need a formal, traditional business plan if you’re seeking a bank loan or outside investment—you’ll be expected to provide one in those instances.

But for most businesses,  business planning should be a simple, ongoing process that helps you discover your ideal business strategy. It’s a lot less about putting together a document, and more about frequently reviewing your strategy and financials so you can respond quickly to challenges and opportunities. Plus, just doing the process of business planning has been scientifically proven to make you more successful—and there are a lot of other reasons why having a business plan is important as well.

I encourage you to embrace a concept called Lean Planning—it has all the benefits of traditional business planning without the pain and hassle of creating a long business plan document.

You’ll start with a short overview of your business—a Lean Plan. It’s your business strategy, written in brief, with just the essential business plan components, so that you can update quickly and easily as you learn more about your business, your customers, and yourself. It’s also a great starting place for making sure your amazing business idea is really viable.

What to include in your Lean Plan

When you’re writing your Lean Plan, channel Twitter and try and keep each business plan section as short as possible:

Value proposition

One sentence that describes the value you provide to your customers. If you were composing a tweet to tell people about your business, what would you say? With only 140 characters, describe what you do and what makes you unique. Your goal is to communicate the value you are providing to your customers in a way that they will understand.

Market need

What problem does your business solve for your customers? If you aren’t solving a problem for your customers, you are going to have a hard time building your business. If you’re not sure, try talking to your potential customers and ask them what they like about your products or services. Why do they choose you over other alternatives?

Your solution

How do you solve your customer’s problem? What products and services are you offering? Describe your product or service and why it’s better than the alternatives. Essentially, if someone asked you what you sell, what would your answer be?

Competition

What products and services do your customers choose today instead of yours? How are you different? What makes your business and products better than the alternatives that are out there?

Target market

Who is your ideal customer? Describe your ideal customer. Who are they? Be as specific as possible—age, gender, shopping habits, and so on. If you target different types of people, create market segments for each group.

Sales and marketing

How do you market your products and services to your customers? What are your sales channels, or the places where you will sell your products? If you’re selling online, your online store is a sales channel. If you also have a physical store, that’s another sales channel. What will you do to market your business?

If you plan on buying advertising, list the types of advertising you plan on doing here. Remember, different target markets might need different types of marketing activities to get your product in front of them.

Budget and sales goals

How much do you think you will sell and how much is it going to cost you to make your product or deliver your service? What other key expenses will you have when your business is up and running? What sales goals do you need to reach for your business to be a success?

Don’t sweat the details to start and just think in broad strokes to get a rough idea of how your business will work financially. You can refine the details later.

Milestones

What have you achieved so far and what are your major goals for the next few months or years? This will help you stay on track and meet your goals. Make sure to assign milestones to people on your team so you have real responsibility and accountability.

Team

Why are you and your business partners the right people to make your company successful? Even if you’re starting out with just you, write a few quick bullets about why you’re the right person to run this business. If you need to hire key people in the future, list those positions as well, even if you don’t know who specifically will fill those positions right now.

Partners and resources

Do you need to work with other companies or organizations to make your company a success?

Funding needs

This is optional; if you need to raise money for your business, how much do you need and what will you use it for? Even if you’re starting your business with your own savings or using credit card debt, it’s a good idea to plan on how you will use the funds until you start making sales.

Start with your Lean Plan—save the detailed business plan document for later

As you think about each of the areas above, don’t think “business plan.” Instead, imagine that you are having a conversation with someone at a cocktail party and you’re explaining your business to them in simple terms.

It’s much better to approach this as though you’re “pitching your business.” After all, the idea of pitch first, plan second is a best practice in business and is a much faster and more effective path to success than the traditional business plan.

Here’s an example of a Lean Plan I built in 27 minutes:

I’ve always wanted to own a bike shop, so here’s a Lean Plan that I built in 27 minutes, well short of one hour. As you can see, a Lean Plan doesn’t have to be complicated, and I still had time left over to do another one and try another business idea on for size.

I admit, I cheated a little bit and used LivePlan to create this Lean Plan which made the process easier, but you can create your own Lean Plan just as easily using our free template or just by writing down your notes for each business plan section in a document.

The key is to remember to keep each business plan element brief. Don’t add more than is necessary.

Get started

If you’re ready to start working on your own Lean Plan, download our free template and get started right away. Use markers or sticky notes to jot down your ideas quickly. If you want an online version that you can share with business partners, give LivePlan a try.

And, if you need a more traditional business plan, you can download our free template or browse through over 500 complete business plans. If you decide to leave it up to the pros, try LivePlan’s business plan consulting—you’ll get an MBA-written, long-form business plan in five business days that will be perfect for bank loans and investors.

Do you think you can use this format to plan your business faster and more efficiently? Share your thoughts with me on Twitter @noahparsons and feel free to ask questions, too. I’ll make sure to answer them as they come up!

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2018 and updated for 2021.

How to make a pitch for investors

Creating a successful pitch starts with a thorough business plan. From there it’s up to you to identify what makes your business valuable and worth investing in. You may have 5-pages of proven financial history and a deep analysis of how you stack up against the competition across multiple industries, but you simply can’t cover it all. 

Because, when your pitching to angel investors and venture capitalists for the first time, you’ll often only have around 10-minutes to make your case. Here’s how to make that quick pitch successful. 

1. Create a presentation 

First, take the time to put together your pitch deck. The goal is to create a deck that is easy for you to work off of and gets investors excited about your business. 

Keeping that in mind, you should have a short version that you can speak to within 10-minutes as well as an extended version that includes everything you’d like to give potential investors access to. 

You can use our free pitch deck template for Powerpoint to get started and browse our gallery of over 50 different Industry Pitch Decks. If you need help putting your pitch together, check out this list of tools that can help you put together a professional-looking presentation.

2. Practice your pitch

You need to practice your pitch. Not being able to quickly speak to each element of your business makes every other tip on this list virtually useless.

Too many entrepreneurs think that just by knowing their business they can quickly and succinctly explain its’ value. And having a killer pitch deck with eye-popping visuals will be enough to fall back on. So they go into pitch meetings unprepared.

Instead of being able to say, “I only need 10 minutes of your time,” and actually only taking 10 minutes, you’ll soon find yourself rambling 20 minutes in having only made it through slide 5. Take the time to practice, simplify your messaging, and only keep elements that build up your business. Leave everything else on the cutting room floor.

3. Outline the problem with a story

Begin your pitch with a compelling story. It should address the problem you’re solving in the marketplace. This will engage your audience right out of the gate. And if you’ve done any testing try to include actual data here.

If you can relate your story to your audience, in this case, the investor, even better. What industries have they invested in previously? What pain points do their previous entrepreneurial endeavors have? Do some research about the investor, so you have a good sense of what they care about and can tailor your story to them.

4. Your solution

Share what’s unique about your product and how it will solve the issue you shared in the previous slide.

Keep it short, concise, and easy for the investor to explain to others. Avoid using buzzwords unless your investors are very familiar with your industry. Again, if you’ve done any testing beforehand, plugin results here to give your solution more credibility.

5. Your target market

Don’t say that everyone in the world is potentially your target market, even if it could be true one day.

Be realistic about who you’re building your product for and break out your market into TAM, SAM, and SOM. This will not only impress your audience, but it will help you think more strategically about your roll-out plan.

If you can, try and develop a user persona or your ideal customer when speaking about your target market. This can help investors visualize the potential customer base and displays that you’ve thought intently about who your business will serve. It’s also much easier to speak to a named individual in a quick pitch, rather than a broad demographic.

6. Your revenue or business model

Investors tend to care about this slide the most. How will you make money? Be very specific about your products and pricing and emphasize again how your market is anxiously awaiting your arrival.

7. Your successes: Early traction and milestones

Early in the presentation, you want to build some credibility. Take some time to share the relevant traction you’ve made.

This is your opportunity to blow your own horn. Impress the investors with what you and your team have accomplished to date (sales, contracts, key hires, product launches, and so on). You’ve likely mentioned bits and pieces of this early on, but this is the point where you create a full snapshot of your business.

But don’t just leave it at what you’ve done, be sure to speak to where you’re going. Show them a roadmap of next steps, additional milestones and even mention how funding will help achieve them.

8. Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy

This is usually one of the most skipped sections of an investor pitch and a full business plan. How will you reach your customers? How much will it cost? How will you measure success? 

Your financials should easily allow you to calculate your customer acquisition costs. But you should also mention how you intend to reach customers, which channels you’ll be advertising on, and even present an example of messaging. You’ve done your research, you know your customer, why not show investors what that will look like in action. 

9. Your team

Investors invest in people first and ideas second, so be sure to share details about your rock star team and why they are the right people to lead this company.

Also, be sure to share what skill-sets you may be missing on your team. Most startup teams are missing some key talent—be it marketing, management expertise, programmers, sales, operations, financial management, and so on. Let them know that you know that you don’t know everything.

10. Your financial projections

Show what you’re projecting in revenue (per product) over the next three to five years. You must back up your numbers by sharing your assumptions. You’ll see investors taking out their smartphone calculators to make sure your numbers make sense, so give them the information they need to see that your calculations are accurate.

If your financial chart shows “hockey-stick growth,” be sure to explain what happens to cause those inflection points. Now it can be incredibly easy to spend a ton of your time explaining financials but keep in mind that you need to speak to them quickly. If investors want to hear or know more, add your full financials to the extended pitch deck or offer to answer questions after you’ve finished presenting.

11. Your competition

Again, this is a very important part of your pitch, and many people omit this section or don’t provide enough detail about why they’re so different from their competitors.

The best way to communicate your value proposition over your competitors’ is to show this slide in a competitive matrix format—where you list your competitors down the left side of the page, you have your features/benefits across the top, and place checkmarks in the boxes for which company offers that service. Ideally, you have checkmarks across the top for every category, and your competitors lack in key areas to show your competitive advantage.

12. Your funding needs

Clearly spell out how much money has already been invested in your company, by whom, ownership percentages, and how much more you need to go to the next level (and be clear about what level that is). Will you need to raise multiple rounds of financing? Is the investment you’re seeking a convertible note, an equity round, or something else?

Remind the audience why your management team is capable of managing their investment for growth. Tell investors how much you need, why you need the money, what it will be used for, and the intended outcome.

13. Your exit strategy

If you’re seeking large sums of investment capital (over $1M), most investors will want to know what your exit strategy is. Are you planning on getting acquired, going public (very few companies actually do), or something else? Show you’ve done some due diligence on this exit strategy, including the companies you’re targeting, and why it would make sense three, five, or ten years down the road.

14. Follow-up

Investors will want you to be able to back up your claims. Have a well-thought-out business plan on-hand to share, so investors can read more if they’d like to. The intention, after all, is that you deliver a powerful pitch, and by the end, their hands are out asking for either your executive summary or your complete business plan.

15. Take feedback and refine your pitch

No matter the outcome of your pitch, whether you receive funding, another meeting, or rejection, look for areas to improve. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback and take that into account for the next time you pitch. Now if the investor isn’t willing to provide any, don’t push the issue. It is their time you’ve just spent and are asking more of, so it’s a fine balance to achieve.

If you can, have another team member there to take notes and review with them after the fact. Look for weak-points, areas you stumbled over, and slides that led to negative reactions from the investor. Keep refining, practicing, and executing even if you think you’ve found the perfect pitch. 

You’ll really never know how good your pitch is until you actually do it. Don’t stress yourself out, and treat every investor pitch as a learning experience for you and your business. You’ll only continue to get better and better and can apply those learnings to every area of your business.

Editors’ Note: This article was originally published in 2018 and updated for 2021.

I’m a former opera singer turned entrepreneur. When I left the field of opera, I never thought my musical training would be relevant outside of the music industry. I thought it would be relegated to a fun fact at corporate icebreakers or deployed as my secret weapon at karaoke.

Soon, I landed my first job outside of opera and learned I would have to give speeches on behalf of my organization. I was terrified. But then I realized that my ability to perform on stage actually made me a powerful public speaker. I was comfortable in front of a group of people; I knew how to use breathing to project my voice; I had stage presence, which I learned to convert into executive presence.

Over the past sixteen years, I’ve realized just how powerful those musical techniques are in a professional setting. My team and I have worked in dozens of industries and countries, with people at every stage in their career, by adapting those musical techniques to meet business strategies. And nowhere are these skills more needed than in entrepreneurship.

Below are five tools from the world of opera that I’ve seen improve my clients’ pitching:

1. Center yourself before walking into a room

Opera singers are “on” the moment they walk out on stage, which means they have to center themselves beforehand. As an entrepreneur, you are “on” the moment you walk into someone’s office.

Actually, you are always “on” because you never know when you are going to run into that big investor—on an airplane, on the Acela between New York and Boston, or at a conference. Take some time to yourself before walking into a room and remind yourself why you truly believe in your business idea—speak it out loud to yourself—and that sense of purpose will help you walk into the room with much more confidence.

2. Pay attention to your breathing

Think about that last time you made a big pitch to an important investor or supporter. Were you nervous? If so, I bet the first thing you forgot to do was breathe. When we get nervous, we stop breathing and our voice becomes flat and monotonous, often trailing off into vocal fry.

Focusing on your breathing is a relaxation tool that literally counteracts the “fight or flight” response that happens when you get nervous. Let yourself pause and breathe before you start and in between sentences. This slows you down and makes you sound more thoughtful—it also gives your audience time to jump in with questions, which makes the pitch more collaborative.

3. Speak to one person at a time

Singers don’t perform while looking at the floor or at their script. They look out at the audience in order to create an emotional connection with everyone in the room. It’s the same thing when you are pitching.

Put your notes to the side and speak to one person at a time, completing a full thought before you move on to the next person. For those of you who identify as introverts, this means you’re not talking to a large audience—you’re simply having a series of 1:1 conversations with people around the room. As a result, each audience member feels more personally invested in the presentation which makes them engage more fully.

4. Build your confidence

A singer’s confidence comes from a combination of factors, including their years of study honing their craft, their preparation for this particular performance, and their deep love for the music. You can use the same confidence-building measures: invest in your skills, spend time preparing for your presentation, and remind yourself why you deeply care about the topic you are presenting.

Confidence in presenting shows confidence in your ability to adapt in the face of surprising consumer feedback or changing market conditions. Investors are investing first and foremost in you and your team, based on your passion and dedication which tell them you will stick with this as the idea changes.

The final tip doesn’t come from the field of opera. In fact, this tip reminds me why I left opera. Twenty years ago, I spurned a career in opera and stopped singing for 10 years, convinced I wasn’t good enough to make it. It wasn’t until I learned to play the guitar that I realized I have always been a folk singer at heart. I’ll explain how that’s relevant to pitching in the next tip.

5. Focus on authenticity over perfection

An opera singer can seem like this magical creature who we place on a pedestal for their otherworldly singing ability. We listen and appreciate the perfect honing of their craft, but we never think of joining them on stage. Compare that to a folk singer, who is someone we want to sing along with (think “Blowing in the Wind”).

Investors aren’t looking for a technically perfect pitch. Sure, they want you to know what you are talking about and have a clear understanding of your material, but they are not looking for the perfect speaker. They are looking for someone genuine and confident, someone who can be the best version of themselves at the front of the room instead of trying to sound like someone else.

Music—both opera and folk—has quite a lot to teach entrepreneurs about pitching. Try the five techniques above before your next pitch and you’ll find a greater ability to speak with impact. If you’re looking for more resources on delivering a pitch that lands you angel or VC funding, check out the Bplans pitching guide.

How much time you have to deliver a pitch to investors will have a big impact on how and what you’ll want to do and say.

If you’re giving five-minute presentation followed by a Q&A, you will approach that a little differently than if you’re giving a one-minute presentation!

So, how do you know what to include in a really short pitch? What about a 20-minute pitch? We’ve got you covered. In this article, I’ll review:

• What to include in a one-minute, five-minute, 10-minute, and 20-minute pitch
• Tips from entrepreneurs who successfully pitched their businesses for funding

The one-minute pitch

This very brief time slot is a little brutal—you have to be clear and concise—but if you’re nervous about speaking in front of people, there’s one big benefit: it’s over quickly. The challenge, of course, lies in using the time as wisely as possible.

Think of a one-minute pitch as the absolute heart of your business: What problem is your business solving? Projecting confidence and having the clearest, most concise explanation of your product or service possible is key.

Jackie Wu created Rook, a flying security camera, and received funding after pitching an incubator. Jackie says, “The biggest thing is, you have to know what the problem you’re solving is and how your product/service will solve it. We articulated that very clearly to the investors. That is the one-minute pitch.”

The five-minute pitch

A five-minute pitch is when you can start branching out from your core message. In it, you’ll cover the problem your business solves and how you’ll solve it, but you can include other important details like what your competitive advantage is and why your team is the best for the job.

Forbes has a great example of a winning five-minute pitch from a pitch competition. The winning entrepreneur offers some important advice: avoid unrealistic financial projections (you’ll look like an amateur), and always copy edit your pitch deck. A typo or misspelling in such an important event says to investors that you aren’t detail oriented—not exactly the message you want to be sending.

The 10-minute pitch

Caroline Cummings has successfully raised nearly a million dollars in angel investment. To help entrepreneurs achieve funding success, she’s distilled the process into a series of manageable takeaways and has even created a great format for a 10-minute pitch.

Caroline suggests this format for your pitch:

• Tell a story
• Explain your solution
• Describe your successes
• Define your target market
• Explain your plan for customer acquisition
• Outline your competition
• Describe your business model
• Provide your financial projections
• Introduce your team
• Clarify your funding needs
• State your exit strategy

To present a polished and professional pitch, practice it. You should know the key points you’ll mention and the order you’ll present them in, whether you use a pitch deck or not.

The 20+ minute pitch

If you have the opportunity to pitch for 20 minutes, its safe to assume you probably have a larger block of time, like 40 minutes or an hour, in which to cover both the pitch and the Q&A. Guy Kawasaki, Apple’s former chief evangelist, has what he refers to as the 10/20/30 rule, which is a good guideline when it comes to longer pitches.

It goes like this: If you have a pitch deck of slides for your presentation, use no more than 10 slides, you should be able to pitch from these in 20 minutes, and you shouldn’t be using a font smaller than 30 points.

If you start from the heart of your pitch—the one-minute version—then each longer iteration allows you to provide more detail expanding from that point.

20 minutes gives you plenty of time to not only hit those high points listed under the 10-minute pitch, but also time enough to really flesh them out. You could include a brief product demo that shows off your technology, or more details about your smart and efficient business model that you might not otherwise have had time for.

Advice from the trenches: Pitch to win

I talked to entrepreneurs who had successfully pitched their businesses and received funding and collected their advice on how to prepare for your pitch and what makes a pitch successful.

Here’s what they learned from their experiences:

Assemble a solid team

Have a great team working with you and know why they are the best people for their jobs. Jackie Wu says that your team is one of the most important things to mention in your pitch.

She recommends answering questions like, “Why are you guys uniquely capable of doing this? Do you have a lot of experience?” Be able to concisely say why you and your top people deserve funding.

Have a plan and structure

Jasmin Augustin of Swift Logistics, Inc., a shipping company, won the Liftoff Houston Business Plan Competition after a four-minute pitch and 10 minutes of Q&A, but she says she never would have gotten to that point without writing her business plan first.

You won’t need to submit a business plan before every pitch you make, but you can bet that having a plan in place will make your pitch that much easier to create, and you’ll have something to direct investors to should they ask.

Bring a backup

It sounds old school, and it is, but it’s also a guarantee: If you have a hard copy of your pitch deck on hand, no amount of technical difficulties will stop you from using it.

“I would highly recommend that you print a copy of the slides in case the projector or computer fail. This happened to me,” says Roman Diaz, president of Touchstone Compliance.

Practice

Practicing, especially if you’re the nervous type, is a must. It’s common to be a little jittery, but you don’t want it to distract from the great idea you have for your business. So the more you can get used to explaining your business to people, in a cohesive and relaxed manner, the better chance you have of staving off nerves when you really need to.

Remember that practice doesn’t mean memorized; this can make you sound robotic or mean that an interruption could throw you off. You just want to get so familiar with all of the pertinent material that you could answer relevant questions in your sleep, so that there’s little risk of drawing a blank when the pressure is on.

If you’re not comfortable with public speaking in general, check out Toastmasters, an organization that helps people build those skills, and also take a look at Bplans’ guide to pitching for more help and ideas.

Caroline Cummings says: “If there’s one thing I can’t stress enough, it’s the importance of rehearsing your pitch.”

Make them say, “Tell me more.”

I heard this one from quite a few people: piquing the interest of your audience is a worthy goal. Greg Archbald of Greasebook, an oil and gas technology company, says that this can be done in one of two ways:

“1.) Talk about all the traction you’re getting, or 2.) not only inform, but entertain.

Remember, investors want to see any kind of external validation of the usefulness/coolness of your product or service. The more traction you can show, the less you’ll require investors to take a leap of faith.

The next best way to stimulate interest is to entertain. You can do this with penetrating new insight, humor, or controversy. Not only will the investor appreciate this, but you’ll stand out from the crowd, be memorable, and above all else, stimulate interest,” he says.

Tell your story

Every startup has a story. Lida Zlatic of ClassTracks, a language learning company that has won two pitch competitions, advises thinking of your pitch as a compelling story you have to tell.

“Every story has characters (who is your product helping), a problem, a pathway (a general suggestion for solving the problem—we start this section with, ‘If only…’), and a solution (our product). Longer pitches spend more time explaining the product. Stats and humor are also helpful,” she notes.

Have you used any of these tactics during a pitch? Do you have a pitch-related question? Let us know on Twitter!

This article is part of our Business Funding Guide: fund your business today, with Bplans.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2015. It was updated in 2019.

For 25 years, it’s been my job to craft heartwarming and sometimes heart-wrenching stories about rats that want to cook, fish that become better parents, and toys that learn to get along. Stories can transport us to unique (and imaginary) worlds, transforming the way we think and feel by placing us in the paws, fins, or cowboy boots of the heroes going through life-changing events.

The principles of great storytelling, which I used at Pixar, can also be leveraged by entrepreneurs wanting to seal the deal at their next pitch or presentation.

Great stories help us feel more connected with information. This is why Pixar films resonate so deeply with us and we remember the characters and moments so vividly. When you transform data and statistics into a story, memory increases dramatically. The late cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner found that facts are 22 times more likely to be remembered if they are part of a story.

The 8-second countdown

One key fact: You have eight seconds to convince investors or customers that you’ve got something worth hearing about before they zone out, tune out, or check out.

So how do you create a great hook that holds someone’s attention? Start with something unusual, unexpected, action-driven, or in conflict.

Start with a “what if?” scenario.

“What if superheroes were banned from saving people?” That was the hook for “The Incredibles,” which took the day-to-day world of superheroes saving people and turned it into an unusual situation. Your audience is now hooked and asking, “Why and how did they get banned?”

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001, his hook was: “What if you could put a thousand songs in your pocket?” This was unheard of. At the time, the only way you could listen to music on the go was with a cassette tape stuffed in a Walkman. Steve shared something unusual and unexpected in eight seconds that grabbed his audience’s attention.

Entrepreneurs, take notice. Look at your product or service as if it were a movie. Develop that eight-second “elevator pitch” that grabs clients by the lapels. Tell a compelling story that shows how their lives will be changed.

Inside the brain: Why storytelling works

Storytelling is the most effective way to change minds, behaviors, and philosophies. When characters go through a believable transformation, the audience is changed as well. This “neural coupling” occurs when the brain activity of the storyteller and the person listening mirror each other.

Neural coupling actually affects our bodies on a chemical level. When people—or even animated toys, robots, or rats—are laughing, smiling, or sharing stories of suspense, dopamine and endorphins are released in our bodies. When the story is sad or somber, oxytocin is released. When we place these sad and happy moments next to each other in a story, we build an amusement park ride for people’s hearts and minds.

Wouldn’t you love to deliver a sales pitch to an investor or customer and have that same can’t-leave-your-seat effect on your audience?

Build a stronger relationship with your audience by inviting them to an experience, not a mission statement. Share authentic stories that are personal, vulnerable, and honest.

Stories deliver smart lessons

After “Toy Story” came out in 1995 and was declared a huge success, employees wondered if Pixar would try its hand at making live-action movies as well. What about TV shows? Video games? Pixar employees were prepared to make the leap from startup to a worldwide media company, like Disney.

To keep us grounded, Steve Jobs shared a cautionary tale that kept us focused as a company and safe from going bankrupt. It went like this: “When Apple was just getting started, the team and I loved to go eat at one particular sandwich shop in Silicon Valley. Although it was a small shop, owned and operated by a family, it served the very best sandwiches in town.

“The sandwiches were so delicious; we would even wait 45 minutes in line just to get one. But as the sandwich shop grew in popularity, the owners began to serve coffee and pastries to compete with Starbucks and Krispy Kreme. Unfortunately, their coffee and pastries were mediocre, and the attention to detail on their trademark sandwiches lapsed. So we stopped eating there. Months later, I discovered the sandwich shop was gone. They had spread themselves too thin, and they went out of business.”

Steve’s story drove home the point loud and clear: Don’t over leverage yourself.

Even though “Toy Story” was a wild success, if we spread ourselves too thin, too fast, we would risk losing it all. We needed to focus on making really good animated family films. Steve knew the best way to communicate this message to us was by sharing a story about characters facing change and learning.

Include a beginning, middle, and end

One last tip: Make sure you include a beginning, middle, and end in your stories. Did you see how Steve included a setup, build, and payoff in his sandwich story?

Setup: Successful business.

Build: Business grows too quickly.

Payoff: Business goes bankrupt.

This structure keeps an audience from getting bored, confused, or distracted.

For thousands of years, the best writers (and savvy business leaders) have used these storytelling techniques to inspire their listeners to try something new. Now it’s your turn. How can you, the entrepreneur, use storytelling to create stronger authentic connections with your investors and customers?

When we put the words “small business” and “business pitch” together in one sentence, do you have flashes of the famous reality TV show “Shark Tank?”

The show has been around for a while; entrepreneur contestants pitch their business ideas in front of a panel of investors—the “sharks”—in hopes that one of them will want to invest in their idea.

As each episode ends, we cheer for the contestants who are able to impress the sharks and land investment deals. However, for those entrepreneurs, a whole new struggle begins after the show ends.

The truth behind pitches

Forbes spoke with 237 of the 319 contestants that made it on the show in the first seven seasons and found that a whopping 73 percent did not get the exact deal they had on-air and that about 43 percent said that their deals never came through at all.

For any startup founder pitching their idea to investors, landing the deal is never a guarantee.

So, what are they doing wrong?

Sometimes investment deals don’t work out because the businesses themselves aren’t as solid as they should be.

They’re missing one of the four pillars:

1. A good business idea that has been validated
2. The right team in place to scale the idea
3. A passionate, cohesive story
4. The numbers to back it all up

Having worked in an Australian app development company that helps small to medium enterprises, I’ve come across many small business owners who have brilliant app ideas but fail to animate them in their pitch.

The people we come across generally fall in one of these three categories:

• Have funds and an idea, but zero know-how on app development
• Understand app development, and they have funds and an idea
• Have an idea, but no funds or knowledge on app development

The ideas that I am talking about here are game-changing, have vast potential and addressable market, and can create a buzz in the industry—if and when they see the light of the day. It upsets me how these wonderful ideas with so much potential fail to capture the attention of investors and die a slow, painful death by pitch deck presentation showdown.

Before you create your pitch, set your trajectory for growth

The app development market is pretty different from other businesses, primarily because by the time your app is fully developed, you probably already have a distributor to spread the word in the app store marketplace.

But, if you have an idea for an awesome app but no technical app development skills, you’ll go through pretty much the same drill as small business owners looking to scale. You’ll be looking for both investors and the right talent on your management team to drive growth.

Every successful small business goes through four stages during its entire existence:

1. Existence: expanding from pilot production to broad-scale production
2. Survival: generating enough cash flow to stay in business
3. Success: business model works and is stable, but there is still untapped potential
4. Growth: stepping into a bigger market opportunity with expanding services or new products while maintaining constant profits

The main concern for a newly started business of any size is the existence stage.

The concerns during the existence stage are:

• Executing a solid marketing plan to gain popularity and foster wide adoption: proving the viability
• Delivering quality product and services
• Having enough capital to cover this phase

Whether you are a newly started restaurant, a brand new coffee shop, a retail store, or even a manufacturer of technology-related products, for investors to take you seriously, you have to get past the existence stage.

There are a number of ways to get funding for your growing business, but each has pros and cons. Before you seek outside funding from investors, make sure you really need it, and that you can sustain the growth trajectory that investors will expect.

In this article, I will share how founders can blow investors’ minds by basing their pitch on four strong pillars that are not only essential to make an impact but also to make you understand what is expected out of your business idea.

1. The eureka moment—validating your great idea

Just having a business idea won’t make you rich or successful; having the right business idea will. How will you know if you have a good idea? Validate it. This first pillar is absolutely critical.

In the long run, you’ll save time and resources and avoid ever pitching a failing idea to investors. So to have a brilliant pitch, you have to set the foundation with the right business idea.

So, how should you validate that you’ve come up with a life-changing business idea?

Use Google before anything else

The moment the genius idea strikes, rush to Google to check the following:

1. Keywords

There is a tool called Google Keyword Planner that gives you insights into what people are searching related to your product, as well as search volume. Not only will this give you an idea of what people are thinking and searching, it will also give you the opportunity to tweak your product idea as per the demand.

Another simple way to find the keywords related to your industry is to look for “searches related to” section in the bottom of the page on Google.

Both these ways can help you understand more about people’s opinions/take/issue with a specific product or industry.

2. Google Trends

Now that you have got some good keywords with you, it’s time to check if they are trending in your country/capital/region. Go to Google Trends and search for the keywords and select the country where you want to see the trends.

3. Market research

Spend some time conducting market research. Search for statistics related to your product—trust me, you will find ample of data within a fraction of a second. Study the reports thoroughly and see who are your competitors (direct or indirect) who are delivering the same product or something similar to what you are thinking.

Now, ask yourself three questions:

• Was there enough search volume related to your idea? The more search volume on your targeted keywords, the greater the demand in the market. If people are searching for terms related to your solution, that’s the first step toward validating that they would pay for the right one.
• Is your idea similar to the existing competitors who also happen to dominate the market currently? Every business has competitors. If you don’t think you have any for your idea, think more creatively or reconsider your solution—maybe there’s a good reason why no one is doing what you propose.
• Does your business idea demonstrate unique value? The more generic an idea, the more competitors you have to vie with, and the more marketing dollars you’ll waste. What’s your edge over your competitors? What is this one thing that keeps your customers coming back to you (that your competitors don’t have)?

After you successfully finish your research put on your best walking shoes and head out in the wild, a.k.a the real market.

Go for personal surveys

Go to a public place like a coffee shop or maybe a park and ask people if they use your competitors’ products. If they do, then what do they like about them the most? What do they dislike?

After carefully noting their responses (and not asking leading questions), give them your elevator pitch—the short and sweet version of your idea.

Request their contact information (if they are comfortable and you manage to do it without sounding creepy).

Tell them you will let them know when the final product will launch. There won’t be a greater validation at this stage than people willingly signing up for it.

Create an MVP

An MVP or a minimum viable product is a scaled-down, cheaper (cost-wise) version of your full product. Most MVPs aren’t really scalable, but they’re meant to test whether there’s a market for your solution.

For example, if you want to start a national restaurant chain, the MVP for you might be a food truck. Before you open a food truck, the MVP for you could be selling from temporary locations where you find your target audience. All the research work that you did at your home will pay off here.

If you’re seeking investment, it won’t be enough to say that you think you’ll be able to sell your idea. You’ll have to actually demonstrate that you’re generating revenue and increasing your client base. Your MVP’s success will be a key component of your investor pitch deck.

2. Demonstrate your passion

Passion serves as the groundwork for your pitch. Angel investors and VC funders are truly investing in your good idea, but your passion and commitment are important too.

Demonstrate how much you have invested yourself mentally and physically in this business idea and assure them that you will face any future hindrances head on.

Always know your “why.”

If your “why,” your mission and vision, are unclear and haphazard, the investors will be able to pick up on that.

Here’s how you can demonstrate your passion and hard work the right way:

Tell the story

Studies show that storytelling helps you form a connection with the listener and elicit empathy and positive feelings. You need to leverage this and incorporate into your pitch.  

Make it character-driven. Who will benefit from your product or service? When you tell investors about your target market, use a customer persona (if not a real, anecdotal) to illustrate the details. Say their name, age, gender, location, occupation, income level, interests, and so on.

After the character is defined, bring in the problem points. Say what your customer is experiencing to set the stage for how your solution can help. Mention the struggles and challenges they face.

The problem should be relatable to your product and should automatically guide the investors toward the next logical question: What is the solution?

If your solution can’t help the character of your story, the investors will decide not to help you after all.

The solution part becomes highly impactful when shown through storytelling, and not just told.

Use the results from your offline hustle (MVPs and surveys) that you did. Show the investors how your product actually solved the woes of the customers and relieved them.

Also show them how you solved the problem in a way that was different from your competitors, thus giving you an edge.

3. Prove that you have the dream team

The next pillar is your team: you, any co-founders, and other roles that will be critical for scaling.

Demonstrating that you have the right team in place is key. Even if you have the best idea, if your team isn’t top notch (or if your investors don’t know why they top notch), you might not land investment.

In other words, your team should be capable of laser targeting and solving the challenges they’ll face.

Briefly mention their diverse experiences and background so investors can see that your business is balanced perfectly. Your team should get a slide in your pitch deck. Don’t spend 20 minutes talking about them, but make sure you have included enough information about them in your business plan that your investors can learn more if they’re interested.

4. Master the numbers

If passion is the engine of your small business, then numbers are the fuel that keeps it running—the final pillar.  

As a founder, you know that your financials are the barometer tell the real story about the health of your business.

Demonstrating to investors that you have a handle on key business metrics as they relate to your business model and forecast is essential. You can try to fake them, but don’t—remember that it’s an investor’s job to verify that they’re solid. They want to know that you’re thinking about the things that might affect your ability to scale, and taking steps to reduce risk.

You’ll want to be able to show your TAM, SAM, and SOM, or your total addressable market. Telling the investors about how much scope the product has, without showing them how much of it you can tap from the market, is a mistake.

Next, you have to be able to show how much can you earn with your product, and how quickly—in other words, you need to be able to show your forecast.

Using a business dashboard can help you track your financials and make accurate projections. Not only do they help you track your performance, they save you from being deluded from time to time and keep your feet on the ground.

If you don’t want to get into the core of accounting, at least make sure you know and understand how to calculate the important financial metrics.

In case the investors are keen to know how you arrived on your numbers, you need to whet your knowledge on the following (you can highlight them in your pitch for better presentation):

1. Revenue generated from one single customer for a certain time period. Say a customer pays $50 for your product and uses it for a month, so this means your revenue generated from this customer is 50×30= $1500.
   Nerdy term for this: LVC, or “lifetime value of a customer” (also known as LTV, or “lifetime value”)
2. Total cost that is involved in gaining a paying customer. This means before they bought your product, how much direct or indirect cost did you incur? This includes the commissions, advertising costs, trial periods, and so on.
   Nerdy term: Acquisition cost for new customers (sometimes referred to as CAC, or “customer acquisition cost”)
3. Expenses that were surpassed by revenue. The bigger the difference between what you spend to deliver your solution and your revenue, the better. Nerdy Term: Margin
4. Time it takes for you to convert a potential customer into a customer. Remember, a shorter span impresses the investors.
   Nerdy term: Sales lifecycle
5. The monthly cost of operating the business. It includes fixed expenses like payroll, rent, legal and technological fees, and so on. You basically have to tell the time period until your cash runs out once you’ve been funded.
   Nerdy term: Burn rate

Closing

Let’s assume the investors like your idea and are sounding positive about your amazing idea, your team, passion, and your numbers. Can you safely assume you nailed the pitch?

Not just yet!

A magnificent closing is that extra push that you need that’ll crossover the investor from a “consideration” to a surefire “yes.”

So what should be your closing actions?

1. Reiterate

Telling them why now is the time to launch your business. You are basically underlining why you are here today for the pitch. Re-state how your product will swoop in like a superhero and solve your customers’ problem, and how your marketing plan and strategies will help you gain traction.

2. Spell out your funding ask

It is critical to mention how much money you’re asking for and how you plan to use it. Give the top-level overview during your presentation, but make sure you have detailed documentation available in your business plan.

3. Describe your exit strategy

An exit? What?! Investors generally are not going to invest in businesses whose founders don’t have an exit strategy—they really make the majority of their money when your business is sold. Don’t be coy. Tell them what you’re thinking. They want to know that you’re all on the same page.

Summing up

Lastly, don’t forget to have your business plan ready and handy. If the investors are serious about your idea, they will definitely ask for it—and you don’t want to make them wait weeks or months. You’ll lose your chance.  

Leave no stone unturned and provide a satisfactory answer—even if it’s that you’ll get back to them tomorrow—to all their queries. The last thing you want to do in an investor pitch meeting is be thinking through details about your company on the fly. Practice your pitch, and anticipate any objections so you can answer them with confidence.

Many people dream of

However, this dream comes with a big cost. So, unless you’ve inherited a large sum of money or won the lottery, you’ll probably need to look into funding options for your small business.

There are many ways to seek funding, but one that seems to attract a lot of buzz is pitching to the investors on the TV show “Shark Tank.” The premise? Entrepreneurs pitch their startup idea in hopes that one of the extremely wealthy and successful investors, or “sharks,” will invest in them. At the very least, there’s potential to benefit from floating your pitch in front of millions of viewers.

But the chances of making it on the show are very slim. According to one Observer article, of the 40,000 applications the show received in 2016, only 180 entrepreneurs were able to pitch in front of the sharks. That’s less than 0.5 percent. Although those odds aren’t the best, it shouldn’t deter you from applying.

Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few to make it on the show and land a deal, but the true benefits lie the process of preparing to audition.

The entrepreneurs who make on “Shark Tank” all have a set of achievable goals, a compelling pitch, and a handle on their businesses strengths weaknesses and opportunities. These skills helped past contestants make deals on the show, and these same skills can help you secure funding, whether it’s a shark or another investor.

Draft a business plan

Once you have some goals in mind, it’s time to make a plan to achieve them. Dreams are fine and dandy, but any investor will want to know what you’ll do to actually achieve them. You do this by showing them your business plan. Before you can show it to the sharks or any other investor or lender though, you’re going to need to make one.

Here are some components every great business plan has and things you should consider for your own business:

• Executive summary: This is your time to be upfront with investors and ask what it is you truly want from them. That way readers will know from the get-go what they’re dealing with. Even though this will be the first thing investors see, it’s generally advised to write this portion last. This is because the executive summary includes a general summary of your entire business plan. You can’t summarize what you haven’t finished.  
• Opportunity: What exactly are you selling and who are you selling it to? How does your product or service fit into the existing marketplace? Defining the problem you are solving for your customers is crucial for your business success. If you can’t pinpoint a real problem that your customers face (that your product solves), then you might not have a viable business concept.
• Market analysis summary: This section of your plan should describe who your target market is—your ideal customers. Use this section to talk about your customers’ needs and how you’ll reach them. This is also where you’ll want to talk about who your competitors are and why you think there’s room for you in the market.   
• Execution: This section of your plan should include your marketing and sales plans and functional or operational details the technology or tools you’ll use to run your business. It’s also where you’ll want to put your goals, the milestones that are going to move you toward your goals, and how you’ll measure your success.
• Team and company: Especially in the competitive funding landscape, you’ll sometimes hear that investors are looking for exceptional teams, rather than amazing ideas. You’ll need both to be successful, but don’t underestimate the importance of telling investors about your team’s special qualifications and experience. Use this section to describe your current to and outline the roles that you plan to hire. Also mention where you’re located, your legal structure, and a brief company history if your organization is up and running.
• Financial plan: Investors will want to see your revenue and sales forecast, expenses, projected profit and loss, and cash flow, and projected balance sheet. Even better if you can provide charts and graphs so that you can make it easy for investors to visualize your financial plan.

Set goals for your company

Some people like to take the more spontaneous path and wing it, but it’s guaranteed they haven’t appeared on “Shark Tank” or set themselves up for long-term success. By creating a set of goals your business can strive for, your company will have the direction it needs to take the right steps to grow and prosper.

It helps to imagine where you want your company to be in five or ten years. What do you predict yourself achieving? How do you see your product or service making a difference in people’s lives? Open your mind to all the possibilities, good or bad.

From there, think about setting milestones to help you stay focused and to function as a kind of barometer to help you know whether you’re on the right track. Good milestones should state your objective (think mini goal), who is responsible for it, budget information, and a concrete due date.

Perfect your pitch

In order to get onto “Shark Tank” or to interest other investors, you’ll have to pitch to a series of people before you can even talk to one of the sharks.

Mastering your pitch is integral to securing funding. When you know your goals and business plan backward and forwards, then crafting your pitch is already halfway done.

The sharks aren’t just looking to invest in a business, they’re investing in a person too. Tell them your story and how you came up with the idea for your company. Showcase your personality as much as you can to see how compatible you are with the investors.

Any time you meet with an investor, do your homework on them first. Make sure you know and understand the types of businesses they’ve funded before. That will be a good indicator of whether they’ll consider your particular product or service.

Keep your pitch short and to the point. If you cannot concisely explain what your company is and what you plan to do with it, it will be a sign to the sharks and any investor that your business isn’t organized or stable. Stick to the essentials and use plain language so that anyone from any background can comprehend what you’re saying.

Be sure to practice your pitch several times, and get feedback from someone you trust. Think through the types of questions you’re likely to get when you’re finished—and plan what you’ll say if you get a question that you don’t have an answer to so that you’re not completely thrown off.

Talk about your competition and the successes your company has experienced. Don’t be afraid to show the numbers to back you up either. Just make sure they’re accurate before including them in your presentation.

If it’s possible, show your product to the sharks or at least a prototype or mock-up of it. Showing your product or service in action can be the difference between a yes or no. If you will be able to give a slide presentation, make sure that it’s free of errors and has a clean design. If you’re not sure where to present, Bplans offers a free downloadable pitch template to help you get started.

Even if you don’t get on the show or make a deal with a shark, having worked through your business plan, mastered your pitch, and thought through your milestones and goals will put you ahead of the game in your effort to secure funding.

You’re riding in an elevator with just one other passenger and the guy looks familiar somehow. He smiles and you smile and he says something like, “Hey did you drop this?” He hands you your driver’s license which you’d just shown to security and suddenly you realize this person is one of the biggest angel investors in the universe.

The two of you strike up a conversation and he asks what you do, and you just happen to be seeking funding for your startup. You notice you’re already on the 14th floor and you do a quick calculation in your head. You’ve got exactly three minutes (it’s a really tall building) to tell this angel about your brilliant idea before the elevator reaches the top floor where, being an angel, he must certainly perch.

Okay, so that would never happen. But then, how many elevator pitches actually take place on elevators? Yet these mini-orations happen all the time, and some of them bear fruit. If you get upgraded on flights, you have almost certainly heard an aviation version of an elevator pitch. People pitch at parties, in convention center hallways, public swimming pools—I once delivered an elevator pitch to a stranger at the top of a mountain.

Even if you’re not starting up a company but just have an idea you hope to elevate to the C-suite, it helps to know the techniques for delivering a perfect pitch. The same techniques can help you get respect in meetings, and even improve your toast at a friend’s wedding.

I picked up these tools from years of studying rhetoric, the 3,000-year-old art of persuasion. Aristotle literally wrote the book on rhetoric. He tutored Alexander the Great in the art, helping spread one of the first great western empires.

Julius Caesar was a master rhetorician. So were Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Churchill, and Martin Luther King. All of them studied rhetoric. In more recent times, rhetorical principles have been backed by modern neuroscience. As someone who coaches people to give presentations and has helped fundraisers and salespeople polish their craft, I have seen the tools work in the business world. So let’s get started.

Aristotle’s enthymeme

It may seem strange to apply an art invented by ancient Greeks to an elevator pitch. But the ancient Athenian orators delivered speeches of as little as several minutes, with frequent interruptions by the hoi polloi (the masses). A Greek speech was more “Shark Tank” than commencement address. The orator had to make his point, and make it fast.

To help speakers zero in on their topic, Aristotle came up with a logical one-two punch called the enthymeme. (The Greeks probably found it easy to pronounce.) It consists of just two parts: the proof, and the conclusion.

The proof can be a fact or a story. To illustrate, let’s suppose you want your company to design, say, a new line of lingerie for cats. Your proof should be the best possible reason, either a fact or anecdote, for cat lingerie.

• Fact: Go on YouTube and you’ll find millions of cats wearing costumes, and thousands of humans in lingerie, and a shocking lack of cats in lingerie.
• Fact: What are two of the most popular subjects on the internet? Cats and lingerie.
• Anecdote: It came like a bolt out of the blue. My kids were playing with our cat, and somehow they got into my wife’s unmentionables drawer and were treating everything they brought out as cat toys. Eureka!

The first fact shows an unmet need: cats in costume, humans in lingerie—Venn diagram! The second fact is a more direct proof. Popular meme plus popular equals wildly popular marketing white space. And the anecdote is an origin story. Part two of your enthymeme is the conclusion.

The enthymeme serves as the seed of your pitch. Of course, you’ll have many reasons for starting your feline lingerie line. But audiences aren’t very good at absorbing new information more than one fact at a time. If you have only one or two minutes, focus on just one proof.

One way to draft your proof is to think of a logical brand statement. Write down your conclusion:

We need to design a line of designer cat lingerie.

Now write your proof. Begin with the word “Because…” and go from there. (Personally, I would go for any proposal with the proof “Because cats. And lingerie.”)

Now breathe

You generated your logical seed, the proof-conclusion enthymeme. The temptation is to go straight into noodling up the rest of your pitch. Hold on. You need to work first on your period.

We think of a period as a, you know, a monthly thing. Or as a punctuation mark. The ancients saw the period as something much cooler. They theorized that the patterns of the brain work in sync with the rhythms of the rest of the body. A single expression tends to last as long as the speaker’s breath.

Therefore, they believed, an audience can absorb a thought that’s the maximum of an orator’s single long breath. They called this span periodos, the period. Try timing it yourself. Take a deep breath and talk steadily; if you don’t smoke and you’re in reasonable shape, you should be able to last about 12 seconds. That’s a period. The ancients made the period the climax of a speech, the emotional part toward the end; the biggest applause line.

What does this have to do with an elevator pitch? A great deal. Just bear with me.

To see whether the period still exists in modern orations, I went online and found videos of the most famous political addresses, as well speeches in Hollywood movies—ranging from “Braveheart” to just about every sports movie ever made. True enough, the big memorable lines in political speeches lasted 11 to 13 seconds. For movie speeches, I hit the timer whenever the music began to well up, then stopped when the star ended. Twelve seconds on the dot, just about every time. While few modern speechwriters and screenwriters have studied classical rhetoric, they employ the ancient period through sheer experience and instinct.

Even before you write the outline of your pitch, craft your own period, the climax of your mini-speech. This climax is your audience’s rainbow, the finish line, the promised land that your pitch leads to. You don’t have to sound like a blue-faced Mel Gibson or a deranged basketball coach. But your period should convey absolute belief and commitment while portraying a beautiful vision of the future. In 40 words. Twelve seconds of speech equals about 40 words.

In our own climactic passage, we can envision adorable little cat outfits flying out of stores departments, getting millions of clicks on Amazon and eBay, just about owning Instagram for all eternity, and all to make the world a better place in these troubled times.

Now for the outline: Set the stage

You have your logic packet of proof plus conclusion. You drafted your (okay, slightly creepy) vision. It’s time for your outline.

Just about every great speech, short or long, descends through tradition from the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero—who, according to Cicero himself, was the greatest speaker of all time. He not only ran the Roman republic before Caesar became dictator. Cicero also wrote rhetoric textbooks that students still pour over.

The Ciceronian outline, a framework for putting your pitch in order, comes from the man’s deep understanding of human nature. He knew that the most powerful tool of persuasion is trust. If the audience trusts the speaker, they’ll follow him anywhere.

To build that trust, you have to make yourself fit in with your audience. In this case, you’re given only a few minutes, so you have to rely on the old standbys of eye contact, good handshake, posture, and the appearance of confidence.

You want to enhance your ethos: your image or projected character. If you do have time, you can reveal your understanding of the subject, refer to your experience (you have a veterinary degree and ran the design department of a lingerie boutique), and have mutual friends who will vouch for you.

Next, comes the logic part. Reveal your enthymeme in just a sentence or two.

And finally the peroration—your persuasive conclusion. In this case, your peroration is probably your vision of a hilariously beautiful furry future.

For the record (and in case you’re ever asked to give a commencement address), the actual Ciceronian outline goes like this:

• Introduction. Establish your character, get the audience to like and trust you.
• Narration. Deliver the facts, tell your story.
• Defense: Bring up objections before the audience can, then shoot them down.
• Peroration. This is your period.

For elevator purposes, you can simplify the outline to comprise trust, enthymeme, and period. Or, if you like, character, logic, and vision. Follow this outline and write out your pitch. Rewrite it at least a dozen times. Practice it in front of friends and colleagues. Then deliver it to the toughest audience: adolescents. Note when they look bored or fidget or turn to their smartphones; that could signal a boring passage.

Now you’re ready. You’re as well armed as the most eloquent Greek or Roman. Deliver it and build your empire.

Meanwhile, ping me if you start selling cat lingerie on Kickstarter. I’ll totally back you.

An elevator speech is a 30- to 60-second answer to the question, “So, what do you do?” It’s a quick summary of your business and its value proposition. A great elevator speech will spark interest in your business and hopefully lead to a deeper conversation.

Elevator speeches are a great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Whether you’re at a party, at a networking event for startups, giving a quick overview to a potential investor, or just meeting new people, a solid elevator speech is your chance to introduce your company to potential customers, investors, and referrals. After all, you never know if you’re talking to that one person who might be able to help take your company to the next level.

What’s the difference between an elevator pitch and an elevator speech?

An elevator speech and an elevator pitch are very similar, but a pitch is frequently delivered to investors in a more formal setting and it’s likely that you’ll have a presentation slide deck (also called a pitch deck) to help you out.

A pitch can also be delivered over email or even as a stand-alone slide deck that investors can view on their own time. You can learn more about elevator pitches by reading our guide and get started on a pitch deck with our free presentation templates.

An elevator speech is always delivered verbally—it is a speech, after all. You can use your speech in a variety of situations, but it’s often more suited to social situations or during a very early introductory meeting where you have less time and just need to give an off-the-cuff description of what you do.

The name really describes what it’s all about: Imagine that you step on an elevator with someone and they ask you what you do. Can you quickly describe what you do before you reach your floor?

What to include in your elevator speech

Elevator speeches are tricky because you have to communicate a lot of information in a short amount of time. And, no, speaking faster does not solve this problem! Instead, you need to craft an interesting and compelling narrative that leaves your audience asking to learn more about your business.

Here’s a quick overview of what your speech should cover.

The problem your company solves

Your company exists to solve a problem. If you can’t make customers lives better, they won’t buy from you.

Describe the problem your company solves by using phrases like, “Did you know that…?” or “You know how people have trouble with…?” Your goal is to connect with your audience and get them nodding along in agreement. Hopefully, the problem you are solving is something they can relate to.

Your target market

All successful companies target specific types of customers. While it’s tempting to say that your products and services are for “everyone,” you’re much more likely to be successful if you are trying to market to a specific set of potential customers.

For example, it would be easy to say that a new hair salon is for anyone that needs a haircut. But, that salon will have a much better time marketing and attracting potential customers if it knows what kinds of customers it would like to serve.

Your solution

This is probably the easiest part of any pitch—describing what your company actually makes or sells. Your solution needs to solve the problem you’ve described and be the right choice for your target customer.

The value you offer

The value that you provide to your target market is the glue that makes your solution right for your customer. It’s the reason why your customer is going to want your product or service.

Your traction and progress so far

Anyone who wants to learn more about your company is going to want to know what you’ve done so far. Do you already have customers? Are you still in the early stages of development? Maybe you’ve recently received an award that’s worth talking about.

Your experience

A great idea is nothing without the right people to turn it into a business. Your elevator speech needs to explain why you (and your team) are the right people to build the business.

Your goal

If you’re talking to a potential investor or someone who might know investors, mentioning a fundraising goal can be a good idea. Even if you’re not looking to raise money, you might have other goals such as your first sale, or closing a big account. You never know if the person you are talking to might be able to help you out.

An elevator speech formula

You can structure an elevator speech in many different ways, but there are a few formulas you can use to help you figure out what you want to say. We’ll start by looking at a very short version that you can use to quickly answer the “what do you do?” question, and then look at what you might say if have a little more time on your hands.

The one-sentence formula for an elevator speech:

We make [solution] for [target market] so that [value].

That looks really short without the blanks filled in, but it should be plenty for a quick introduction once you add the specifics.

Here’s an example from Palo Alto Software so you can get a better sense of what the one-sentence pitch might look like:

We make business planning and performance tracking tools for small business owners so they can more easily raise startup funds, develop budgets, and track performance on an easy-to-use financial dashboard.

The longer version of the elevator speech:

Do you know that [target market] have [problem]? I’ve created [solution] that [value]. So far, we’ve [traction]. Now, we’re hoping to [goal]. My team and I have [experience].

With this formula, you want to entice listeners with a compelling story or set of facts that illuminates the problem that your company is trying to solve. This is a great way to connect with your audience and get them interested in your business from your opening lines. This is your hook that will prime people to want to understand how you’ve solved the problem.

Here’s a quick example for a fictitious technology company:

Did you know that nearly 30 percent of trucks in the U.K. aren’t carrying any cargo because they can’t find a load to carry on return trips? This leads to more than $500 million in wasted fuel costs alone.

We’ve created a technology company that matches empty trucks to companies looking to move cargo, so trucking companies can generate business from previously empty trips. So far, we’ve landed contracts with two of the largest trucking firms.

Now, we’re hoping to raise additional capital so we can expand our operations and grow into countries outside of the U.K. My team and I have more than 30 years experience in the trucking industry and are well positioned to grow this business significantly.

Elevator speech tips

• Keep it short: It’s easy to go on and on about a topic that you’re passionate about, but you need to respect the people you’re talking to and give them enough information to spark interest. Hopefully they’ll start asking you questions and you can elaborate through further conversation. Remember, you don’t want to be that person who’s holding the “close door” button on the elevator to keep your audience captive so you can tell them more!
• Know the goal: The goal of your elevator speech is not to convey every last bit of information about your business. The goal is to spark interest. You want what you say to be memorable and interesting so that your audience is asking you to tell them more. The end goal is to make connections, get a meeting, and get permission to explain your business in more detail.
• Practice, but don’t memorize: Yes, rehearsing is a good idea. But, you don’t want to come off too scripted and robotic. Word-for-word memorization isn’t a good idea. Instead, you want your speech to feel conversational and natural so you can more easily connect with your audience. Also, you’ll want to slightly customize your speech depending on the situation and audience (see the next tip).
• Know your audience: Depending on whom you are giving your speech to, you’ll want to  tweak the details so you’re providing information that matches your audience’s knowledge. For example, if you’re pitching a medical device to a bunch of doctors, using more medical terminology is probably a good idea. But, if you’re explaining what you do to people that don’t have medical backgrounds, you may want use more everyday language that everyone can understand.
• Be persuasive: Especially if you’re giving a slightly longer speech, tell a story or interesting anecdote that makes the problem your company solves real. You want your audience to be nodding along, thinking, “Yes, that is a real problem. I hope someone’s finally come up with a good solution for that.” Then, when you present your solution, you’ll be that much more persuasive and have your audience’s full attention.
• Have a takeaway: Your audience might not be able to ask additional questions right away but is (hopefully) interested in following up with you. In that case, make sure you have a business card or something similar so you can share your contact information. Your business card should essentially be a mini-pitch and have a memorable tagline or value statement on it so people remember you, and what you talked about.

Elevator speech examples

Here are a few examples, both short and long, to help you get started with your own elevator speech.

Elevator pitch example #1:

Did you know that demand for high-end Mexican food in the U.S. has grown by over 100 percent in the past two years? Foodies are looking for more than just the generic, Americanized tacos and burritos in record numbers.

I plan on opening a modern, Latin-themed restaurant that elevates Mexican and other Latin American dishes. I’ll use classic ingredients and modern techniques that will help demonstrate how Mexican food is much more than what most people think.

We’ve tested the market by catering several high-end events, and are ready to move to a full-service restaurant. I’ve opened several other successful restaurants and food trucks, so I expect the launch to go very smoothly.

Elevator pitch example #2:

I’m opening a new gift and specialty shop downtown that helps young, urban trendsetters find unique and creative gifts and housewares that will impress friends and coworkers.

Elevator pitch example #3:

Has this ever happened to you? You’re rushing to get the kids out the door in the morning so you can get them to school on time and not be late for an important meeting—and then you realize that you can’t find your car keys.

This happens all the time to me. In fact, did you know that the average suburban professional misplaces their keys more than five times per month? That’s more than 600 million times per year! Using bluetooth technology, I’ve created a low cost key fob that helps people find their keys and other lost items in record time, making it easier to get out the door on busy mornings.

We’ve got a working prototype and now we’re looking to raise funds to go into large-scale production. We’ve got some new team members on board with extensive manufacturing experience and supply chain expertise, so we’re hoping to get to market in the next six months.

Elevator pitch example #4:

My company is developing a new kind of affordable surfboard for beginner surfers so that they can learn to surf without having to invest the $1,000 plus that traditional surfboards cost.

Hopefully this article has inspired you to work on your elevator speech and refine it to a short, information-filled presentation. If you want to test drive yours, feel free to connect with me on Twitter. You can also download a free pitch deck template if you need to make a pitch presentation.

Noah Parsons is the COO of Palo Alto Software, makers of LivePlan, the award-winning online business planning software. Follow him on Twitter.