Transcript The Pitch-Then-Plan Business Planning Template

The Pitch-Then-Plan Business
Planning Template
About This Template
This “Pitch-Then-Plan” template was originally
presented in the Book “The Art of the Start” by
Guy Kawasaki—founder of Garage Ventures and
part of the original Apple Macintosh development
team.
 To use this template, read then delete all of the
slides that have a black background. Complete the
slides that have a blue background.

About Entrepreneurship

Doing, not learning to do, is the essence of
entrepreneurship.
 Remember, no one ever achieved success by
planning for gold.
 The hardest thing about getting started is getting
started.
 As an (emerging) entrepreneur, you should always
be selling—not strategizing about selling.
Pitch, Then Plan

Many entrepreneurs try to perfect their
business plans and then pull PowerPoint slides
out of it.
 This is backwards thinking. A good business
plan is a detailed version of the pitch—NOT a
pitch as a distilled version of the business plan.
 If you get the pitch right, you’ll get the plan
right. The opposite is not always true.
The Proper Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Throw together a pitch that contains the ten
slides presented in this template.
Try it out on some mentors, colleagues, and
relatives. Do this about ten times.
Get the team together in a room and discuss
what you have learned.
Fix the pitch.
Start writing the plan.
Why This Is The Right Process



Your pitch is more important than your business plan,
because it will determine whether you’re rejected or
generate further interest. Few sophisticated investors
will read a business plan as the first step.
A pitch is easier to fix than a business plan because it
contains less text.
You won’t get feedback on your business plan.
Frankly, it may not even be read. You will, however,
get immediate reactions to your pitch.
Explain Yourself in The First Minute

Never has a presentation been given where the
audience has said to itself, I wish the speaker had
spent the first fifteen minutes explaining his life
story.
 While you’re busy warming up, your listeners are
inevitably wondering, What does their
organization do?
 Do everyone a favor: Answer that question in the
first minute. Once the audience has learned what
you do, they can listen to everything else with a
more focused perspective.
Answer The Little Man

Nothing in a pitch is more powerful than combing an
answer to “So what?” with “For instance,…”
YOU SAID
LITTLE MAN
ASKED
YOU REPLIED
THEN YOU
ELABORATED
“We use digital signal
processing in our hearing
aids.”
“So what?”
“Our product increases
the clarity of sounds.”
“For instance, if you’re at a
cocktail party with many
conversations going on
around you, you’ll be able to
hear what people are saying
to you.”
“We provide 128-bit
encryption in a portable
device.”
“So what?”
“It’s harder than hell to
break into our system.”
“For instance, if you’re in a
hotel room and want to have
a secure conversation with
your headquarters.”
“We use Montessori
methods in our new
school.”
“So what?”
“Our school focuses on
children as individuals
and enables them to learn
to manage their own
study independently.”
“Fir instance, we enable
children who are gifted in
specific areas to proceed in
advance of the rest of the
students.”
Observe The 10/20/30 Rule

Here is a good guideline to follow for the
content, length, and font of a good pitch.
It’s called the 10/20/30 rule…
– Ten slides
– Twenty minutes
– Thirty-point font text
Don’t Use A Top-Down Model

No bootstrapper in his right mind would do a topdown forecast. Here’s a typical top-down model:
–
–
–
–
–
There a 1.3 billion people.
1 percent want internet access.
We’ll get 10 percent of that potential audience.
Each account will yield $240 per year.
1.3 billion people X 1% of the market X 10% success
rate X $240/customer = $312 million.
– (And as an added bonus, look at how conservative
these percentages are!)
Instead, Use A Bottom-Up Model

Here’s an example:
– Each salesperson can make ten phone sales a day that
–
–
–
–
–
get through to a prospect.
There are 240 working days per year.
Five percent of the sales calls will convert within six
months.
Each successful sale will bring in $240 worth of
business.
We can bring on board five sales people.
Ten calls/day X 240 days/year X 5% success rate X
$240/sale X 5 salespeople = $144,000 in sales in the
first year.
Organization Name
Your Name
Title
Contact Information
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Problem

Describe the pain that you’re taking away. The
goal is to get everyone nodding and “buying in.”

Try to personalize the problem.

Example: “If you go to five travel sites, you will
be presented with 5 completely different offers.
Visiting each site and comparing trip packages is
time-consuming and confusing.”
Solution

Explain how you take away this pain. Ensure that
the audience clearly understands what you sell and
your value proposition.

Example: “We are a discount travel website. We
have written software that searches all the other
travel sites and collates their price quotes into one
report.”
Business Model

Explain how you make money: who pays you, your
channels of distribution, and your gross margins.

Generally, a unique, untested business model is a scary
proposition. If you truly have a revolutionary business
model (unlikely), explain it in terms of familiar ones.

Think of eBay: “We charge a listing fee plus a
commission.” End of story.
Underlying Magic

Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind
your product.

Specifically, how does it create value for the customer.

Example: “The delivery of a wine’s ‘message,’ its bouquet
and taste, depends on the shape of the glass. The secret to
Reidel glasses is that there is a perfect shape for every
beverage. Through ten generations of glassblowers, we
have discovered the timeless forms of glass to convey the
wine’s message in the best manner to the human senses.”
Positioning

Describe your position in the marketplace.

Competitive Positioning: What stories are the prominent
competitors selling?

Creative Positioning: What story will you tell that
customers will find either more important or different than
the stories already being told in the market?

Example: “Wal-Mart is telling the story of low prices
everyday. We telling a story of convenience.”
Marketing and Sales

Explain how you are going to reach your customer
and your marketing leverage points.

Convince the audience that you have an effective goto-market strategy that won’t break the bank.

Example: “We can reach the majority of the primary
buyers of our educational software through two
national trade shows and four primary regional
shows.”
Competition

Provide a complete view of the competitive
landscape.

Never dismiss your competition.

Everyone—customers, investors, employees—
wants to hear why your good, not why the
competition is bad.
Management Team

Describe the key players of your management
team, board of directors, advisors, as well as
any major investors.

Discuss how your team completes the
“management trinity”: production, marketing,
and financial expertise.

Discuss what are the holes in the team and how
do you plan to fill them.
Financial Projections

Provide a three year forecast containing not
only dollars, but also key metrics such as
numbers of customers and conversion rate.

This should be a bottom-up forecast taking into
account long sales cycles and seasonality.

Making people understand the underlying
assumptions of your forecast is as important as
the numbers you’ve fabricated.
Milestones

Explain:
– the current status of your product or service,
– what the near term future looks like,
– any accomplishments to date, and
– how you’ll use any money that you are trying to raise.