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 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.” “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.” “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 top-down 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 Saturday, April 15, 2017

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 go-to-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.