Things You Need In Your Insanely Great Pitch

Rajiv Jayaraman

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Things That Make a Dent

• Elevator Pitch• The Problem Statement• Market Size and Growth• Your Mission, Solution• Business Model• Unique Selling Proposition • Competitive Landscape• Marketing • Team• Financials

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Think Aerosmith (Love in an Elevator!)

• Use short, hi-Impact sentencesTitanic:“Poor Boy and Rich Girl Fall in Love In a Doomed Ship”Starwars:“Cowboy Story Set In Space” / “Space Western”YouTube:“World’s Largest Video Sharing Website”

• Cut out jargons and geeky details

• Setup a Mental Frame of Reference Example: We are <ABC> for <XYZ>Slideshare : “We are YouTube for Presentations”

1. Elevator Pitch

Articulate Pain and Pleasure

• Articulate an impactful problem statement1. Hiring Companies spend Rs. 2500 crores every year on re-

training graduates from Indian Higher Education Institutions.2. An average adult spends 250 hours to find a trustworthy

maid / temporary worker.3. 1 out of 4 high school students drop out in the US .

• Use credible sources to backup your problem statements

• Answer these questionsWhose Problem is it anyway?

How many people are affected? How often?Note: Figures are all fictitious

2. Problem Statement

Size Does Matter

• How big is the overall market?• How big is the specific opportunity that you are addressing?• How is the target market growing?

Examples:The Indian Education Industry is a $6B opportunityThe Beer Market in the US is growing at 15% Year-on-Year

3. Market Size, Growth

UNDERSTANDING MACRO TRENDS IS SUPER IMPORTANT!

Note: Figures are all fictitious

Your Awesome Mission, Solution

• Crisply describe your solution or raison d’etreGuess the company

“Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”“Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” “Bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings”

• Explain how you plan to solve the problem

• Explain why this is a superior solutionCheaper?Faster? Better?

4. Mission & Solution

What’s your master plan?5. Business

Model

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What’s Your Secret Sauce?6. USP

Gain deep understanding of why you will be taken seriously and why customers will be willing to pay for your products and services.

What’s your secret sauce?Stellar Team ? Intellectual Property? Alliances? Partnerships? Awards? Accreditations?

WTP

OC

Are your products or services faster and better, resulting in higher customers’ willingness to pay?

Are you able to effectively transfer cost advantages to your customer?

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Blow ‘em off the park7. Competitive

Landscape

Know how you stack up against the competition. Come up with a compelling differentiation.

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Let’s Go to Market8. Marketing

Plan

Product / Service Price

Promotion Place

Understand how you will reach your target customers. Ads? Channels? Pricing? Relationships? Service?

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Assemble a Winning Team9. Team

A Winning team is:• Credibile• Meets the needs of the opportunity• Complements each other• Shares values, goals and commitment• Has high levels of trust

LAW OF HIRINGClass A people will attract and hire other Class A people

Class B people will do that for Class C peopleClass C people won’t attract anybody at all

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Financials & Funding10. Financials

Everyone knows that this slide is wishful thinking at best. But then, try and be credible, diligent.

Statements to forecastProfit and LossCash FlowBalance SheetTime Horizon

Key ratiosROIROICWACCIRR

Be Open About Risks In Your Plan and Talk About Plan-B