How to Present a Business Case to Start a New Business
When starting a new business you will need to approach potential investors, partners, lenders and advisors to tell them about the business, how and why it will work and why they should be excited about it. Especially when asking for investments, you will need to present a strong business case for why the business should exist and how it will make money. Most presentations are 15 to 30 minutes long and include slides.
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Instructions
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Design Your Presentation
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Design your slide deck using PowerPoint, Keynote or Ovation. Don't use big title slides or fill your screens with text. Start and end with a company logo. Use only short bullet points, headlines, and images. Graphs and charts will present your financial and customer data much more efficiently than text. A rule of thumb is 10/20/30: 10 slides in 20 minutes, written in 30-point font.
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Be concise and professional. Show the management team photos and bios, demonstrating that they have expertise and applicable experience. Present an image or graph of the market, who they are and how they're growing. Show an image of the product or a flowchart that explains service. Then present the financial data, including how much money you're asking for, what the rate of return will be and how much you and other investors have already put in.
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Answer the questions they're going to ask. Explain what the market is, who you're selling to, and what your competition is, even if it's simply the old way of doing things. Never state that you don't have competition! Then tell them why you're unique. Show how you're translating that market need and product into money, what your cost drivers and customer growth projections are, and how the investors will eventually get their money out of the company.
Give Your Presentation
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Focus on your audience, not your slides. Run your presentation in "Presenter Mode" so you can see the screen ahead. Don't look at the screen while you are presenting, and don't touch the computer; use a remote control instead. Don't simply read your presentation! Instead, prepare a handout that is much more in-depth than your presentation, and leave it with your audience to review afterward. Above all, be ruthless in cutting mistakes out of your presentation. Nothing spoils your professional image like a typo in 50-point font.
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Grab investors' emotional attention at the beginning and build it to a crescendo. Open with an intriguing, relevant comment. Then provide a two-sentence business description, and move forward. Don't go backwards or skip a step in your presentation; you want to guide your audience forward on a clear and logical path. Along the way, provide references to things that the investor recognizes and can easily remember, such as "the iTunes model of micro-transactions." Close with your best 10-second pitch and rallying cry.
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Investors are investing not just in a business, but in you. Be passionate and demonstrate that you have integrity, experience and domain expertise, plus leadership and commitment. Balance vision with realism. Show that you know what you're doing, but are also ready to learn.
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