Making the Most of Your Ten-Minute Opportunity
In recent years, competitive forums have emerged to provide aspiring entrepreneurs with a means of connecting with potential investors and other stakeholders. Venture capital conferences have made prospective investors much more accessible. Business plan competitions have proliferated throughout American universities and a host of smaller business-idea competitions have started. For example, Idea-to-Product® is a competition designed to encourage the next generation of technology entrepreneurs. Judges at these competitions tend to be venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, and technology experts—all of whom can prove to be valuable contacts if you're an aspiring entrepreneur.
Because those active in new venture development often rely on competitions, such as Idea-to-Product, as important sources of potential deal flow, aspiring entrepreneurs can benefit significantly by doing well in such competitions. However, in order to make the most of those opportunities it is necessary to master the art of making effective presentations.
To simulate real-world circumstances, many of these competitions are structured around 10-to-15-minute presentations. Idea-to-Product competitions generally give presenters about 10 minutes to make the case for their proposed technology-based product innovation. During that time presenters must convince prospective stakeholders that their idea is both viable and profitable.
To do so, a significant amount of work is needed to make a presentation as persuasive as possible, addressing all of the key points addressed in a business plan, but more concisely. Limit slides to no more than 12 for a 10 to 15 minute presentation. The first slide should contain the company's name, a short description, and the name of the presenters. The next slide should list the key points for the audience to remember. These slides should be followed by slides on the product or service, the specific target market and the need being addressed, the market size, the competition, the team, the business model, key milestones, financial projections, sources and uses of funds, and the planned exit strategy for investors and their potential financial return. A summary slide should reiterate the key points.[1]
Aspiring entrepreneurs will find this presentation format useful for more than just business competitions. The same format, with only slight modifications, will come in handy when meeting with prospective investors, bankers, potential business partners, or prospective employees. The process of launching a business is in many ways another form of competition for limited resources. Whether competing for an investor, a banker, or an employee, all of these resources have numerous choices. The goal is to convince them to choose your business. In many cases only ten minutes is available to make the case.
The payoff for making a strong presentation can be huge. For example, student teams from the Missouri University of Science & Technology spent significant amounts of time working with the Small Business & Technology Development Center (SBTDC) at Missouri S&T to perfect their presentations for the 2008 Missouri-Illinois regional Idea-to-Product competition. All the hard work paid off. One aspiring entrepreneur so impressed a couple of judges that they gave him their business cards. The judges just happened to be members of a local angel investor group. The other teams also walked away with important contacts and valuable feedback regarding their business ideas.
Ten minutes isn't a lot of time. But with excellent preparation it's all the time necessary to convince prospective stakeholders to support a business venture.
Authored by: Malcolm S. Townes, Business Development Specialist, Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO
Date reviewed: 5/2/08
This story was featured in the May 2008 newsletter
