I finally went ahead and did it.
The Pitching for startups: Making winning business plan pitches course is now live. I went a step ahead and did a Business Plan Pitching Case Studies supplementary course. The Business Plan Pitching Case Studies course dissects 7 business plan pitches that I analyze for stuff that I like and dislike, for ideas that work and don’t. Combined with the pitching for Startup framework it tells you everything I have learnt about making and grading pitches over the last 11 years as an entrepreneur and business plan competition judge.
There is also background post where I review where the idea and inspiration for the two courses came from. Yup you guessed it; from the infamous Ken Morse elevator pitching session at MITEF BAP competition.
Here is an extract second post in the series reproduced here on the blog (Business Plan pitching Case Studies)
One big benefit of teaching the very bright and loving students at SP Jain has been this underground collection of pitches that I have built up since May 2007 when I first taught the course in Dubai. As we have all learned more about the art of pitching, about what works and what doesn’t we have gone out and made improvements every year in the materials we cover as well as the quality of pitches made by my students.
It was only natural that after doing the Pitching for startup course I would go back to some of my all time favorite pitches, pitched over the last four years and dissect them for the students who enrolled for the Pitching for Startup.
A very warm welcome then to the Pitching for Startup – Case Studies course. A supplementary course that picks up where we stopped with Pitching for Startups. In just under 30 minutes we walk through all the right notes hit by five different real life Exec. MBA and GMBA student pitches covering sectors ranging from Entertainment, Petrochemicals, Demographics, Fashion Accessories and Transportation.
I review the basic premise, product and service idea and the reason why the pitch remained memorable in my mind over the years and what the group got right and how does that fit in what entrepreneurs generally tend to get wrong. The examples that we highlight and dissect that we touch include:
- Presenting Financials and Business Model effectively
- Presenting Customer Profiles
- Visualizing the pain of the customer
- Increasing the perceived value of your product by the right sequencing
- Combining visual slides and passion to pitch your concept in under 30 seconds.
Combined with the materials covered in the Pitching for startup course, the Pitching case study session allows you to actually see the concepts covered in the earlier course at work. My hope is that the combined lessons will allow you to deliver powerful, effective and moving pitches.
The buy now is up at Business Plan Pitching Case Studies.
Here are some of the core lessons that we highlight during our dissection and analysis of the seven selected business plan pitches:
1) Presenting a complex concepts and products with simplified visuals and graphics in your business plan pitch?
2) Presenting financial data in a pitch – Balance sheet and P&L in an easy to understand format?
3) How to make back of the envelope calculations easy for your investors?
4) Presenting Financials – What I need and want to see as an investor?
5) Simplifying and presenting your revenue model in your business plan pitch?
6) The best way to visualize customer pain in a pitch
7) Sequencing slides correctly to create much more impact and acceptance for your sales pitch
8. How to showcase the underlying magic and process behind your value chain in your business plan presentation?
9) How to get past the “I don’t think this is real” or “I don’t think these guys can do it” mindset of investors, clients and partners?
10) How to use target market surveys and incorporate them in your presentation and pitch? What questions to ask your target customers in your target surveys?
11) How to use more than 5 slides in under 30 seconds to create impact and introduce your idea to your audience without getting bogged down in the details
12) What is credibility? How do you go about building it in a business plan presentation or elevator pitch?
