How Developing Your Pitch Can Help Your Business Grow

The traditional multipage, chart-laden business plan that venture capitalists used to rely on to evaluate opportunities is largely being replaced with documents that convey essential information in a more concise format. 

Your company’s pitch may define your success in raising capital, building business alliances, and gaining market share. The executive summary and pitch deck both play important and related roles in helping potential stakeholders understand your business proposition and attracting outside capital. 

Executive summary 

In most cases, the executive summary will be the first document you submit to potential investors and will be reviewed to determine whether they are interested in learning more about your business. This one or two-page document will provide basic information about your company, team, product or service, and market. Your goal in preparing an executive summary is to describe the product briefly, identify the market opportunity, introduce the founders and management team, provide financial projections, and create enough interest to gain an invitation to an in-person pitch meeting with Venture Capital (VC), Private Equity (PE), or other potential investors.

Pitch meeting deck 

During the initial pitch meeting, you'll be asked to share a presentation with slides highlighting more detailed information.

Investors will be interested in the following information: 

• Company, including the founders and their industry experience 
• Product or service, including features and benefits, and product specifications and technical requirements 
• Management and technical teams, with an emphasis on your engineering talent, relevant experience, and entrepreneurial and business growth track record 
• Market opportunity and existing competitors 
• Sales and marketing strategy, including pricing and distribution 
• Development milestones 
• Financial information, including projected sales and profits, capital requirements, and exit strategy 
• Other capital already in the company
• Perceived valuation
• Other advisers or consultants supporting your company

In addition to the potential financial returns, investors will be interested in evaluating your team's ability to execute while creating and sustaining a viable product or service. While they may appear skeptical as they evaluate the opportunity, investors will play a critical support role in your company if they decide to invest. 

Investors offer valuable advice and experience to help you avoid common pitfalls and optimize your company's approach to the marketplace, and often provide access to business partners or markets more readily than the business might be able to achieve on its own. 

How Decimal can help

Decimal can help you be prepared with up-to-date financial information for your pitch. Decimal is the new way to manage accounting for small business owners who spend too much time on DIY software and want to offload this work. We take bookkeeping off your hands by leveraging intelligent automation, a custom financial dashboard, and a professional accounting team dedicated to your success. Contact Decimal today to speak with an accounting specialist dedicated to small to medium-sized business success.

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