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Good info for vc presentations. Kudos to Jeff McConnell for sharing.

This is an excellent overview of Venture Atlanta questions to be answered during a presentation to investors. I like it.

Note: Venture Atlanta is a 6 minute pitch to investors, with the intent to answer as many of these as possible.

Suggestions from past winners on effective presentations:

• Slides should be minimal content, with talking points bulletized but not described. If they can understand your pitch on slides alone, the slides have too much content

• Presentation should be clear to anyone from 6 to 60, developed at 8th grade reading level

• Specific amount of money: “$1,000,000 will allow me to reach these milestones in this period”

• Demonstrate you’ve convinced others to join the team, even if team is virtual and those people may be advisory team, contractors, work for equity, etc

• People invest in what they know and understand. Find right profile of investor; don’t try to convert others; relate the message in terms everyone understands

• Present with idea Investors are looking for risk impact and how you are going to minimize that

• Pretend the slides/projector won’t work. Your presentation should still be able to communicate the message

• Nail the issue and solution in the first 30 seconds; less on “how” and more about why: Here’s the big problem and how we fit into this discussion…

• Clearly articulate the 3-5 things you absolutely want them to know about you – use in closing slide too

• Always say you’ll need more money; “never need more” raises suspicions

• VCs hate the hockey stick growth curves now; makes them suspicious, too.

• Be able to quickly answer the “how much capital will it take to break even?” question – always, everyday, all the time. Wrong/tentative answers = death

Please pass this along to the team members at ATDC. Thanks for all your help thus far, too!

Dale Sizemore
CEO
FLIPSFilm
http://www.flipsfilm.com

From: Jeffrey McConnell [mailto:jbmcconnell@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 11:21 AM
To: dale@flipsfilm.com
Subject: my screens for presentations

1. How many of the following does the presentation answer?
• What problem will you solve?
• Who currently has the problem?
• How will you solve it?
• How big is the market potential?
• What is your distinct advantage?
• How does the competitive landscape look?
• What are the financial implications?
• How much capital will you need to develop the solution (and the company supporting it)?
• What kinds of volumes and margins are reasonable to expect?
• What are your team’s qualifications?
2. How effective is the presenter:

• Look up from materials, or notes, every 5-10 seconds, to look into the audience. Doesn’t read the deck.
• Vary the volume and rate of speech. A monotone voice is absolutely toxic.
• Stand with feet at shoulder-length apart.
• Keep hands relatively still.

3. How effective are the materials

• Consistent layout or organization of colors and images
• Large fonts, pictures and limited words