Mastering the 5-Minute Pitch
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Entrepreneurs have it hard when it comes to business, especially when they’re broke and only have good ideas to their name. When you pitch to investors, you need to understand that they’ve probably heard your idea before and even if you do have a good idea, they don’t have all day to listen to you rant on about how amazing it is or how much money it’s going to make for them. Investors don’t have much time on their hands which is why every entrepreneur needs to master the ideas of a 5-minute pitch.
Essentially, a 5-minute pitch is a pitch that summarizes your potential business idea in a matter of 5-minutes. Ideally, this is made with presentation software that can be carried around and shown on a number of different devices. In this article, we’ll break down how to master the concept of a 5-minute pitch and how to construct one of your own.
Who Are You?
The first minute or so should be dedicated to introducing yourself. You need to sound professional, you need to stand out but you also can’t stand out in a bad way such as embarrassing yourself. Remember to include some basic credentials that are related to your pitch and, of course, your name and company name. It might be worth looking at guides such as on wikihow.com/Introduce-Yourself to learn a couple of social skills that will help you introduce yourself.
What Do You Plan to Fix?
The next minute should be for describing the problem that your company fixes. For instance, if you’re a company that wants to make cheap smartphones, then the problem you plan to fix might be along the lines of “putting connectivity into everyone’s hands” or something similar. The more admirable your goal is, the more likely you’ll be able to pitch it successfully.
How Do You Plan to Fix It?
Then you’ll need to describe how you’ll fix it. Using the same smartphone example, perhaps your agenda is to lower production and shipping costs by moving production to your home country, or perhaps the idea is to strip out unnecessary components and features of smartphones to create a bare-basics phone that allows everyone to learn how to utilize the internet.
What Do You Need?
Next, you’ll talk about funding. Even if you’re pitching for financial support from a company such as businesslineof.credit, you’ll have to tell your listeners what it is you want. Tell them how much money you need, what it will go towards and how you plan to grow your profits in order to pay your investors back.
What Makes You Different?
Lastly, tell them what makes you different. Even if you’re a small business with no real stand-out qualities, you need to let the investors know what sets you apart from the rest of the competition. It could be your work mentality, it could be your office culture or it might even be down to how you approach your customers. Whatever it is, make sure you stand out from the rest to complete your 5-minute pitch.
