Business Plan Outline

• How large is the target market?
• How fast is it growing?
• What are the business and profit models of its various competitors?
• What is the essence of the value proposition to the customer?
• Show that you have thought deeply about this business and have done your homework.
• Describe how your experience and pattern of accomplishments position you for success.
• Show your passion for the business.
• Demonstrate real commitment to the project through personal investment or the foreclosure of alternatives.
• If you have already quit your day job and invested your life savings, say so.
• You should create the feeling that this is such a compelling opportunity that you have no option but to pursue it vigorously.
• Identify links to the prospective investor.
• Note any of the firm's past investments that are relevant to your company.
• Demonstrate a good fit and potential value creation with their portfolio companies.
• Being unnecessarily cautious about revealing details concerning your business can dampen an otherwise good meeting.
• Ask the investor for a commitment to confidentiality, verbal is sufficient.
• Save sensitive details until you have developed comfort and sensed a genuine interest level. This can be a bit of a balancing act, but you will need to reveal enough to get a second meeting.
• What are the risks?