How to Get Venture Funding, page 26

Slide Show, continued

Figure 4 shows a slide from the PowerPoint presentation for the fictitious SmartHouse business.

Figure 4: The mission statement slide in the SmartHouse deck.

Business Plan and Financial Model

The business plan is an important document, one that expands the content of the executive summary in greater detail. Generally, a business plan should be between twenty and thirty pages.

In most cases, VCs will not ask to see your business plan until after you have met with them. In other words, the request for a business plan is an indication that your quest for funding is progressing on track.

You should not use that as an excuse for delaying writing the business plan. Generally, material that is used for the business plan will end up enriching your PowerPoint deck(s) and your executive summary.

It is not a bad idea to bring in a professional writer and/or consultant to help with the business plan. After all, you have other things to do, like connecting with investors. Unless you are a gifted writer (by the way, the software business-plan products are not generally very helpful) this is a good one to outsource.

A detailed financial model is an important part of a business plan that is not present in an executive summary.

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