Reposted from the NACO blog – 2009/05/07.
Mark MacLeod, writer of StartupCFO, conducted a poll recently with interesting results.
“Following up on a comment to my earlier post today about executive summaries, I decided to do a quick twtpoll of investors to see what they preferred: a short written summary or a short presentation?
Between the poll and several e-mails we have a small but statistically relevant sample that is overwhelmingly in favour of presentations (25 out of 32 responses). One anecdotal observation: angels seems to prefer one pagers. Every VC who wrote me preferred the presentation.”
In my experience, I’d say that this poll accurately sums up the preferences of both groups. Angel groups in Canada (and indeed globally) are now almost all using Angelsoft, an Angel group deal flow management tool and community. The first step in using signing up on this platform for any angel group is the filling out of a form which generates a one-page executive summary.
The first step in The catch, of course, is that to produce either document, a one page executive summary or a slide deck, of any quality an entrepreneur really must work through all the logic involved in preparing a full business plan and the financials that accompany it.
My recommendation to entrepreneurs: Remember that they are engaged in a sales activity when they are raising financing. You are selling your company. Slides, executive summaries, business plans, your web site, etc. are all part of the collateral you need to help you close the sale. Take time when completing your executive summary to be sure you put your best foot forward.
