Hello, once again it’s Victoria here at NVBC’s night for learning how to pitch.  David Shore from Stirling Mercantile and Jonathan Bixby from Strangeloop Networks will be taking the stage tonight.

What differentiates people who win? They have a focus. Have a thesis and they have greed around their focus. So, what is the structure of a business focused statement?

1. Thesis: Tell Me What You Do

We sell (blank) that helps (who, target market) and what does it do for them (save or make them money)

•    do not tell us what the technology does
•    it has to be simple and make sense
•    differentiate yourself

2. Communication: Are they going to remember you?

Example with Barack Obama–he is a gifted communicator.  He is going through a quick presentation about a. not including points you are speaking on a slide and to pause and b. to observe your audience, not just talk at them, lastly c. the judges will remember you, so show some excitement. Show the fact that you are excited about your business.

3. Presentation: Judges prefer graphical presentations. Colour, simple text, and go overboard.

1. Start with and include a title.
2. Include a snapshot of what you do, then include something about you, the team and those involves. Indicate who you are, CEO, CMO and indicate that you require the CTO or advisors.  Brief description of where you’ve worked and who you’ve worked with.
3. Industry Problem: will your customer make money, save money or what? It’s a financial issue. *Customers are leaving. Problem can be societal.
4. Identify the solution: Uses Flickr as an example. If you have software, use screenshots. If you have hardware, show diagrams and tell a story. How did you get involved, or determine that there was a need? Introduce a third-party validation with a quote with a person’s name with a target company. This slide will take longer to present. Show your pride, the route you took etc.
5. Product
6. Addressable Market: these slides you need to go over quickly, use a graph or chart, name important points and graph them and talk about where they’re going, show where we are going as opposed to our competition
7. Sales and Marketing: data on marketing # helps (1 minute to 30 seconds on this slide)
8. Road Map: do a graph, design to full launch about where you are with raising money (this slide’s length depends on how complicated your business is)
9. Projections: busy slide with a lot of numbers, 5 years shown, number of customers and price are the most valuable numbers on slide. If your number is less than $10 million in the fifth year, raise that number. If you’re going after a trillion dollar market, it’s not unreasonable to have a half- billion of that market.
10. Investment Opportunity: name three stages, raising money at this stage, raising money at launch and scale and ask (%) of $$.
11. Summary: leave up for question period, flavour the rest of your discussion
12. Appendix: no end to that so make them and you can email the investors a softcopy, each slide can have a Q and A, slide. So 12 in a presentation and then 30-40 to prepare

Things to avoid saying:

• Our projections are conservative
• We have no competition
• We have first mover advantage
• We only need to capture x% of the tiny piece of huge market

Would you have more than one person present?  Yes, but practice. Seemlessness is key.  The CEO should be the one giving the presentation.

Considering it’s Game 1 of the Canucks in the playoffs, the room is full and people are ready to learn about market research and product marketing. Rocket Builders’ Dave Thomas is up:

How do I make sure that there is a market for my product? Resources for participants: LinkedIn Group and a poll
Learning objectives for today:
1. Take time for market research:
Begin with the end in mind
Find which concept your market falls into, so is there a need, a large market or an emerging market for your product

Market, pains and requirements: every market has pains and requirements
Ask specific questions about your market, as in how big is the market, why do they need your product, who pays for it, who uses it and how much are they willing to pay for it. You also have to understand that the inferior substitute exists, even if you are offering a new and different product, people don’t want to change their behaviour easily

Market Segmentation:
1. Revolutionary Product
-unpredictable, iPod
2. Evolutionary Product:
-    small incremental change, an iPod application, to those of us for an iPod application: how are you going to make money?

Why Segment? Focuses resources, narrows whole product, limits real competitors, leverages past successes, allows the benefits of market leaderships Where do you search these resources? Secondary search resources, customer interviews and partners and channel, customer interviews at trade shows are great for market research, retail customer service,

2. Understand concepts of technology adoption and whole product and how it impacts market.  It provides an understanding of customer requirements and establishes focus for timing. Example is early adopters, late majority followers. Most people fall into the innovator position.  This could change if there is a need for it.

Break: Canucks are up 1-o.

Whole Product Definition:
There is a core product, and complementary services and complementary products.  So, there is consulting, hardware, software, and integrated services.  What are some other questions to ask? What are the complementary services that have to be acquired, or the additional hardware required, will customers achieve ROI without other products?

How do you market the product is the next question? Now it’s an exercise called Ad-Hoc Whole Product Audit: what complementary services must be acquired, what additional hardware has to be purchased, how will these components affect your total cost of ownership?

Why will they buy from us vs. our competition?
Positioning=managing product
Perceived status within market
Build relationships to secure and communicate competitive advantage

Working with other partners and leveraging that is crucial and this is also called positioning impact.  Your positioning process is also important: market research, segmentation, differentiation, test, positioning, marketing plan.  The project positioning exercise is 12-18 months, so don’t feel bad if your business plan takes 3-6 months.

A great plan has to appeal to customer and company, has to fit the trends and it has to be unique. Pricing software as a service.  How do you do this? What is a business value? The market will do this for itself.  When a product is innovative, it’s hard to price the product. When it’s too cheap, many think the product won’t work.

Pricing methodology: determine market size, don’t ask direct pricing questions, what are price objections you hear, how does your pricing model compare with the industry, how do you offer promotional pricing, what licensing alternatives do you offer, what discounts do you provide to resellers?

Recommended Books: Chasm Companion by Paul Wiefels