Tools of the Entrepreneur

My partner and I just had a meeting recently with a prospective investor in one of our new ventures. As we had all the business plan writeup and powerpoint slides ready, it went well. Our experience reminded me of how important having good computing and presentation skills is to the entrepreneur. Somehow, convincing potential investors or customer is so much easier when you have your thoughts prepared in a concise powerpoint presentation.

Powerpoint skills - One of the first is knowing your way around a powerpoint presentation. Most of the time, busy business people, especially prospective investors in your venture would not have time to ready your business plan, so powerpoint is concise and help guide your thoughts. But it amazes me sometimes why entrepreneurs do not bother to learn this skill. I was in a conference last year where one speaker gave his entire presentation in edit mode, instead of slideshow mode. Another time, the speaker did not know how to flip his slides backwards or turn on/off the slides.

Good executive summary - The second is of course, being able to come up with an executive summary less than 3 pages with concise explanation of your plan. Handing the exeuctive summary to the prospective investor is much better than printing the entire powerpoint slides and giving it to him.

Hide your desktop - Please make sure you remove all folders on your laptop desktop, and while you are at it turn off all email reminders and pop ups. It would be quite embarassing for the prospective investors to see folders like "jokes", "you tube videos" or worse other confidential folder names on the desktop, when your powerpoint closes & your Windows desktop is revealed. Better yet, just create a New User in your Windows, and use that user profile everytime you need to do presentations.

A good projector helps - lastly, it really helps if you have a good LCD projector and more importantly know how to use it. Learn how to make simple adjustments like brightnesss, zoom, focus and image shifting for the presentation environment. Almost always, most small offices will not have a projector ready and even in meeting rooms where there are projectors installed, chances are no one around knows how to operate it. I happen to own the HP 3130, (unfortunately HP discontinued it) http://www.ciao.co.uk/HP_Digital_Projector_Mp3130__5784143 one of the few small projectors on the market that stands upright. Its small to bring along, easy to operate and setup. I remembered once, the person I was presenting to was so impressed with my HP projector that he liked my presentation even before I started....

To me, getting these basics correct will help the entrepreneur sell his ideas to potential investors. So, may your next big pitch with powerpoint is a good one...