What to present when pitching?

[PowerPython]

OK, so I have a meeting very soon with some potential investors/directors of my soon to be software company. What documents should I take along when I pitch to them? I was thinking business plan, marketing plan, market research and a separate table showing start up costs. I also think that our two main programs should be shown, although not yet in development I have done substantial market research on them, and 1 is ready to enter development. I should also add that I am quite young, and some investors are my parents, and they don't really believe I could do this at my age, so i have put lots of effort into it to show that my age should not count against me. What else should I take? What style of dress should I wear?

[akula]

okey dokey..great question

1) In a general sense, you must use Allen Morgan's 10 commandments for pitching.

2) This is done because not all meetings are created equal. If you go into the first meeting with "business plan, marketing plan, market research and a separate table showing start up costs" you will fail the objective of your first meeting

3) The objective of the first meeting is NOT TO CLOSE the deal, but to get a second meeting. This is not gonna happen if you open your kimono all the way up in the first meeting, and have nothing else to present in the second meeting

4) Because of that, your first meeting should ONLY be a 10/20/30 Kawasaki powerpoint. At the end of the 30 min presentation you should hand out some NDAs and tell people "Please sign these so I can confirm your attendance for the second meeting where I'll present you with "business plan, marketing plan, market research and a separate table showing start up costs"

5) The people are gonna then request that you pitch them, they pay attention at the second meeting and for these reasons you'll close the deal.

6) If you ignore this advise and present people who don't know a thing about what you're doing with 100 pages of documentation, you're gonna catch them in the headlights, they're gonna have the excuse to say "we need to review all this material and then we'll get back to you". Obviously, they're not gonna get back to you because they're not gonna make the time to review all that material.

Listen to Mr. Morgan. Focus on the second meeting. Don't fuck up your pitch with information overload.