This third deadline segment on “creating effective pitch decks” calls for business plans, teams and capitals to tackle investment deployment plans.
Business plans are a very important part of your pitch deck. Early-stage business plans are predictions of how your business will expand in the future. You need to cover all the elements of your business: products, marketing, sales, distribution, margins, costs per item, people, and more.
I was once asked to be the best fiction I’ve read and recall saying it was an early stage startup business plan. This may sound interesting, but in reality it is almost impossible to predict how different moving parts of a startup will change over time, and most predictions fail.
This is because the first business plans for giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Uber are estimated by the well-known founders and are so different what they actually unfold.
A good business plan includes a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet and, most importantly, a cash flow statement. The cash flow statement shows how much capital the business needs before break-even. Many startup plans do not show break-even as they are not goals, but that is a completely different issue.
When I failed to succeed in my book, I wrote about the 2x2x2 formula I recommend to early-stage founders. Simply put, double the cost, halve the revenue, and halve the margins after your business plan is ready. This can change the market, make customers behaviour unpredictable, the products can fail, the competition can do something else, and the best plans can go out the window, resulting in the worst-case scenarios on capital requirements.
After your business plan, ask investors (for example, £50 lakh) for a clear plan as to how it will unfold.
For example, for a Tea Cafe chain, this is the cost of how many new cafes will open, marketing, people, technology, operations, etc. It is recommended to plan 10-15% for other costs and unknown costs.
Finally, what investors want most: Does the management team have the background and experience to execute? The harsh reality is that anyone can build a solid startup with PowerPoint. Rolling the sleeves to run on the ground makes the performer differentiate from the dreamer. This is the most important parameter that investors are looking for early stage investments. It is rare to find a successful startup that starts with a weak team.
(The author is a serial entrepreneur of the book, bestseller author, “Not Success,” post to X @vaitheek)
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Released on June 8, 2025
