A suitcase full of money

Here's a nice little warm-up for all who need to present their business idea to potential investors.

Imagine you have a suitcase containing 1 million Kronor ( 'cos I'm in Sweden). It's all your own money and you can of course do exactly what you want with it. Consider this for a few moments, I'm sure you can come up with a few ideas of what it could be used for.

OK, now imagine you're in a meeting, and you yourself are about to hear a pitch from a company who are looking for you to invest in them. The suitcase is sitting safely under the table at your feet, all your own money remember. So consider what it would take for the person who will shortly come into the room to win you over and convince you to part with your money. What would they have to say, prove or demonstrate, in order for you to feel comfortable with handing over the money? When you've figured that out you can switch perspective! That person is you. And this can be the measure of the challenge you have ahead of you if you want to finance your company, because sometimes it really is the investor's private capital. If they're investing someone else's money then the threshold could be even higher.

So this is why I love this kind of presentation challenge. You really have to get a lot of things right, and you have to first and foremost remember that you're dealing with flesh and blood and human beings. Impressions and credibility are rather important.

You've heard of an Elevator Pitch? I think I'll call this a Suitcase Pitch :)