Pitching to Hard-Hitting Investors

My first column focused on developing a business plan that would have investors pleading to meet with you. The second column provided insights on the swamp an entrepreneur had to survive to get an opportunity to play Let's Make a Deal.

Somehow, you have received the blessing of the trolls who guard venture capital, and an audience has been granted with the mostly Ivy-League-educated, open-collared super-cool money boys, who may have never run a business besides a fraternity keg party. These masters of your future will invite you into a boardroom and ask you to tell them why they should write you an enormous check on behalf of their rich private investors and pension funds. You undoubtedly will quake like Dorothy and wish you were back in Kansas.

How do you prepare for the meeting with the Great Oz? When I prepare for a meeting with investors, I develop a list of questions and write out the answers so I can see my responses. ...