Brief and Roles

You are pitching to investors to raise up to £2,000,000 to create a business or product that will:

• Create a business or product that will provide a benefit to your local community or a wider based community with a shared purpose

• Use new technology or find different ways to use existing technology  

• Either be entirely new or add an extra dimension to something that already exists

• Be readily understood and attractive to the market

• Be commercially viable and offer a genuine return to investors

You must assign roles among your team to research, develop and launch your product or service and:

• Demonstrate how you intend to manage and grow your product or service successfully from development to five years after launch.

• Produce a business plan for your product or service and show five-year annual projections for income, costs, and profits.

• Explain what will be projected financial returns on that investment after 5 years showing an understanding both of expenses and realistic income projections.

• Explain the technology that you intend to use.

• You do not need to pitch for the full £2,000,000. But be realistic about your expense assumptions – labour, technology, market research and programming all cost more than you may think.

 

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Important Points to Note

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Commercial Potential

You will look at the need for your product or service and the size of your potential market. Are there any other similar products or services? What are the advantages of them over your product or service (i.e., what makes your product or service unique?) How do you protect your intellectual property and stop someone stealing your idea? Is there potential for expansion? Explain how your product or service can survive and thrive in today’s cut-throat market.

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Quality of Presentation

Present your idea clearly and succinctly. Every team member should contribute, both in the presentation and the Q&A. Consider holding a session beforehand looking specifically at what questions might come up and prepare draft responses. Perhaps ask someone not involved to listen to the final presentation and see what questions occur to them.

Your presentation and slideshow should contain all the information you wish to convey – not handouts on the evening. Prototypes may be used but only on stage. (Please note that points will be deducted if handouts or prototypes are handed to the judges or audience).

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Innovation and Originality

Is your idea ground-breaking? Is it disruptive technology? Have you thought ‘outside the box?’ Few products or services will be completely original. If you genuinely believe your product or service is original, you must explain what research you have undertaken to prove that finding. 

Many business ideas build and improve on a product or service that is already in the marketplace which is perfectly acceptable. However, if you have developed an existing product or service, you must demonstrate the ‘points of difference’ between the existing idea and your own proposal – e.g.: defining any technical or manufacturing enhancements.

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Format

You should design your presentation in PowerPoint using the headers in the template slides (located on the website and resource area). You may imbed video within your presentation to help demonstrate your business idea. Think carefully about the financial template.

If you wish to draw the attention of judges to websites that have informed your research, please feel free so to do. If you use graphs, make sure they are very simple and display one or two clear facts. You can expand your explanation in the presentation, and also elaborate in the Q&A.

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Timing

The presentation of your idea and your plans must not last more than 15 minutes. Timing is crucial, firstly to cope with tight scheduling on the night, but also because part of the learning process is to distil all your research into a clear and concise presentation in the allotted time. But your hard work will not be wasted! The judges and audience will be exploring your deeper research and knowledge in the Q&A session.

 

Separation of Roles

All team members should be involved in the delivery of the presentation. Everyone should speak about their role and the aspect of the product or service they were assigned, such as market research, sales strategy, financial projections etc. Think about ‘flow’ of the presentation and how you transfer smoothly from one speaker to another. That separation of roles for delivery of each section of the presentation needs practice.​