This has only ever happened to me once. I was taking meetings for my startup in March 2011 and had just wrapped up a very enjoyable meeting with Sequoia which is on the far west side of Sand Hill Road. I drove Sand Hill east back into Palo Alto and the sunny day suddenly morphed into a freak rainstorm that lasted only about 5 minutes. During this time I stopped at a red light and was rear-ended by a Pediatric Oncology Resident at Stanford. Minor scratches on my rental car, the front end on his Corolla was much worse. I called the VC's executive assistant (EA) who was very kind and told me "not to worry about it". I talked with Palo Alto's Finest and made it to the VC's office on Middlefield Road about an hour late. I was ushered into a conference room by the EA who must have asked if I was "okay" a half dozen times (I'll never forget how kind she seemed in comparison to her "boss"). I waited for the GP of the firm for about 10 minutes. He walked in an said "Heard you had an accident!", I brushed the comment aside saying I was fine and launched into a pitch. He held his hand up and told me that he had no interest in investing, then proceeded to tell me that the way I got "in" to see him "never works" to get meetings in the "Valley". (I'm still puzzled by this to this very day that he told me that as I sat in a chair, with him, the GP of the firm, in his largest conference room.) Maybe I shouldn't have but I forced the live demo anyway (about 5 minutes) he compared it with known technology and said his firm was an investor in a competing technology. He then asked if I was flying home that day and mentioned that he had a flight to catch later that day with his family to their "private island" and mentioned that it's nice to "not have to fly commercially". He then asked me if I wanted a mint that bared the name of his VC firm, which I took as a souvenir- which was the only takeaway of value from the meeting. This man's name is burned into my memory forever and is one of my top motivators to succeed.
Keep your business plan under one sheet of paper so that it is easy to read, but still have enough text on it for your team to understand and talk about quickly. Pitch deck templates — business plan template This is the template for our business plan, which is a template for any business plan. Pitch deck template for real estate agency (for real estate and housing agents) This is a pretty cool template using real estate for selling a house. I know it's a little dated, but still looks good. The Pitches We Love Most — Business to Business Digital Agency Here's a very specific template which can be used to prepare a pitch deck or other related documents. How to write a pitch deck for companies and product ideas — The Pitch Deck Master Here's a pretty cool template from a startup that's going after a.