Here goes—the Chamber’s first pitch competition!  Going to be a lot of fun over the next few months as the Chamber, Silicon Prairie News and others work together on bringing out the ideas!

The details…

The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a quick pitch competition on October 9, 2008 at 8pm at the Scott Technology Center.

The competition will have a $250 cash prize.

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A quick pitch is a presentation about a start-up company that is given to an audience including a group of judges. The presentation is intended to mimic the type of presentation given to angel investors when a company is seeking an infusion of outside capital.

The Chamber’s program will include a 15 minute presentation with 5 minutes of questions from the judges. There will be a maximum of 5 pitches selected for presentation and the competition.

In order to compete, each company must provide a presentation and an executive summary to Tom Chapman (tchapman@omahachamber.org) by October 3, 2008. The submitted files will be evaluated with the top five companies notified on Monday, October 6 that they will be given the opportunity to pitch at the event on Thursday, October 9. Thus, all submitting companies and individuals should plan on presenting on October 9th. Any that are not selected may still participate as members of the audience.

The presentations should reflect those that are relatively standard for pitching investors. In the Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki, the author lists a standard ten slide presentation that includes the following slides:

• Title • Problem • Solution • Business Model • Underlying Magic • Marketing and Sales • Competition • Management Team • Financial Projections and Key Metrics • Current Status, Accomplishments to Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds

This presentation model is not required, but it is preferred for the competition. Any presentation that is submitted with more than 15 slides will not be evaluated.

In addition, the executive summary should be relatively short (no more than 3 pages) and address many of the same themes and issues that the presentation will address. The key is to explain why your submitted business is a good investment and why it has compelling growth prospects. The executive summary is an opportunity to provide a summary and textual reference to the high quality of the pitched business. It will be the primary document used to determine which companies will receive the opportunity to pitch on October 9th.