As I mentioned in my last post, a VC's objective in the first phase of the process is to simply determine if they want to learn more about your idea. To drill this home, they're not deciding if they want to invest; they're deciding if they want to meet you and hear the real pitch. Executive summaries should be aligned with this; they should only provide the information that is needed to pique a VC's interest.

At a high-level, VC's assess businesses based upon a handful of key characteristics. As a result, an executive summary should provide this high-level information clearly and concisely. Providing too much detail at this point will likely get in the way.

Aside from basic contact information, an executive summary should include the following high-level information:

• The geographic location of your company,
• A mission statement.
• A product/service overview (including a description of the pain point that it addresses),
• An estimate of the addressable market,
• An assessment of your company's competitive landscape,
• A brief explanation of your barriers to entry,
• A short list of achievements to date,
• A summary of financials (historical and projected revenue, EBITDA and key metrics, such as volume),
• An overview of capital raised in the past and fundraising objectives for this round
• A list of objectives that you plan to achieve before the next fundraising round, and
• Short management bios.

Surprisingly, most summaries fall short in describing their product or service. Make sure that this is very clear - keep it simple stupid. Someone who knows nothing about your space should be able to understand it.

All of this should be one to two pages single spaced. Use section titles to help VCs quickly find the information they need. No fancy graphics or art is required.

The executive summary just needs to provide the required high-level information required to help a VC figure out that he wants to learn more. Your chance to fill in the gaps will come later.

Comments

[Josh Gooch]

This is an excellent overview around the proper construction of an exec summary. Market size is often poorly represented in the exec summary. A high level overview of the market size, with key references noted, will do wonders for the investor or interested party.