Business Plan Pitch
Senior 6 · Entrepreneurship
Business Plan Pitch
Lesson 3 of 4
25 min
Keza's hands are cold. The team before hers ran over time and the chairperson had to stop them in the middle of their financial slide. The judges look tired. Keza knows her content: the question now is how to deliver it so that three tired people remember it tomorrow.
A strong delivery does not replace a strong business, but a weak delivery can hide one. This lesson covers the techniques of pitching and a simple process, GEPIC, for putting a pitch in order. It ends with a full example pitch and the kind of rubric judges use to score it.
| Technique | What to do | What it avoids |
|---|---|---|
| Focus on key points | Three or four messages, each with one piece of evidence | Overloading the audience with detail |
| Speak, don't read | Rehearse until you need only a word per slide | Losing eye contact and sounding unsure |
| Use simple visuals | One idea per slide: a photo, a number, a simple chart | Walls of text the audience reads instead of listening |
| Respect the time | Plan the minutes, rehearse with a timer, leave a margin | Being cut off before the ask |
| Body language and voice | Stand straight, face the audience, vary your tone, pause after key numbers | A flat, rushed delivery that hides the message |
| Tell a short story | A real person or moment that shows the problem | An abstract problem nobody feels |
| Answer questions well | Listen fully, pause, answer briefly, admit what you do not know and promise to follow up | Defensive, long or invented answers |
| Close with a clear ask | Say exactly what you want and what the listener gains | An audience that liked you but does not know what to do |
Definition
GEPIC: a five-stage process for ordering a pitch: Greet the audience and state your purpose; Engage their attention with a question, fact or story; present the Problem or opportunity with evidence; Inform them about your solution, market, model, team and the money needed; and Challenge them with a clear request to act, before thanking them and taking questions.
Example: in a 7-minute pitch, most of the time (about 4 minutes) goes to Inform, but the pitch is won or lost in the first minute and the last.
The plan is a guide, not a law. What matters is that the opening is short, the evidence gets the most time, and the ask is never squeezed out.
Tip
Pause after every important number. Two seconds of silence after "we sold 1,200 packs a month" tells the audience the figure matters, and gives them time to write it down. Nervous speakers rush exactly the numbers that should be slowest.
Worked example 1: the Imbuto Dry pitch, following GEPIC
This is a shortened script of the team's 7-minute pitch; in the room, each stage is supported by one or two slides. (Illustrative business, names and figures.)
G, greet. "Good morning, members of the jury. I am Keza, and this is my co-founder, Ishimwe. Thank you for the chance to present Imbuto Dry."
E, engage. "Please raise your hand if you have ever seen good fruit thrown away at a market at the end of the day. [Pause.] Now imagine that is your harvest."
P, problem. "In the peak season, fruit farmers in Rwamagana sell at very low prices or watch fruit spoil, because fresh fruit lasts only days. At the same time, Kigali shops sell imported dried fruit to parents looking for healthy snacks. Of the 40 farmers we interviewed, every one had lost fruit last season."
I, inform. "Imbuto Dry buys that surplus fruit, dries it in solar dryers, with no fuel and no added sugar, and sells it in 100-gram packs at 1,500 francs to supermarkets and school canteens. [Slide: product.] In a three-month trial with two dryers we sold 1,200 packs a month. [Slide: traction.] Each pack costs us 800 francs, so it contributes 700; with fixed costs of 1.4 million a month after expansion, we break even at 2,000 packs. [Slide: numbers.] We counted about 11,000 packs a month of demand in Kigali's supermarkets and canteens, and we aim for 4,000 by month twelve, a profit of about 1.4 million francs a month. Imported brands are our competitors; we are local, fresher and cheaper. I studied food processing, Ishimwe runs our sales, and an agronomist mentors us."
C, challenge. "We are asking for 12 million francs: 6 million for four more dryers, 2.5 million for a sealing machine, 2 million for working capital and 1.5 million for marketing. With it, farmers lose less fruit and Kigali gets a local, healthy snack. Will you help us grow? Thank you. We welcome your questions."
Why it works: the Engage question makes the judges picture the problem; every figure is tied to what it proves; the ask gives an amount, a breakdown that adds up ( million francs) and a benefit; and the close invites questions instead of ending on silence.
Worked example 2: scoring the pitch with a rubric
One judge scores the pitch on this rubric. Find the total and the team's two weakest criteria.
| Criterion | Maximum | A strong pitch… | Imbuto Dry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem and solution | 15 | States a real, evidenced problem and a solution that clearly fits it | 13 |
| Market | 15 | Counts real customers and justifies the share it aims for | 9 |
| Business model and financials | 20 | Gives price, costs, break-even and a realistic forecast, and uses them correctly | 16 |
| Traction and evidence | 15 | Shows sales, customers or partners, not only plans | 12 |
| Team | 10 | Shows the skills needed and how gaps will be filled | 7 |
| Delivery | 15 | Keeps to time, speaks without reading, uses clear visuals and confident body language | 13 |
| Answers to questions | 10 | Answers briefly and honestly, with facts, without becoming defensive | 6 |
| Total | 100 | 76 |
Step 1: total. out of 100.
Step 2: compare criteria fairly. The maximums differ, so compare percentages: problem ; market ; financials ; traction ; team ; delivery ; questions .
Step 3: interpret. The weakest are the market (the 36% share was not justified, as Lesson 2 warned) and the answers to questions. Before the next competition the team should bring evidence of shop demand and rehearse answers to the hardest questions.
Warning
Four delivery mistakes judges punish. Reading the slides aloud with your back to the audience; running over time so the ask is lost; arguing with a judge's question instead of answering it; and filling slides with jargon. If you do not know an answer, say so, say how you will find out, and follow up: an honest "I don't know yet" costs far fewer marks than a guess that is exposed.
University of Dayton, "2018 Elevator Pitch Winner, Flyer Pitch Competition" (about 1 minute). A student's winning one-minute pitch in a university competition. Watch for the hook, the problem, the proof and the ask, and use the rubric above to score it (practice question 6).
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the competition case, the GEPIC time plan, the techniques table, the Imbuto Dry script, the rubric, the worked examples and the practice items. GEPIC is the pitching process named in Rwanda's S6 Entrepreneurship course, explained here in our own words. Imbuto Dry, its team and all its figures are illustrative (2026).
