Business Plan Pitch
Senior 6 · Entrepreneurship
Business Plan Pitch
Lesson 1 of 4
25 min
At a school entrepreneurship fair, two S6 teams each have three minutes in front of a panel: a SACCO manager, a local businesswoman who invests in young companies, and the head teacher. The first team reads aloud from page one of its 25-page business plan and is still describing the history of the idea when the time runs out. The second team opens with a question the panel recognises, shows one clear number, explains what it needs and why, and finishes with twenty seconds to spare. (An illustrative case.)
Both teams had good business plans. Only one had a pitch. This unit is about the difference.
Definition
Pitch (or business plan pitch): a short, planned, persuasive presentation of a business idea or business plan to a particular audience, in order to win its support: money, orders, partnership or advice.
Example: a five-minute presentation to a SACCO's credit committee asking for a loan to buy a second milling machine.
Definition
Elevator pitch: a pitch short enough to deliver during a lift ride, about 30 to 60 seconds, that says who you are, the problem you solve, how, and what you want next. Pitch deck: the short set of slides, often about ten, that supports a longer pitch.
Example: meeting a supermarket buyer at an agricultural show, you have one minute to make her want a proper meeting.
Definition
Investor and lender: an investor gives money in exchange for a share of the business (equity) and gains only if the business grows; a lender (a bank, microfinance institution or SACCO) gives a loan (debt) that must be repaid with interest whatever happens. They listen for different things.
Example: an investor asks "how big can this become?"; a loan officer asks "how will you repay us every month?"
| Type | Length and form | Typical audience |
|---|---|---|
| Elevator pitch | 30 to 60 seconds, spoken, no slides | Anyone you meet: a buyer, a mentor, an investor at an event |
| Investor or lender pitch | 5 to 10 minutes with a pitch deck, then questions | Investors, a bank or SACCO credit committee |
| Competition pitch | A fixed time, judged against published criteria | Judges at business plan and innovation competitions |
| Written pitch | A one-page summary or a short email | Investors and partners before a meeting |
| Sales or partnership pitch | A few minutes, focused on the listener's benefit | Customers, suppliers, distributors |
| Audience | What they most want to hear |
|---|---|
| Equity investor | A big problem, a growing market, a strong team, early proof that customers pay, and how they will earn a return |
| Lender (bank, SACCO) | Steady cash flow to cover repayments, the owner's own contribution, collateral or a guarantee, and a sound record |
| Customer or buyer | What the product does for them, at what price, and why it beats what they use now |
| Competition judges | Whatever the published criteria reward, usually innovation, viability, impact and presentation |
Tip
Problem first, product second. Listeners care about a problem they recognise before they care about your solution. Open with the problem in one or two sentences; then your product arrives as the answer they were already waiting for.
Worked example 1: fitting the words to the time
A relaxed speaking pace for a presentation is roughly 120 to 150 words a minute. Taking 130 words a minute as a planning figure, a team's draft for a 3-minute pitch has 560 words. How long will it take, and how many words must go?
Step 1: time for the draft.
Step 2: words that fit in 3 minutes. words.
Step 3: words to cut. words, about 30% of the draft.
Advice: cut history, technical detail and adjectives first; keep the problem, the proof, the numbers and the ask. Then rehearse with a timer, because nervous speakers speed up and pauses take time.
Worked example 2: an elevator pitch, annotated
Imbuto Dry is an illustrative S6 business that dries surplus fruit with solar dryers. Here is its elevator pitch (101 words, about 47 seconds at 130 words a minute):
"Every mango season in Rwamagana, farmers watch good fruit rot because they cannot sell it fast enough. We are Imbuto Dry. We use solar dryers to turn that surplus fruit into healthy dried-fruit snacks, with no added sugar, sold in 100-gram packs to supermarkets and school canteens in Kigali. In a three-month trial with two dryers, we sold 1,200 packs a month and bought fruit from 40 farmers who would otherwise have lost it. We now need 12 million francs to add four dryers and a sealing machine, which will more than triple our output. May I show you our numbers?"
| Part | Where it is |
|---|---|
| Hook and problem | "Every mango season … fast enough." |
| Who we are and the solution | "We are Imbuto Dry … in Kigali." |
| Proof (traction) | "In a three-month trial … lost it." |
| The ask and its purpose | "We now need 12 million francs … output." |
| Next step | "May I show you our numbers?" |
Check the claim "more than triple": each dryer can fill about 700 packs a month, so capacity rises from to packs. That is times the old capacity and times the trial's sales, so "more than triple our output" is fair, provided the extra packs can be sold. A judge may well ask for that proof. (All Imbuto Dry figures are illustrative.)
Warning
A pitch is not the business plan read aloud, and it is not a list of hopes. Never read your slides, never invent figures you cannot defend when a judge asks "where does that number come from?", and never finish without saying clearly what you want from the audience.
TED, "The Secret to Successfully Pitching an Idea", from the series The Way We Work (about 5 minutes). Investor and teacher Mar Hershenson gives three steps for pitching an idea. Watch how each step keeps the audience, not the speaker, at the centre.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the school-fair case, the diagram, the tables, the Imbuto Dry pitch, the worked examples and the practice items. Imbuto Dry and all its figures are illustrative (2026); the speaking rate of 130 words a minute is a planning figure, not a rule.
