The Most Important Questions About Your Startup

Preparing your elevator pitch and pitch deck are going to help you fill out your business plan, and start to understand the core aspects of your business.

However, there are other questions, that aren’t directly assigned to a slide in your deck, that you’ll need to think through early on. Some will arise as typical follow-up questions after each presentation you give, and some will need to be addressed before you can successfully complete your deck.

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS (That aren’t in your deck)

I won’t get into answering all of these now, but here is a list of questions – in addition to those specifically assigned a slide in your pitch deck – that you’ll likely need answers for as you tell people about, raise money for and build your new business.

1. Who is your target customer and why?
   • How will this shift over time?
2. How will you acquire customers?
   • Already in the deck, but one of the most fundamental and complex questions in starting a business. You’ll need to go deeper than what fits on one slide.
3. Why will someone pay you for this?
   • You’ve described how you intend to make money, but why do you believe it will actually happen?
4. How will you scale your business?
   • When you hit 10k, then 100k, then 1M users, how will your technology/infrastructure hold up, and how will your strategy/customer acquisition tactics change?
5. Why will your product be chosen vs. a competitor’s?
6. And every entrepreneur’s favorite: Why won’t Google do it?

In addition, there will be a few questions specific to your industry or company that people will typically ask after you present. The best way to learn these quickly is to practice pitching and presenting your deck to folks who know your industry or the startup world well.

If you’re going to present, be sure to think through these questions ahead of time, and make sure you have clear and concise answers prepared. You may not have to go into major detail, but you don’t want to leave folks remembering an “ummm…” that hurts your credibility and suggests you haven’t fully thought through your business.

What questions am I missing? Let me know in the comments so I can continue to build up this post.