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t’s a moment that almost every successful entrepreneur will have to face eventually: pitching his or her “baby” to potential investors, whether they are Venture Capitalists (VC) or angels. We all know that public speaking is man’s number one fear (followed by death), but doing it in front of professional investors who have the means to make your startup continue and prosper (or die) can be unnerving. Presenting the facts about one’s venture in a way that gets someone to write a large check is not easy. It’s a skill that is developed over time, with repetition and failure.

Here are 10 tips based on my observation of watching IMD’s Executive MBA participants pitch, often times successfully, real startups to real VCs in Silicon Valley.

1. Remember this is NOT a corporate presentation. Time will be limited, and if you don’t get the audience’s attention within the opening three slides then they will feel at liberty to check their Blackberrys.

2. Get to the point. What does your product do? What do you need in terms of financing? Why might this be interesting to them? Present the opportunity as well as the product. This should be clear to the listener by slide three. Maybe not yet in detail, but suspense is over-rated here. Tell them why they should not reach for their Blackberry. In 13 years of watching IMD’s EMBAs pitch to Silicon Valley VCs, I have been amazed at how, with a great pitch, the best VCs know more about the company within five minutes, than the entrepreneurs have told them. How? They take the clear, unambiguous facts presented to them by the entrepreneur and connect the dots with the thousands of other startups they’ve seen. It’s pattern recognition married to great communications.

3. Tell a story, and weave that story both in the way that feels natural to you, and the way that you know this audience wants to hear it. You need to know the people in the room, their experience, what they like and dislike, what they’ve invested in previously, and what their first three questions will be. With a bit of effort and networking, all of this is available to you, and not knowing it shows a lack of respect for your future potential partners.

4. This is not an adversarial meeting. You’ll be stressed, and they may be rude, but this is about getting to the facts, and if you’re not capable of communicating those facts well then the VC will ask his or her question again and again, and eventually the stress and tempers will rise. VCs don’t try to make you look bad (normally); they just need to know if this is a story that should be brought back to their partners and if it eventually warrants their financial investment.

5. Be confident, but careful and well-prepared. It’s well known that entrepreneurs are often over-confident and decidedly unaware of their (and their venture’s) shortcomings. On the other hand it’s been proven that the ability to exude confidence when communicating about one’s startup is essential and will lead to funding.

6. Deconstruct. In thinking about your venture’s future, where you hope to be in three years, deconstruct backwards. If you want to reach the optimal place in three years, what needs to happen along the way? And then make sure this is part of the story that you sell to the VCs. They need to know that you have a path to profitability and/or liquidity.

7. Don’t be descriptive. This also builds on point #1. Show both your passion and your understanding of how to execute.

8. Tell a big idea. Yes, everyone has told you to say “our figures are conservative….no hockey sticks here…”, but if what you’re trying to do is radical, stand up and shout that. Keep your feet on the ground, but at the same time let the investor dream about the big possibilities.

9. Keep it simple, especially your execution plans. Focus is key, and complexity will cause red warning lights to go off over the screen that you’re projecting onto. Multiple product areas, simultaneous channel launches, complicated ownership structures, tiered pricing (before you even know if anyone will buy), seven-phase development plans and unclear team responsibilities all need to be gutted from your presentation — and your business plan.

10. Answer the questions. When you get a question from the audience, listen! Forget for a second about the story in your head. Listen and make sure you’ve understood the question, and then respond. And respond clearly, factually and honestly to the question being asked, not to the question that you want to be asked. “I don’t know and I’ll get back to you on that,” is OK for some questions.

I asked Alex Fries, a serial entrepreneur in the Valley, for his worst “VC Pitch horror stories” and he cited three that he’d experienced:

1) Pitching with a CEO who had a short temper and who proceeded to get into a verbal fight with the VC (the entrepreneur always loses these fights — see point #4 above).
2) The demos didn’t work (always test and retest your prototypes, and if you’re not sure they’re going to function, don’t use them – point #5).
3) Got lost and arrived 40 minutes late and thus had only 20 minutes for the presentation and Q&A (no, they did not get invited back — does this need to be explained?).

None of the above is rocket science. Our EMBAs get one shot at it; some do reasonably well — a few will do a great job. If you’re an entrepreneur and the adolescence of your baby depends on your next pitch, then pay attention to the above and invest deeply in preparing for your next pitch.

Jim Pulcrano is an executive director at IMD (www.imd.ch). He is a member of the Executive MBA teaching team and his doctoral research is on entrepreneurial networking