Develop Your Business Pitch Deck with New Entrepreneurship Workshop

So you have the next great idea to disrupt a large industry. Now what? How you develop your startup business from here is crucial to gaining the attention you need from potential investors and customers.

“Many entrepreneurs have a great idea but often fail to communicate it succinctly to potential investors, bankers or clients,” said Sean G.L. Johnson, business manager of IT and professional development for the Cincinnati State Workforce Development Center.

“A pitch deck should be 10 to 15 slides covering high-level headlines so your message does not become lost in technical details or irrelevant facts,” Johnson said. “The pitch deck as well as the business plan should establish a clear journey, including the identified problem, proposed solution, supporting facts and how investors will make money by participating in funding.”

Johnson will guide entrepreneurs in developing a pitch deck for their business and more in the new Communiversity

Entrepreneurship Workshop

. The 20-hour workshop is designed to help participants develop a clear problem statement, articulate the opportunity and solution to the problem, validate the idea and develop a business model.

Each of the above components is key to communicating a business idea and developing an investor-ready pitch deck. Participants will have an MVP – minimum viable plan – to act upon after completing the workshop.

“The success of the workshop rests on the participants engaging in the process and truly challenging themselves in each step of the process to generate an MVP,” Johnson said.

Students will also explore the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, such as identifying new venture opportunities, evaluating the viability of those ventures and financing options. Students will present their pitch deck to a business review panel on the last day of the workshop.

Each of the course’s five sessions will include collaboration with other students as well as a guest speaker.

Entrepreneurship Workshop

runs 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays from Aug. 18 to Sept. 15. The course fee of $299 includes all materials, including the course book

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

, and a six-month subscription to the business-plan software LivePlan. The course will take place at

Horter Investment Management

in Montgomery.

“Communiversity is the perfect host for this workshop because of its 70-year history of offering convenient, innovative non-credit classes for lifelong learners who want to enrich their lives and launch into a new personal or professional journey,” Johnson said.

Johnson is an accomplished business professional with more than 20 years of corporate finance, business development and project management experience. Lately, Johnson’s lifelong learning passion has him mastering a programming language, which has opened the possibility of launching a small analytics practice. He holds a bachelor’s degree in banking and finance from Morehouse College, a master’s of management from Northwestern University, a master's in ministerial leadership from Indiana Wesleyan Universty, and the ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management.

To register for

Entrepreneurship Workshop

, visit our

website

or call (513) 556-6932 and press 2.