Recently I’ve been excited to see some solid entrepreneurs pass me executive summaries for worthy businesses. Great to see.

However, these executive summaries have varied from average to amazing, and average just isn’t good enough. So to help these entrepreneurs out I have shared with them an executive summary template. It’s a template we use at Pollenizer to help our clients raise funds and for our own projects. It’s clinically proven in real-world testing.

Instead of giving it out one-on-one, I thought: why not give it out to the world? Very happy to.

Startup Executive Summary [Template] v2 – Updated – April 2014. You will need to save a copy to edit.

Now, this is only our base template and you will need to customise it, perhaps a lot. Plus, you should do what we do and get a designer to make it look pretty. But the bones are all here and they have good structure.

Some things to remember about executive summaries;

1. The person you’re giving them to may have seen lots of them before, possibly hundreds. They know what they are looking for and you’d better give it to them. This also means you can’t BS them. Chances are, they know more than you do.
2. The investors have very little time (they’re the ones with the money to blow on hats) which is why ours are never longer than one page. It should also read like a newspaper. Give them a decent heading so they know what to read first and make sure it’s hot, so they keep reading.
3. The objective of the executive summary is to secure a meeting. It’s not to get a cheque. It’s a promotional tool. Get them excited. Whet their appetites for more and make them want to call you.
4. Be open. Tell them everything. It’s going to come out in the wash anyway. And everything is negotiable later.

There is plenty of good reading on executive summaries for raising capital.

1. Guy Kawasaki and the Art of the Executive Summary
2. More links here

There is no one best way to do a great executive summary, but hopefully this template can give you a good start. If you have your own ideas, feedback on how we can improve it, please let us know.

Get it done!

PS: I have to shout out a big thanks to DK from Zapr for introducing me to the discipline of writing one page summaries for all occasions. DK was brutal with content, getting the messages down so they were so short, simple and clear but holding onto the excitement and passion of the business and its founders.