How to sell your company to Microsoft

I presume he means that you should have up-to-date contact details for all existing investors, and that they should be contactable - e.g. they don't throw down the phone when you ring them - and ready to sell.

I know of a mid-sized company which sold to a multinational a few years ago, and it took them a few weeks to round up all the shareholders and get written consent to the deal, even though all the shareholders were in the same country, on good terms and none of them objected to the take over.

He refers to the Powerpoint presentation that you would show to VC's or other potential investors. It includes the high level objectives of your company, why you're different, market size, plans, etc.

Refer to Guy Kawasaki's famous blog post on the 10/20/30 rule for a good intro: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axz...

I also prefer to have about 20 backup slides at the end that address most common questions. Usually these will be deeper drill downs into market sizing, competitors, financials, short/medium/long term plans.

The successful entrepreneurs who I've worked with are almost fanatical about the investor deck. They obsess over every word on every slide. It's both incredibly inspiring and utterly painful.