10 things to Include in Your Startup Pitch Presentation

Have a presentation (a “pitch deck”) prepared with which you can pitch your entire idea and business plan in less than 20 minutes. You should also be able to provide more details if questions arise. Decks should be about 10 pages long, but what should they include? Here, we’ve listed the 10 components that investors care about the most and how you should approach them.

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1. Cover Page

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The cover page should have your logo, business name and a tagline. Your tagline should give insight into your company and be easy to remember, for example, “We are the Groupon for X.” Remember to include your contact information — you would be surprised how many people forget it. Especially if your deck was forwarded, it should be easy for a person to track you down.

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2. Summary

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Summarize all of the information before you present it, and use this opportunity to get your audience interested in your company. Talk up the most interesting facts about your business, as well as any huge milestones you may have hit.

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3. Team

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Investors are not only putting money toward your idea, they’re investing in your team. It’s important they know the people who are going to make the concept successful. Make sure to include your background too, and how it relates to your new company. Highlight any of your team’s successful exits. Investors like to see that you can take a company to acquisition.
If applicable, emphasize that your team has worked together in the past or for a long period of time. It shows you can and like to work together. If you have any important advisors, list them, but make sure they know you’re using their name.

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4. Problem

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You need to be able to explain the problem your concept is going to solve. Further, you need to prove why investors should care about solving it with your product or service.

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5. Solution

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This is the value proposition you are bringing to the table. It should solve the problem you just mentioned. If you have a demo of your product, this is the time to show it. Include any case studies to show that your product has worked for existing customers.

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6. Marketing/Sales

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You’ll want to show the market size for your product. This can include profiles of target customers, but be prepared to answer questions about the cost of acquiring these customers. Not knowing this information is a red flag to investors. If you already have sales, you can discuss your growth and forecast future revenue.

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7. Projections or Milestones

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It is difficult to create financial projections for a startup. If you don’t have a long financial history, your forecast is really just an educated guess. Instead, you should present the milestones that you’ve already reached. For instance, include that you acquired 1,000 customers by X date, that you have a partnership with company Y, that you signed a major customer or that you will be cash flow positive by Q3.

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8. Competition

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Every business has competition even if you think you’re offering something new and unique. List your competition and why your product/service is different from their model. If your competitors have been acquired, list acquisition prices and who acquired them.

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9. Business Model

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Every investor wants to get his money back, so it’s important to tell them how you plan on generating revenue. Show a list of the various revenue streams for your model and the timeline for each of them. How will you price your product and what does your competition charge? You should also discuss the lifetime value of your customer and how you will keep him engaged.

10. Financing

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If you have already raised money, you will want to talk about how much, who invested and what you did with it. If you have not raised money yet, talk about what you have accomplished with minimal funding. If you have personally funded your startup, make it known. Investors like to see entrepreneurs who have invested their own money. If you’re pitching to raise capital, list how much you’re looking to raise and how you intend to use the funds.

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Preparing the Presentation

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The above topics are critical when pitching an investment community, but be ready for questions. Learn a bit about your audience and anticipate their own passion points. Here are three talking points to keep your investor engaged and interested.

• Include any press you’ve received on a backup slide.
• Highlight any large barriers to entry in your field. They indicate that you have limited competition, that your concept has first-to-market exclusivity for a longer period of time.
• Investors are always thinking about the exit, so have a strategy in place and be able to talk about it. It helps to list any companies that may acquire yours, including similar products that have been acquired in the past.

Understanding C# Constructors

 

Introduction

Constructor is a special kind of method which have name same as that of class they belong and gets executed when its (class) object is created.In other words a constructor is a class default method that gets automatically executed whenever class’s object is created or whenever class is initialized.
Consider this example

public class demo
    {
        public demo ()
         {
              //A default Constructor
         }
 
      //Class members
 
    }

In this example, the method demo() is called the constructor of class demo, also called default constructor.

How it works: whenever you try to create an object of class or initialize a class, then the default constructor will be automatically invoked.

//Initializes the Class 
demo object = new demo ();

Tips to remember about constructor

1)    Constructor can’t be inherited, although a derived class can class the base class constructor.
2)    You have to explicitly write a default constructor while overloading constructors.
3)    Concept declaring multiple constructors of a class with different sets of parameters known as Constructor overloading.
4)    A constructor can be called another constructor using this()

Types of Constructor

1)    Default constructor: A constructor that takes no parameters is called a default constructor. Default constructors are invoked whenever an object is instantiated by using the new operator and no arguments are provided to new.
2)    Parameterized constructor: when we initialize class members during instantiation we use parameterized constructor which is similar to default constructor butl have parameters.

Below is code example:

public class demo
    {
        public demo()
         {
              //A default Constructor
         }
 
        public demo(String Name)
         {
              //A parameterized Constructor having one parameter
         }
       
  public demo(String FirstName, String LastName)
         {
              //A parameterized Constructor having two parameters
         } 
      
      //Class members
 
    }

When you create a parameterized constructor, we need to declare a default constructor explicitly.

Access modifier for constructor

1)    Public constructor: Constructors are public by default.
2)    Private constructor: It is a special instance constructor. It is commonly used in classes that contain static members only. If a class has one or more private constructors and no public constructors, then other classes (except nested classes) are not allowed to create instances of this class.

public class demo
    {
        private demo()
         {
              //A default Constructor as private
         }  
    }

So when we will try to create object of this class, it will generate an error.
i.e:

demo object = new demo () //Error 

Is there any way to create object of this class.

We can instantiate the above class by declaring another public constructor that has parameters.

public class demo
    {
        private demo()
         {
              //A default Constructor as private
         }
        public demo(String strName): this()
         {
              System.Console.WriteLine(“Hello Mr. : “ + strName);
         }
       
  //Class members
    }

And now you can initialize object for this class,

demo object = new demo() , which will work fine. 

3)    Static Constructor: A static constructor is used to initialize any static data, or to perform a action that needs to be performed only once. It is called automatically before the first instance is created or any static members are referenced.

public class demo
    {
        static demo()
         {
           //A static Constructor
           // Can only access static members here.
 
              System.Console.WriteLine("I am a static constructor.");
         } 
    }

So when we create object of this class, “I am a static constructor” gets printed.
Examine the below code as well,

public class demo
    {
        static demo()
         {
            //A static Constructor
           // Can only access static members here.
 
              System.Console.WriteLine("I am a static constructor.");
         }
 
        public demo()
         {
              //A default Constructor
         }
 
      //Class members
 
    }

This example also prints the same result, “I am a static constructor”
Point to remember about static constructor:

1) A static constructor should not be declared with any access modifier.
2) A static constructor does not accept parameters
3) A static constructor is called automatically.
4) There is no way to call a static constructor directly.

How to call parent class constructor in derived class during inheritance

It can be achieved by using base ()
Example:

public class parent
{
        public parent ()
         {
              //A default Constructor
         }
 
        public parent (String strName)
         {
              //A parameterized Constructor having one parameter
         }
       
     //Class members
 
}
 
public class child : parent
{
        public child ()
         {
              //A default Constructor
         }
 
        public child (String strName) : base(strName)
         {
              //A parameterized Constructor having one parameter
         }
       
     //Class members
 
static void Main()
    {
      child object1 = new child (); //1*
      child object2 = new child (“Vishal Nayan”); //2*
    }
 
 
}

Note:Sequence is important here in which constructor is called.

1)    First parent class public constructor, parent() is called then child class public constructor, child()
2)    First parent (String strName) and then child (String strName).

Introduction to Microsoft Silverlight

 

Contents

Contents of this article:

• Contents
• Overview
• What is Silverlight
  • Definition
  • Platform Support
  • Rich Interactive Application
  • RIA Stats
  • Why Silverlight
  • Silverlight vs. Flash
  • Silverlight vs. WPF
  • Rich vs. Reach
  • Showcase
  • Deep Zoom
• Deep Inside
  • Silverlight and XAML
  • Deployment Process
  • Silverlight Architecture
• Silverlight 5
• Tooling
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
  • Microsoft Expression Studio 4
• What’s Next
• Demo
• Summary

Overview

In this article we’ll have a brief introduction to Microsoft Silverlight, see how it fits with other technologies today, and watch it in action. Get ready!

What is Silverlight

Definition

Silverlight is a Microsoft technology aimed to help developers create rich interactive Web applications with the best user interface features and functionalities. It’s available as a plugin for almost all famous browsers available today, and it’s used to deliver the next generation media and Web applications.

When we say rich applications we don’t mean those with amazing interfaces and lots of graphics. Indeed, we mean by “rich” those have lots of functionalities not available for standard Web applications. Common examples of rich applications are online document editors and image processors; both are very interactive and offer lots of functionalities that are usually not available for standard Web applications. And that actually what Silverlight is devoted for, its main goal is to allow for developing rich interactive applications for the Web.

Platform Support

Unlike many other Microsoft technologies, Silverlight applications can run everywhere. It’s said to be cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device. It can run on Windows, Linux, and even Mac, it can run on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and many others, and it also can run on PCs, mobile devices, and handhelds. Really it can run everywhere without any code changes! One more interesting thing is that Silverlight Web applications can be hosted on any server. You can host your Silverlight application on a Windows, Linux, or Mac server without any additional code changes or configuration.

Rich Interactive Applications

We have been talking about rich interactive applications for a while; now let’s see what a rich interactive application really means. A Rich Interactive/Internet Application (RIA) is a Web application that’s very interactive with the user and has lots of functionalities. It’s very similar to desktop applications comparing interactivity and features; however, it’s a Web application that runs on the browser not the desktop. So we can say that RIA applications have the best functionalities and user interface features of desktop applications and Web applications.

Today, there’re lots of technologies available for creating RIA applications. The most famous platforms are Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun Java. Worth mentioning that every platform of the above mentioned (that includes Silverlight of course) is available through a plugin for the browser, and therefore its runtime must be installed on user’s machine in order to be able to run the application.

RIA Stats

Now someone asks: Who wins the race? What’s the best RIA platform that one can spend his time and effort to learn? First of all, let’s have a look at the following diagrams that represent penetration rates of Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun Java. The first diagram we have comes from http://riastats.com and it shows that Adobe Flash is installed on almost 96% of internet-connected machines. Microsoft Silverlight comes in the second place with about 74% of total internet-connected machines. And Sun Java comes third with about 73% of internet-connected machines.

StatOWL shows a bit different data with more details:

Looking at the above diagrams we can see that Microsoft Silverlight did a great job in a very short time (first release was on 2007.) However, we can’t depend much on this data since, as you know, Microsoft Silverlight is installed automatically on Windows machines via Windows Update. Now, let’s have a look at Microsoft Silverlight features and see what makes it the best RIA platform yet.

Why Silverlight

Other than being delivered by Microsoft, some features of Silverlight are:

• It's FREE.
• It runs on all popular browsers, platforms, and devices.
• It can be run in browser and as a desktop application.
• Easy to create excellent UIs that looks "WOW".
• Enables business application development.
• Supports 2D/3D animations/graphics.
• Natively supports CLR and .NET Framework.
• Can be automated using JavaScript.
• Supports a variety of media (audio/video) formats with streaming capabilities.
• Supports a variety of rich controls including the DataGrid.
• Supports a variety of enterprise technologies including WCF.

In addition, Silverlight is considered to be the main development framework for Windows Phone.

Silverlight vs. Flash

Silverlight and Flash are very similar, so which is better, Silverlight or Flash? Since I’m a Microsoft developer and since you are reading now in a .NET blog, and although I haven’t ever developed for Flash, I can say that Silverlight is the best RIA platform ever!!! However, we need to be more serious.InfoWorld did a review and compared between Silverlight and Flash, and the results were so great, Silverlight passed Flash and scored 8.3 points, while Flash got 7.8 points only.

Silverlight vs. WPF

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a graphical subsystem utilizing DirectX for rendering UI in Windows-based application, developed by Microsoft and introduced as part of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista. WPF is considered to be the replacement for WinForms (that considered now Feature-Complete,) while WinForms relies on the older GDI subsystem, WPF relies on DirectX. On the other hand, Silverlight is actually a subset of WPF, and formerly Silverlight was codenamed WPF/E (WPF/Everywhere) because it’s considered to be the cross-platform version of WPF. And while WPF focuses on desktop development, Silverlight focuses on Web development.

Rich vs. Reach

The following diagram compares some of the available Web development technologies in terms of richness (i.e. UI functionalities) and reach (platform and browser support.)

From the above diagram we can see that WPF has the best UI features today. However, it’s devoted primarily for desktop development, and it can run only on Windows platforms. On the other hand, ASP.NET can run everywhere, but unfortunately it doesn’t support the UI functionalities required for today’s Web. And finally, Silverlight has the best of UI functionalities, and it also supports a wide range of platforms and browsers (its platform/browser support is expanded each release.)

Showcase

To get a solid understanding of what Silverlight can do, check out some of the Silverlight applications from around the world:

• Deep Earth (http://deepearth.codeplex.com) A project utilized Bing Maps allows you to check maps and get directions.
• Hard Rock Memorabilia (http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/) For the Hard Rock.
• Sobees (http://sobees.com/web) A Web-based social-media client.
• Bing Maps Streetside (http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/) Check maps, get directions, and walk through the streets through this app.
• PhotoSynth (http://photosynth.net) Capture places, share them with your friends, and publish them.
• PivotViewer (http://www.silverlight.net/learn/pivotviewer/) View massive amounts of data on the Web and visualize them.
• Fantasia (http://nokola.com/fantasia/) A Web-based image processor.
• Nibbles Tutorials (http://www.nibblestutorials.net) Silverlight tutorial Website.
• SilverlightShow (http://www.silverlightshow.net/Books.aspx) Check out this nice collection of books for Silverlight, WPF, XAML, and Windows Phone.
• Shidonni (http://www.shidonni.com) Games for your kids.
• Justin Angel (http://justinangel.net) Justin Angel’s Silverlight blog.

And one of the most impressive applications is SilveOs (http://silveos.com/); a mini-operating system for the Web. And thousands of Silverlight applications are available here too:  http://www.silverlight.net/showcase.

Deep Zoom

And another great feature of Silverlight is the DeepZoom technology that was introduced by Microsoft as part of Silverlight. DeepZoom allows you to view very large high resolution images. It reduces the time of initial load by downloading only the region being viewed at the resolution it’s displayed at. Subsequent regions are downloaded as the user pans to (or zooms into) them.

Deep Inside

Silverlight and XAML

Like WPF, user interface in Silverlight is declared in a specific language called Extensible Markup Language (or XAML, pronounced ‘Zammel’.) XAML is an XML-based language created by Microsoft which is used to initialize structured values and objects. XAML elements are mapped directly to CLR objects (e.g. a <Button> element maps to a Button object.)

Former ASP.NET developers are somewhat familiar with the nature of XAML. You have a WYSIWYG XAML designer that you use to design the interface of your application. The code for this interface is available through a code-behind file, where you can write in your preferred .NET language. The concept of two files for the same page (e.g. a XAML file for the interface and a CS file for the C# code) separates two main roles in application development, design and development. The designer can work in the XAML file, and the developer can work in the code file, and both files are linked together. This also leads to a loosely-coupled design that separates user interface code from the business logic.

Deployment Process

What steps you would follow to deploy your Silverlight application to your users? That’s what this section is devoted for. When you build your Silverlight application, the XAML markup, as well as the code and all other resources, is compiled into .NET assemblies which are then compressed using ZIP and stored in a XAP (.xap) file.

The XAP file can then be hosted in a Web server and referenced by Web pages declaring the Silverlight plugin object. And when the user navigates to the page, the XAP file is downloaded to his PC and executed on the Web page by the Silverlight runtime.

So all you need is just to develop your application, get the XAP file, insert the plugin into a Web page, and then publish the page and the XAP file to the Web.

Silverlight Architecture

The following illustration shows the essential architecture and components of Microsoft Silverlight. It shows how the presentation (interface) core components fit together with other .NET and Silverlight components, and what services does the provider offer.

Silverlight 5

The current stable version of Silverlight is Silverlight 4. Back to PDC 2010 the 5^th version of Silverlight was introduced, it’s still in Beta but it’s supposed to be released soon.

Here’s a brief overview of the forthcoming Silverlight 5 features:

• Media:
  • Hardware Video Decode
  • Better Power Management
  • Remote Control Support
• Text and Printing:
  • Better Text Rendering
  • Full OpenType Support
• Graphics:
  • GPU Accelerated Graphics
  • 3D Graphics Support
• XAML:
  • XAML Debugging
• Application Development:
  • Windows Azure Support
  • P/Invoke
• Testing and Performance:
  • Automated UI Testing
  • Faster Startup
  • Hardware Acceleration
  • 64-bit Support

More about Silverlight 5 can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/future.

Tooling

The most common tools for Silverlight are Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Expression Studio 4.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Best for developers, good for designers. Check it out here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us.

Microsoft Expression Studio 4

Consists of a 5 tools:

• Microsoft Expression Blend Visual user interface builder for Silverlight and WPF.
• Microsoft Expression Web WYSIWYG website designer and editor.
• Microsoft Expression Design Raster and vector graphics editor.
• Microsoft Expression Media Digital asset and media manager.
• Microsoft Expression Encoder Profession media (video/audio) encoder

What’s Next

To start with Silverlight, you have to install the following components:

• Silverlight SDK (core components only): http://bit.ly/silverlight-4-sdk
• Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 (core components + additional tools for VS2010): http://bit.ly/silverlight-4-tools
• Silverlight 4 Toolkit (additional components): http://silverlight.codeplex.com

Demo

In the following example, we’ll create the Hello World application in Silverlight. Follow those steps: First, ensure that Silverlight SDK is installed on your PC, and launch Visual Studio 2010 and select New Project.

From the New Project dialog, select your desired language from the left and select Silverlight as project type. From the middle pane, select Silverlight Application to start. Now another dialog appears asks you to specify whether to create another Web application to host the Silverlight application or not. As you know, Silverlight applications run inside a plugin defined in a Web page, and that dialog asks if to create a new Web Application project for you to host the Silverlight application or to create just a simple HTML page to host it. Leave the dialog with no changes and ensure that you have selected Silverlight 4 from the Silverlight Version combo box and click OK to proceed.

Now let’s have a look at what Visual Studio has created for us. Looking at the Solution Explorer we can see that Visual Studio has created two projects, one is the Silverlight project, and the other is a Web project that’s going to host this Silverlight application.

Looking at the Web project we can see that VS has included two test pages in that project, the first is an ASPX page and the second is a simple HTML page, both define the Silverlight plugin and both are ready to show you your Silverlight application when you browse to them. The difference is that ASPX pages can define ASP.NET elements and code, while the simple static HTML cannot. Back to the Silverlight application, we can see that it define 4 files:

1. App.xaml: Define application-wide interface elements.
2. App.xaml.cs (C# code file, linked to App.xaml): Define the startup logic and any other application-wide code.
3. MainPage.xaml: The main application page; contains the interface elements.
4. MainPage.xaml.cs (C# code file, linked to MainPage.cs): The business logic and code for the main application page.

Then we have two pages, the first is App.xaml that defines the application-wide elements and code (inside App.xaml.cs,) and the second is MainPage.xaml that defines the main page of your application where you can define your interface elements and code them (inside MainPage.xaml.cs.) Now let’s design our interface. Go to MainPage.xaml and inside the <Grid> element define a Button (you can also drag the button from the Toolbox to the designer to define it):

<Button Width="100" Height="25" Content="Say Hello" Click="Button_Click" />

From the previous line of code we can see that we have defined a Button control using a <Button> element, and we have also set the control’s characteristics and properties using the element attributes. And to have our button respond to user clicks, we have wired up the Click event into the function Button_Click() that we’re going to define it in the code file. Now go to MainPage.xaml.cs and define the Click event handler for the button:

private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Hello, World!");
}

Now run the application and try it.

Before we leave this section, let’s have a look over the plugin required for Silverlight. Go to and of the test pages on the Web project and step down until you reach the <object> element that defines the plugin. Simply, the Silverlight application requires only the following HTML code to define its plugin:

<div id="silverlightControlHost">
  <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2,"
    type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%">
      <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication1.xap"/>
      ...
  </object>
  <iframe id="_sl_historyFrame"
      style="visibility:hidden;height:0px;width:0px;border:0px"></iframe>
</div>

As you see, we have references the XAP file in the page by using the source parameter. When you build your application in Visual Studio, it will create a new folder besides the test page called ClientBin and put the XAP file inside it so you can reference it in the page. Clear, aih?

Summary

• Silverlight is a cross-platform application framework for writing and running rich Internet applications (RIA.)
• Its runtime is available as a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in.
• It's the main development framework for Windows Phone.
• It’s a subset of WPF so it depends on XAML for UI design.
• You define the interface using XAML, and write the code using your preferred .NET language.
• The XAML markup, as well as the code, is compiled into .NET assemblies and compressed into a XAP file.
• The XAP file is then referenced by a prepared Web page and then downloaded to client's PC when he navigates to the page.
• Version 4 is the current stable version of Silverlight.
• Silverlight 5 is currently in beta and it will be released soon.
• You use Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Expression Studio for developing and designing your Silverlight application.
• Microsoft Expression Studio is preferred for you if you are a designer.