LOOK AT THE MONEY RAINING DOWN ON SILICON Valley and you might think that raising capital is as easy as sending a business plan to a venture capitalist and waiting for the phone to ring.

There's lots of money, but there are also lots of crappy plans. A name-brand venture capitalist might get 10,000 plans a year and fund only 25. Here are ten tips to improve the odds that your plan is read--maybe even funded.
 

# 1:
First, remember that less is more. Imagine that the elevator in which you're pitching is in a ten-story building--not the TransAmerica Tower. I've never heard of a company not getting funded because its plan was too short. Believe me, if a potential investor is interested, he or she will ask for more information if it's necessary.
 

# 2:
Second, make your numbers reasonable. If you've only invested $1,000 so far, and your business consists of one part-time employee, it's a little unreasonable to seek $20 million in capital.

# 3:
Third, make your idea important--different, unique, clever, innovative, etc. The first question I ask myself when I read many plans is, "Where have these people been? Don't they realize they will be the Nth (where N > 10) company that does this?" If you are in the same business as Yahoo, Amazon.com, Inktomi or Microsoft, you had better have a very simple way to powerfully differentiate your company.

# 4:
Fourth, eschew hyperbole. "Revolutionary," "billions," "patented," "first mover," "next generation," "unique" and "innovative" have little impact in the 21st century. Good investors (the kind you want for your company) are going to seriously review your business model, technology and people before they write you a check, so communicate the value of your proposition without overstating it.
 

# 5:
Fifth, lose the "Chinese math." Chinese math is the argument that goes like this: If just 1% of the people in China bought a Macintosh, Apple would be the largest computer company in the world. Many plans cite a study that "proves" that a market will be $20 billion by 2003 and state that all the company needs to do to be profitable is to get 1% of the market.

Source: Guy Kawasaki, Forbes