When it comes to getting a venture capitalist to actually read your business plan, there’s no better way than through a personal introduction. But if you can’t get a friend or business associate to arrange a meet-and-greet with a VC (or simply don’t know anyone in the loop), then what? It’s unfortunately a question that continues plaguing scores of everyday entrepreneurs who aren’t well-connected. A few weeks ago though, a panel of top venture capitalists—from firms like Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Clearstone Ventures—shed some light on the subject. Each of them answered the question, “How can someone get you to look at a business plan if they don’t know anyone in your network (e.g. outside Silicon Valley elite, didn’t go to Stanford)?” and their tips were actually useful! We’ve rounded up their comments (which we swiped from Tim Ferriss’ blog) and have listed them below. We can’t promise that these tips will actually keep your business plan out of an investor’s trash box—but they’ll certainly give you a better shot:

1) Say hi at conferences and various organizations’ events. Says VC Prashant Shah of Hummer Winblad, “At Hummer Winblad we do actually look at all the plans submitted to us. We are fine with people contacting us directly. We are also active in our own outreach. You can frequently find us speaking at events by TiE, Astia, SDForum and other groups. We enjoy meeting entrepreneurs at these organizations.”

2) Keep your pitch email grabby and short. “Make unbelievable claims that will grab my attention. Keep the email as short and to the point as possible so that it is easy to understand what the pitch is,” says Ajit Nazre of Kleiner Perkins.

3) Use social networking sites to make a connection. “With the advent of tools like LinkedIn and other networking sites, you don’t have to be a member of the Silicon Valley elite or a Stanford alumnus to connect with a venture capitalist. Throwing a business plan over the transom and into the general email box puts you in a very noisy place. On the other hand, spending some time to navigate any relationships you might have to get some sort of warm introduction is worthwhile and shows the kind of scrappiness that venture capitalists admire. If that approach is not fruitful, find out what organizations the VC is involved with (for example, TiE or VCNetwork, or an industry group around Cleantech), and attend an event at which he or she is speaking,” says VC Anil Patel of Clearstone Venture Partners.

4) Gain traction for your business first. Says Ravi Mohan, co-founder of Shasta Ventures: “Have some company building success, to get attention for your company. Get some PR to make it on VentureWire, Tech Crunch, etc. and then email and call the venture firm.”

Check out the full post on the panel here, which also contains tips on pitching VCs, business models, and more.

Every so often we get a rare glimpse into what investors and lenders are looking for you in your business plan—and when we get them, we make sure to pass them along to you. Here’s one of them: this weekend the New York Times interviewed Greg Brenneman, the chairman of CCMP Capital, a New York-based private equity firm. They asked him whether he thinks there’s a “magic number of points for a business plan.” While he doesn’t exactly answer the question, he does provide some useful insight for those of you working on your business plan. And while he’s talking about business plans in the context of private equity investment, it’s relevant to
all you first-time, newbie entrepreneurs as well:

“I’m not sure there’s a magic number, per se. I’d divide the page in quadrants: Market, Financial, Product and People. And if I can’t simply put what needs to be done on one page, I probably haven’t thought through it very well.

There’s a great saying: ‘I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.’ I find that in business a lot people take the time to write the really long letter, but they don’t take time to write the short one, and it even applies to doing investments.

When one of our guys is presenting an investment, you always kind of know they have it if they can explain it very quickly. And if it takes a really long time and you’re into the square root of the price of oil in Uzbekistan, you probably know that it’s gotten too complicated, and that’s when I start asking questions -when people start having trouble simply saying, ‘Here’s the idea.’”

While Brenneman doesn’t exactly break any new ground here, he does bring up an important point that’s always worth reiterating: keep your business plan simple and to the point. In fact, make this your mantra: if you find yourself getting into the square root of the price of oil in Uzbekistan, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

As much as we mocked Mark Cuban’s bizzaro plan to provide “open source funding” to random business plans posted on his blog yesterday, we’ll admit he’s not entirely nutty. The former Dancing with the Stars contestant (and oh yeah, entrepreneur) spoke to the Wall Street Journal yesterday about what he’s now calling “The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan.” While Cuban says a couple of the business plans posted on his site have piqued his interest (we’re assuming it’s not Star Wars memorabilia plan), he explained to the WSJ why he’s not interested in businesses that have an ad-supported model, why he’s not intrigued by Twitter, and why a start-up should break even in 90 days. While he’s certainly not indicative of every investor out there, it’s at least interesting to hear one perspective:

In regards to why he’s unwilling to accept any business plans that feature an ad-supported revenue model: “There are enough ad supported businesses in the world. They have their own challenges. I don’t need to do the world a disservice and add another. If I wanted to get into that business, there are any number selling for pennies on the dollar vs. book value. Plus, it’s much harder to get to profitability quickly. Companies that can produce a product or service and sell them for more than it costs them to make have a clear idea of how to get profitable. Ad supported businesses more often or not, have no clue. There are any number of high profile companies making that point.”

Ouch. And as to why he requires any start-up he funds to break-even within 90 days: “Having this guideline, knowing there is no money coming unless you cover your costs makes an entrepreneur think a lot harder and a lot longer about every penny they spend and how they use every minute of their day.”

Finally the Journal about investing in a no-revenue-model like Twitter: “One commenter suggested buying a company like Twitter. Are you interested in those opportunities now that valuations have come down?” Cuban responds: “I think Twitter has a unique and amazing opportunity. But it’s excited about itself because it’s Twitter. They have said that getting to profitability is not a short term goal of their’s. That’s not my kind of company. I like companies whose goal is to make money. Lots and lots of money. I’m old school. I’m a believer that if you take money from someone, you bust your ass and can’t sleep until you pay that money back.”

Cuban’s obviously got opinions. Lots of ‘em. But some of his rationale when it comes to business plans worth funding does make some sense. What do you think?