Startup Commons a global nonprofit association dedicated to making startup funding more understandable

Startup Categorization: Please help us improve this questionnaire

by: Arlinda

Image by Brett L. via Flickr

The situation: At the moment there are no standards for early phase startup categorization causing an inefficient funding process – an industry wide issue for investors, startups and supporting parties.

The need: A profile template for startups so that the investors can see a meaningful overview in the same format. This categorization is needed to be built from the scratch.

Startup Commons is helping by gathering and consolidating the best practices. Therefore, your comments and feedback on the following questionnaire are highly appreciated.

Any type of comment is helpful, starting form comments on the relevancy of the questions, what is missing and should be added, or what is not relevant and can be left out.

Thanks in advance on behalf of SC team!

Arlinda

Questions for discussion:

1. Founders: How many founders you have? (one, two, three, more); Age of founder(s)? How long have you known each other?

2. How much money you need to get your first offering to market? (Euro 10-50t; 50-200t; 200-500t; 500-1000t; 1000t+)

3. If you have the money, how long will it take to implement the idea?

4. At what stage is your idea? (presentation, demo/ prototype, available beta, have paying customers; cash flow)

5. What expertise is needed? (anybody can do it; relevant experience in the area; Specific qualification e.g. Lawyer, doctor ) Do you have this expertise?

6. What is your competitive advantage? (patent/ pending; industry position/existing user base; unique science based on the latest scientific research; none of the above)

7. Growth aim geographical: Local; international (several countries); global

8. What is your projected revenue in 5 years?

9. How much will the product/service be priced per customer?

10. Ambition level: first in our niche (global, international, national); top 5; there is no niche

11. What is your offering (man hours; physical product; software product; online service; SAAS)

12. Business model: How will you generate revenue: Sell product or service (subscription based; one time deal; license; man hours); advertising

13. Is your business to the consumers or other businesses?

14. How do you plan to grow? Mainly: Organically, M&A, VC injection?

15. What is your evaluation now? what's the lowest offer you'd take?

16. How are the existing shares divided between the founders? Evenly/ Clearly Unevenly

17. What is the percentage of shares you are offering?

About Arlinda

Arlinda Sipilä is pointed as our Chief Operating Officer and she will also join our Board Of Directors In addition to more established companies like Tellabs, Arlinda is familiar with growth startups by having worked in several of those in her career, including SSH Communications, SEVEN Networks Inc., and Xtract. In her Senior Marketing positions she''s been responsible for overall marketing strategies, planning, execution and managing the marketing team for product launches, branding, public relations and event management. In her blog, she love's writing about the use of technology in marketing, startup business, branding, design, traveling and culture.