Pitching « Startup Commons

22Jan/10N/A0

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:

Founders: How many founders you have? (one, two, three, more); Age of founder(s)? How long have you known each other?
How much money you need to get your first offering to market? (Euro 10-50t; 50-200t; 200-500t; 500-1000t; 1000t+)
If you have the money, how long will it take to implement the idea?
At what stage is your idea? (presentation, demo/ prototype, available beta, have paying customers; cash flow)
What expertise is needed? (anybody can do it; relevant experience in the area; Specific qualification e.g. Lawyer, doctor ) Do you have this expertise?
What is your competitive advantage? (patent/ pending; industry position/existing user base; unique science based on the latest scientific research; none of the above)
Growth aim geographical: Local; international (several countries); global
What is your projected revenue in 5 years?
How much will the product/service be priced per customer?
Ambition level: first in our niche (global, international, national); top 5; there is no niche
What is your offering (man hours; physical product; software product; online service; SAAS)
Business model: How will you generate revenue: Sell product or service (subscription based; one time deal; license; man hours); advertising
Is your business to the consumers or other businesses?
How do you plan to grow? Mainly: Organically, M&A, VC injection?
What is your evaluation now? what's the lowest offer you'd take?
How are the existing shares divided between the founders? Evenly/ Clearly Unevenly
What is the percentage of shares you are offering?

Filed under: Pitching, focus item, investing, item 1, startup categorization No Comments

18Jan/10N/A1

The One-Page Business Plan

by: Arlinda

When I was working for one of the large telecom network providers in product marketing, I had to go through a scrutinizing exercise every time we planed a product launch. This exercise was called called “The One-Page Plan”. After spending a lot of time and effort in workshops, thinking, planning and writing the perfect product marketing launch plan I had to boil it down into one single page. I did not enjoy this exercise, I have to say, mainly because it meant I had to give up all the cool details that made the plan so special. However, I loved the end result. With that one page, I could go to anybody in the organization and professionally summarize what we were going to do for the upcoming six months and why it was important. It made perfect sense. Most of the people in the organization, apart from the team and probably my boss, did not have the time to read a full plan.

So, I'm glad to see that investors prefer the one-page planing too. If you are an entrepreneur seeking funding this is a valuable document to give to investors. It will also help you think your idea through at an early stage.

Here are some practical tips for drafting your One-Page Business Plan:

What is your best idea? As an enterpreneur, you probably have a lot of good ideas so this planning process should help you to focus and get your best idea on paper.
What is your vision? You need to know where you are taking your ship first and you need to articulate it. So, you need to summarize and articulate your vision.
How you will get to your vision? Link your vision to concrete actions that will enable you to make your vision a reality.
Keep sharing. Every time you share your vision it becomes more of a reality. Be prepared that people will not always agree. It is however important to stay true to your vision.

Also, take a look at this helpful tutorials by business coach Chad Gibson at Watercooler 101 and Babak Nivi at Venture Hacks for further inspiration: