Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Planning and
Communicating
your
Business Concept
Feb 13, 2007
Tony Redpath (with great thanks and acknowledgement to Andrew
Harrison, Northwater Capital)
1
Presentation Overview
2
Tools of the Trade
3
Tools of the Trade
4
Why do we need these tools?
These tools are generally used to:
7
Myths and Truths
8
Myths and Truths
Myths:
Truths:
! What you can provide depends on how far along you are in developing your
business concept
! The vision you are communicating must be grounded in reality
! You should be strategic about what you provide and when you provide it
9
Overview of the Tools
10
The Elevator Pitch
! What:
! A 30 second overview of your business concept
! To a certain extent, an internet bubble invention – at least in terms of raising money
! Strangely enough - 60% of the worlds venture capital is in the bay area in low-rise office
buildings without elevators
! Why:
! To quickly communicate your business concept in a chance meeting or phone call
! When:
! In a cold call to an investor, customer, potential partner, etc.
! Good for networking at trade shows, networking events, etc.
11
The ‘One-Pager’
! What:
! A concise one-page summary of your business concept and management team
! Why:
! A ‘teaser’ document meant to generate a request for more information
! To offer a very general non-confidential overview of your business
! When:
! When blasting out to many potential investors – select interested VCs from large list
! When you don’t want to offer any confidential details – chance encounter, potential
competitor,etc
! Why:
! Again, a ‘teaser’ document meant to generate a request for more information or a meeting
! VCs will want to get their head around the concepts quickly – short attention span
! Primer for a more detailed explanation of your product plan and business strategy
! When:
! When you have a ‘warm’ intro or an invitation to contact someone
! Integral first interaction with an investor
! Rides the line between confidential and non-confidential – some degree of trust
! Why:
! Not all (or few) investors will be scientists, engineers or experts in your area of innovation
! You have to go easy on the technical details in the communications documents
! This is the place to fully display your technical knowledge and product vision
! When:
! After investors are curious or have bought into the big picture business vision
! Great to give to customers and partners to help them communicate internally
! General education of analysts, customers, potential partners, etc.
! Why:
! Provide an overview of the business plan in point form
! Allows people to absorb a lot of key information in a short period of time
! Easy to adjust and adapt to a new audience
! When:
! Usually the second piece of information a VC will receive after the exec summary
! VC’s love these because they can flip through them very fast
! Medium to Highly proprietary – requires a greater degree of trust
! Why:
! This is your roadmap for how you are going to build your business
! Describes roles and responsibilities for building various aspects of the business
! Outlines revenue targets, financial details and investment requirements
! When:
! When you have assembled enough solid information to write it
! Highly proprietary – requires a high degree of trust to give it out; later stages of diligence
! Wait for the VC to ask for it
16
Outlines and Content
17
Executive Summary ~ 3-5 pages
! Company Description – 1 paragraph
19
The Business Plan ~ 30 pages
! Executive Summary
! Competitive Overview
! Operations Plan
! Management Team
20
Advice
21
Advice from the trenches…
! Do not start by building your business plan
! You will not have the information you need
! You will examine issues out of priority
! You will expose lack of understanding
! Use the Powerpoint Deck as receptacle for all ideas and information
that comes to light – easy to manipulate, organize and adapt
! Give investors your exec summary and offer to walk them through the
Powerpoint slides in person or on the phone
22
More advice from the trenches…
! The main idea of all of this is to entice investors to take a deeper look
! Leave the details for diligence (except in the business plan)
23
Questions/Discussion
Tony Redpath
entrepreneurship101@marsdd.com
416-673-8189
www.marsdd.com
24