SHARE YOUR BUSINESS IDEA

We would enjoy learning about your business. It's easy to reach us. Email or call. Have a mutual acquaintance connect us. Before you send your
plan please read the Elements of Sustainable Companies and Writing A Business Plan.
Submit A Business Plan

Elements of
Sustainable Companies

Start-ups with these characteristics often foretells the success of a business and the likelihood of it becoming a sustainable, enduring company.
We like to partner with companies that have:

Clarity of Purpose

Summarize the company's business on the back of a business card.

Large Markets

Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a $1B potential allows for error and time for real margins to
develop.

Rich Customers

Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.

Focus

Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition.

Pain Killers

Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.
Think Differently

Constantly challenge conventional wisdom. Take the contrarian route. Create novel solutions. Outwit the competition.

Team DNA

A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days. All team members are the smartest or most clever in their domain. "A" level founders attract an "A"
level team.

Agility

Stealth and speed will usually help beat-out large companies.

Frugality

Focus spending on what's critical. Spend only on the priorities and maximize profitability.

Inferno

Start with only a little money. It forces discipline and focus. A huge market with customers yearning for a product developed by great engineers
requires very little firepower.

Writing A
Business Plan

We like business plans that present a lot of information in as few words as possible. The following format, within 15-20 slides, is all that’s needed:

Company Purpose

• Define the company/business in a single declarative sentence.

Problem

• Describe the pain of the customer (or the customer’s customer).

 • Outline how the customer addresses the issue today.

Solution

• Demonstrate your company’s value proposition to make the customer’s life better.
• Show where your product physically sits.
• Provide use cases.

Why Now

• Set-up the historical evolution of your category.

• Define recent trends that make your solution possible.

Market Size

• Identify/profile the customer you cater to.

• Calculate the TAM (top down), SAM (bottoms up) and SOM.

Competition

• List competitors
• List competitive advantages

Product

• Product line-up (form factor, functionality, features, architecture, intellectual property).

• Development roadmap.

Business Model

• Revenue model
• Pricing
 • Average account size and/or lifetime value
• Sales & distribution model
• Customer/pipeline list

Team

• Founders & Management

• Board of Directors/Board of Advisors

Financials

• P&L
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow
• Cap table
• The deal

December 10, 2007

School of Hard Knocks

Back in 2003, I created a LinkedIn account. The concept of social networking for business people intrigued me. Frankly, I’m not sure why I was so
intrigued, because at that time 1) I wasn’t very social (more on that some other time) and 2) I hadn’t been working for two years, and I had no
intention of ever going back to work – at least not going back to work for somebody else.

I dutifully filled out my biographical information for my profile and then came upon the "Education" section of the profile. Without really thinking
about it, I entered "MBA, School of Hard Knocks, Start-Ups" — sort of a tongue-in-cheek statement, based on my experience of building and
managing a large piece of business from practically nothing, here in Silicon Valley.

During my career at BEA Systems, I was fortunate enough to lead and work with many talented individuals (almost all of them with either an MBA
Degree or a PhD). Since I had neither, I felt obligated to put down something intriguing in the “Education’ section of my LinkedIn profile.

During the “Dot.com Revolution," we were collectively writing a book that had no precursors—making a ton of mistakes, running into barriers,
hiring the right (sometimes wrong) people, learning to be agile and most importantly, learning to do things that haven’t been done before. Now, add
to this a mad rush of hundreds of thousands of enterprises trying to get to the Web to take advantage of the Internet and online commerce. And
the part that freaked me out the most? That MY TEAM was supposed to show them the way!

Sure, we made a lot of mistakes. Just to give you a taste of the madness during those early days—here’s my favorite quote from an angry
customer, a very influential CTO at one of the top three newspapers in the U.S.: “Sam, how do you spell your last name? Because if we aren’t up
and online by midnight tonight, your name and picture will be on our front page tomorrow morning.” I never so badly wanted to NOT BE on a front
page before.

So what’s the point? Simply put, start-up companies trying to define a market when none exists is hard. Real hard. And experience counts. The
more experience, the better.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you why I started writing this entry. I’ve received about a dozen emails during the past year from people around the globe
asking me about my “Education” entry on my LinkedIn profile. Many of those emails started, “Dear Sam, I am also a graduate of The School of
Hard Knocks…” I always thought that was kind of funny.
I would enjoy hearing your comments. Are you an alumnus of the School of Hard Knocks? Leave a comment here on the blog or drop me a line:
sam@strongmail.com

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