Business Plan Starter Kit
As a first-time startup founder, it’s quite overwhelming when it comes to preparing the paperwork for your first round of funding. I wanted to share a simple kit that helped me while I was raising first and second round for my venture, nexlabs.
The Pitch Deck
This is what you bring to your 30-minute coffee meetings. You should have this with you at all times. You never know when you’d be bumping into a potential investor.
- Problem
- Solution (The product)
- How it works
- Market size
- How do you make money?
- Competitors
- Unfair advantage
- The team
- What you’re looking for (Funding, co-founder(s), technical team, etc.)
Don’t be that long-winded person with your pitch deck. Make it short / sweet and memorable.
The Business Plan
Basically, this is the longer version of your pitch deck. Everything that’s related to your business should be covered.
- Executive Summary — Company Overview, Vision, Mission, Team, Valuation, Exit Strategy
- The Business — Problem, Solution, Target Audience, Market Size, Competitors, Roadmap
- Team — Management, Advisors
- Sales & Marketing — Pricing Model, Sales Channels, Projections, SWOT, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Channels
- Operations — Org Chart, Recruitment Plan
- Financing — Financial Plan, Funding Request, Exit Strategy
Use above as a guideline. Feel free to add or remove elements. There’s no standard format for pitch decks and business plans. I hope I have managed to help you in some way or another.
All the best to your startup!
Drop me an email or tweet me should you need help. I’d be happy to!
Ciao ??!
[This is a repost from my now defunct blog]
Digital Business & Innovation I Data into Insight | Digital Marketing
7 年Thanks for the note!
Head of AI | Deep Tech & AI Investor | 2x Founder | Published Author
7 年Nice post Jeff, certainly every startup founder wrestles with this topic. Perhaps the one thing to add is that the deck is never finished. It evolves as your story becomes clearer or pivots completely. Here's a useful link for bizplans with a good compact example: https://articles.bplans.com/how-to-write-a-business-plan-in-under-an-hour/