Business Plan
(1 Cover page + 25 page BizPlan + 4 pages Schedules / appendices)
Cover page with Company Name, Date and Seedcorn Category.
Formal English.
Short snappy sections – no long & fluffy paragraphs!
Executive Summary (3 pages)
The Problem
The Solution (add a picture if it helps describing the solution)
Business Model
The Opportunity
Achievements to Date
o If you have paying customers make sure you state it (helped us stand out)
Management
Forecast Sales and Profit
Funding Required
The Exit
o Investors want to see how they are going to get their moneyx10 back
1 Business Overview
1.1 About the Company
Who you are, What you do in. Who you sell to. All in less than 300 words.
The most important things to talk about here is the “Value-add” – what have you got that others will see
the value of and will therefore pay for. Do you save them money or provide a way for them to make
more money – that’s all its really about. Need to capture the reader imagination here – if they “get it”
and believe you at this point then everything else will confirm it for them – if you lose the reader on the
value-add –then you’ve lost them totally!
1.2 What the product is
Features
USP
Benefits (to your customer)
2 Market Opportunity
2.1 Who needs the product?
Identify the sector who needs the product. Cleary Identify why they need it.
2.2 How many of them are there?
Quantify.
2.3 Other Markets
Maybe your product is applicable to other markets but you are focusing on one/two at the moment. If
so identify them here.
2.4 Key purchasing criteria
Why would customers buy your product. Hint you are going to:
Save them money
Save them time
Make them money (by selling it, getting more customer etc.)
all of the above
2.5 External Factors influencing market demand
Eh – downturn!
2.6 Specific market/demand opportunities
You should show very specific and independently delivered facts that the market is looking for your
product. “According to Market research conducted by PhoCusWright.. PWC etc.)
3 Industry & Competition
What makes you confident that you are in the right industry? What has happened to strengthen your
belief that the industry is growing.
What is happening within the markets/sectors that convinces you the business has potential to grow?
3.1 Competition | Direct
List direct competition here – find out as much as you can about them. Market share, funding, backing ,
strength, weaknesses etc.
ps. You have competition. If you don’t there probably isn’t a market for your product.
3.2 Competition | In Direct
Same here but not as much detail as direct.
3.3 Competitive Advantage
Why is your product better than the direct competition.
4 Product or Service Proposition
4.1 Unique Selling Points
Expand on your products USP. Sit down and using a clean sheet of paper work on your USP. Remember
this is a Marketing concept so thing like a marketing guru. Why would someone buy your product over
the next? If you buy this product what are you getting? Leave the sheet of paper in a drawer and come
back to it in a couple of days. Does it make sense now? Show & tell the USPs to random people – do
they look at you with one raised confused eyebrow or nod? If they nod you on the right track.
Have a think about other Products say an iPhone. Why would you buy an iPhone over any other
smartphone?
4.2 Protecting the Product
If you have protection on the product – trade marking, patent etc. declare it in full. Show the logos, box,
packaging etc. of the product.
4.3 Endorsement of the Product
4.3.1 Customers
The biggest endorsement is having customers. Get the CEO/MD of one of your customers to say
something nice about your product.
4.3.2 Reviews
If anyone has endorsed your product – blog write-ups, if it’s been promoted (say at the Las Vegas
Consumer Electronic Show by Nokia).
4.3.3 Nominations
Been nominated for any awards? Win any prizes?
4.3.4 Poll/Survey of X000 users
What do your users think of it?
4.4 Additional R & D
What next are you going to do with the product to improve it?
4.5 Time to market and route to commercialization
Is it ready now? Does it need further work? If it’s ready how are you going to bring it to the market?
4.5.1 Selling directly to business
4.5.2 Selling directly to the end consumer
4.6 Technical risk
There is always technical risk! What sort of secret sauce do you have - is it reversible? Can you prevent
it from been cloned?
5 Marketing Plan
How are you going to inform people of your product? Tradeshows? Cold calling? Magazines, Radio, TV,
viral marketing ? Have you contacts in the market that you can leverage?
5.1 Business model
Check out “Business Model Generation” by Alexander Osterwalder book for more on this section .
Some fundamentals that need to be clear: B2B or B2C? and how you make money! E.g. you can buy an
apple for 10cent. You sell the apple for 20cent. It will cost you 2 cent to deliver an apple. 8 cent profit.
You must avoid the South Park Underpants Gnomes business model (Google it!)
5.2 Distribution strategy
How are you going to distribute the product? Direct Sales or via a distributor?
5.3 Revenue model
Revenue share? Direct Sell? Via a reseller? Transaction based? Percentage of membership?
5.3.1 Business to Business
5.3.1.1 Pricing:
Clearly show how much your product is selling for. The cost of sales etc.
5.3.2 Advertising
Is there a way your product could carry advertisement? Extra revenue scheme?
5.4 Key Customers
Who are your key customers in the next 12 months? How are you going to get them? How do you
promote to them? How much can you make if you secure the key customers?
5.5 First Addressable Market
So you have a few markets you are going to go after – but which one first? Spell out your logic.
5.6 Funding Avenues
FFF?
Banks?
Business Expansion Scheme?
Angel Investor?
Joint funding from EI & Venture Capital investment ?
Other
6 Management Team
Big section here – you can have a super-duper product but without good people to execute a plan then
the product will not gain traction. Who are the super-heroes in your team and what are they responsible
for? What are the backgrounds of the founders? Experienced?
Outside the core team who are the advisors? The accountants, the solicitors? We are fortunate to have
a good set of mentors in the Valley and this helped us stand out.
7 Operations
Being a software company we don’t really buy stuff in as part of the production process so there is no
real supply-dependencies. This section for us was pretty short. We do everything in house so there was
major outside dependencies except for some 3rd party software.
7.1 Location
Where are the super heroes located? Store house needed?
7.2 Equipment
Shovels? Spades? Clouds?
7.3 Licensed 3rd party software
If you use other software list it here.
8 Key Risks
Spell out the risks
Cloning?
Speed to Market?
Funding & Finance
Key personnel ?
Scaling
Give clear statements to how these risks can be mitigated. These risks can be fixed, a lot of the time with
money – so the next section and this section are closely linked.
9 Financial Plan
So you have outlined a plan showing the product, why it exists, who will buy it, how much they will pay
for it. Behind this plan is the team of superheroes and it will cost money to execute the plan. This
section does 2 things:
Shows how much money the company can make using your outlined business model(investors
like to invest in companies that make or show great potential in making money)
How tight/mean/lean your company can run on
9.1 Shareholders/Ownership
If the superheroes have shares indicate %
Who else has shares?
9.2 Royalties
If applicable.
9.3 Profit and Loss Summary
We put a condensed version of our excel sheets in here. (3 years). Expanded versions were in the
schedules below
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Sales revenue
Less cost of sales
Gross profit
Less expenses
Net Profit(Loss)
Less Tax
Net profit(Loss) after Tax
9.4 Balance Sheet
We put a condensed version of our excel sheets in here. (3 years). Expanded versions were in the
schedules below
10 Funding
Now that you’ve shown how much money the company make in 3-5 years but you need a small amount
(in comparison to year 3/5 profits) to get there.
How many rounds of funding will be needed?
If there has been previous rounds:
How much money have you put in to the company yourselves?
How much money has other people put in so far?
If you need money now (and let’s face it you are entering the seedcorn competition to win investment)
How much money do you need now? (200k? 500k?)
What are you going to do with this money? (Top-tip on what you should NOT spend investment
money: your salary, new car etc. )
10.1 Achievements to date
To help the reader/investor believe in your business plan, state you achievements to date.
Get on an EPP?
Win any awards?
Spin out of a knowledge provider?
Got customers?
11 Exit Strategy
Right answer: “Trade sale for cash ( with revenue streams of X million euros) in Y years. ”
Wrong answer: “We don’t want to sell the company. It’s our baby”.
12 Schedules
13 Appendices