How to write your business plan

<seedfund>How To Write Your Business Plan Anand Lunia Chief Rejection Officer anand@seedfund.in

Problem•  Describe the pain that you re taking away. The goal is to get everyone nodding and buying in.•  Try to personalize the problem.•  Example: If you go to VCs, they will ask you a lot of questions and make nasty remarks. Raising funds from a VC is a big pain, even after writing a plan. Investors in VC Funds are worried about this attitude.

Solution•  Explain how you take away this pain. Ensure that the audience clearly understands what you sell and your value proposition.•  Example: We will be a soft at heart VC. We evaluate proposals only on how good the business plan looks. This will help the Investors capitalize on the great visions of the Entrepreneurs.

Business Model•  Explain how you make money: who pays you, your channels of distribution, and your gross margins.•  One time license fee, Ad supported, SAAS, Revenue share, Profit share etc•  We charge a small fee and small profit share from our Investors. Even if one of the business plans we invest in comes true, Investors wont mind paying us.

Underlying Mantra•  Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product.•  Specifically, how does it create value for the customer.•  Example: We don t believe in the misconception that returns are important. It s about supporting well written visionary plans. We have experience of betting on plans and we have the right DNA for no-questions-asked investing.

Positioning•  Describe your position in the marketplace.•  Competitive Positioning: What stories are the prominent competitors selling?•  Creative Positioning: What story will you tell that customers will find either more important or different than the stories already being told in the market?•  Example: VCs talk about helping the business but hardly deliver. We will make it easy for the entrepreneur even to get funded. This Assured Placement will positioning will attract all Harvard Wharton IIT IIM plans.

Marketing and Sales•  Explain how you are going to reach your customer and your marketing leverage points.•  Convince the audience that you have an effective go-to-market strategy that won t break the bank.•  Example: We believe in pulling business. We will give away a Lottery funding, Rs 10 crores, and this will attract the best plans for us to pick.

Competition•  Provide a complete view of the competitive landscape.•  Never dismiss your competition.•  Everyone—customers, investors, employees— wants to hear why you re good, not why the competition is bad.•  Example: The competition is spends energy in searching for good businesses. While that is not a bad approach, we focus on good plans instead.

Management Team•  Describe the key players of your management team, board of directors, advisors, as well as any major investors.•  Discuss how your team completes the management trinity : production, marketing, and financial expertise.•  Discuss what are the holes in the team and how do you plan to fill them.•  Example: We have people who can read plans. What we need is a leading model on our Board. After all, Entrepreneurs should look forward to the board meetings.

Financial Projections•  Provide a three year forecast•  Key metrics such as numbers of customers and conversion rate•  Indicate Monthly Burn, if you are at the concept stage•  This should be a bottom-up forecast taking into account long sales cycles and seasonality.•  Making people understand the underlying assumptions of your forecast is as important as the numbers you ve fabricated.

Milestones•  Explain: –  the current status of your product or service, •  Deepika Padukone will join the Board –  What the near term future looks like, •  First Lottery funding exercise in 3 months –  any accomplishments to date, and •  Already 100 plans in waitlist for funding –  how you ll use any money that you are trying to raise •  We aim to fund 1000 companies in next 2 years from the current $ 1 Bn fund raise

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How to write your business plan

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