This is a presentation I gave recently on how to put together business plans for startup companies

1. Your Startup,
Your Business Plan
Byron Shen, PhD MBA
(A Technologist, Entrepreneur & Writer in Combination)

2. Back in the 1480s,
Christopher Columbus had a “Startup” Plan
“The Travels of Marco Polo” -
Columbus's copy with his
handwritten notes
• The Opportunity:
• Spices in the Indies, Silk from Cathay
• The Changing (Business) Environment and the Problem:
• Under the Pax Mongolica over Asia, Europeans had
access to the Indies/Cathay via a land passage
• Marco Polo and the Silk Road
• But with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans
in 1453, the land route to Asia became unavailable
to the Europeans
• Christopher Columbus’ audacious Plan
• In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed to
find a western sea passage (by sailing west across the
Atlantic) to reach Cathay and the Indies(Image credit: Wikipedia)

3. Columbus’ Hypotheses & Assumptions
Toscanelli’s map of the Atlantic Ocean
(superimposed on a modern map)
• “The Earth is not flat”
• Known at least since the time of Aristotle
• 3rd century BC - Eratosthenes correctly
computed the circumference of the Earth
• 9th century - Alfraganus, a Persian and a
famous astronomer estimated a degree of
latitude (or longitude) is 56⅔ miles
• Map of the Atlantic Ocean by Toscanelli
(1397 – 1482)
• But Columbus used the shorter Roman mile
instead of the Arabic mile in calculations
• He estimated the Earth is 30,200 km in
circumference (actually 40,000 km)
(Image credit: Wikipedia)

4. The Risks & Challenges
• Columbus estimated the distance from the Canary Islands
(Spanish) to Japan to be about 3,700 km. The true figure is about
20,000 km.
• No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and
fresh water for such a long voyage
• And the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted
ocean would have been formidable
• Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward
voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible
• And Challenges in securing “funding”

5. Trying to Find an “Investor”
• In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal
• In 1486, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella of Spain
• In both cases, the Expert Opinion is: Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia; Idea impractical
• In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal
• But the Competition! Portuguese explorers developed the southeast passage, or Cape Route to Asia around
Africa. In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope.
• … he also appealed to Genoa and Venice, the court of Henry VII of England…. With no success
• But in 1489, Spain gave him some seed money (some annual allowance & free stuff)
• He finally succeeded in 1492 with a Term Sheet with the Spanish crown:
• The rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea; Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain
• He had the right to nominate 3 persons, and the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands
• Be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of
buying 1/8 interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive 1/8 of the profits.

6. （image credit: www.mapofeurope.com)
From Europe to Asia by sea：
• A westward sea passage？
• Or a Southeast sea passage？

7. (Image credit: Wikipedia)

8. and the Rest is History…
• Columbus left Spain in August 1492 with 3 ships (Santa Maria, etc.)
• Using celestial navigation and trade winds
• Landed in the Americas on 12 October - Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti.
• Arrived back in Spain early 1493
• Brought a number of captive natives with him - the wrong “Indians”!
• Word of Columbus’ discovery of “the New World” soon spread throughout Europe
• But Columbus did not fare too well personally
• Columbus was arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts.
• He & his sons had a lengthy litigation against the Castilian crown.
• The family had some success in the litigation, but further disputes continued until 1790

9. Unique Challenges
Facing Startups
- Most of the time, you are running on an
obstacle course and racing against time

10. A Daunting Obstacle Course for Startups
• You have a great idea OR is it a fantastical wrong idea?
• You start with some big hypotheses and many assumptions
• Are they just wishful thinking? How do you validate/invalidate them?
• Having to use second hand or anecdotal information
• Lots of hypes (and Smoke and Mirrors) out there
• And lots of uncertainties
• How to persuade investors to pick your project among the competition
• Once you start, you are racing against time
• And you probably need to recalibrate and pivot often

11. Ready, Aim, and Go
…but a minute miscalculation
can lead you a thousand
miles astray
“差之毫厘，谬以千里”
(Image credit: captaingino.com)

12. Traditional Business Plans - Key Sections
• Executive Summary
• Company Overview
• Mission/Vision/Value Statement
• Goal and Objectives
• Business Environment
• Market/Market trends/Drivers
• Market segmentation → Target market/customer
• Competition
• Business Description & Strategy
• Business/product (Portfolio analysis)
• Competitive advantage (SWOT analysis etc.)
• Growth strategy
• Critical Success Factors
• Financial review/projection/budget
• Action plan

13. Traditional Business Plans
• Established or mature business
• Dynamic but probably relatively stable environment
• Competition
• Government/regulation policy change
• With exceptions, of course
• Historical data/trend available
• Less unknowns or uncertainties
• But once in a while, there can be seismic disruption in an
established industry
• Cellphone industry: Apple vs Nokia, Motorola, & BlackBerry

14. Business Plans (or Pitch Deck)
for Startups
• The problem you are solving
• The size of the opportunity
• The Competition
• Your approach and your competitive advantage
• Your team (strength, experience, core competencies)
• Current status (IP, early data, prototype, etc.)
• Milestones/timeline/roadmap
• High level financials (sales forecast, budgeting, etc.)

15. • Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs)
• 2nd most common type of infection in the body (NIH)
• High prevalence/recurrence rate esp. for women, elderly,
and diabetics
• $3.5 billion in healthcare costs in the U.S. (2005)
• Critical & Unmet Clinical Need in UTI
• Very high false rate in current UTI diagnosis
• Lack of a point-of-care Antibiotic Susceptibility Test
• Leading to a rapid increase of antibiotic resistance due to
significant misuse/empirical use of antibiotics
• Velox has developed a point-of-care technology and
prototype for rapid UTI Screening and a phenotypic
Antibiotic Susceptibility Test
Velox Example
- Problem/Solution Statement
Article link

16. Velox Pitch Deck/Business Plan
• 14 key slides including the Title Slide
• Narrative structure
• Company – Unmet Need – Solution – (Supporting) Data –
Competition – Market Opportunity – (R&D) Pipeline – Team -
(Milestones/)Roadmap
• Appendix (a few detailed data slides)
• Navigation tabs/ribbon at the bottom of each slide
• A quick glance shows where you are in the pitch deck
• Easy navigation back and forth
• (You can try out the navigation tabs on the Velox slides; but they are not linked to
the correct slides in this PPT.)

17. Velox Pitch Deck
- As sample slides only
- (Navigation tabs are not linked to the
correct slides in this PPT)

18. Rapid Solutions
for Critical Problems in
Clinical Diagnostics

19. Company Info
Velox Core Technology/Value Proposition
• 3D rapid detection platform:
• Culture-free pathogen detection
• Digital droplet molecular detection
• Ability to achieve exceptional sensitivity
and rapid speed in combination
Introduction of
cancer liquid biopsy
in R&D pipeline
Point-of-care, rapid UTI Screening
and Antibiotic Susceptibility Test
clinical validation
Velox lab
set up in Irvine, CA$5M NIH R01 grant
bloodstream infection/sepsis
Core technology
developed at UC Irvine
Contact: info@veloxbio.com
www.veloxbio.com

20. (Other Slides Redacted…)

21. Questions?
(and thank you!)