Time is Money

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Time is money and investors usually only have the latter. As a starting business owner, you have the time, so use it to focus on a business plan that is worthy of investors’ time. If you do, you may just get the money you need to launch your business.

In a previous post discussing business plans, I focused on two experts in this particular field of business. While they shared in some commonalities, they had different outlooks on the need, or lack of, of a business plan. In the process of creating my own personal business plan, I used I used advice given by both of these experts.

While I maintain that I prefer Chuck Blakeman’s rationale regarding long-term goals, I am taking into account the importance of an Executive Summary, as suggested by Dr. Steve Gedeon. The information found at a glance on the summary is extremely important to capture the selective audience of an investor.

Through researching and writing a business plan, I realized I would only want to skim this if someone handed it to me to read. If you don’t want to read your entire plan thoroughly, what makes an investor want to read it?

 

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Analyzing the target market, competition, operations and technology within an organization is important. But, if you can’t get an investor past the main point of the company, they won’t bother to read on. This is where I found that investors are more interested in the company, its services, and development to date.  

Those quick points show the investor what this company is about, what it provides, and what development has taken part so far to create momentum for its growth.

Within the financials, a good snapshot of the anticipated projected profits for the business is found in the assumptions. If I was an investor, this is where I would want to look, as well as how fast I can get my ROI.  

Overall, I found the most important thing was to provide solid research throughout the plan, but within the summary, it is best to formulate a cohesive, concise summary of what this business is, what it wants to achieve and how.

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 The goal is to captivate them with your brilliant idea (whatever that may be).