Welcome to video Fridays from The Start Up Garage
A place where Tyler Jensen, The Startup Garage’s founder, answers questions directly from our viewers.
Key Take Aways From Video:
1. Investors want to see a clean, professional looking, honest, and reasonable assessment of the business.
2. Investor wantwell-sourced research sections, which include the market, industry, and competitive analysis.
3. Investors want an exceptional product description that explains all the features and benefits of the product or service you’re going to be selling.
4. Investors want a reasonable sales, marketing, and operational plan and budget.
5. Investors want 5-year financial projections.
Overall, investors are sophisticated and smart, this isn’t a traditional sales document.
Complete transcript below:
“What do investors want to see in a professional business plan?”
Great question Jen, overall investors really just want to see a clean, professional looking, honest, and reasonable assessment of the business. They want clear, well-sourced research sections. So this includes the market, industry, and competitive analysis. These really need to be cited with trusted sources, so add footnotes in there as well.
The next thing you want is a really good product description that explains why all the features and benefits of the product or service you’re going to be selling. Then they’re going to want a reasonable sales, marketing, and operational plan and budget — so you just need to be reasonable in these expectations of what you’re really going to be able to achieve in terms of growth.
And then they’re going to want to see a well thought out 5-year financial projections. These include balance sheet, cash flow, and profit/loss along with all the assumptions that go into making those up.
So overall investors are sophisticated and smart. So this isn’t a traditional sales document — you don’t want to make it too “salesy”. They want to see something that is just reasonable and honest — and I think you’re going to get a lot further with investors than something that is hyperbolic and exaggerated
