Writing a Business Plan

In the executive summary, include the problem you are solving and why it’s important to solve. Explain why your product is awesome, why it’s better than what currently exists, and why your team is the right one to pursue it. End with some high-level financial data to show that you have aggressive but sensible expectations about how your business wi

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Before I start a company, I typically write a couple of founding documents. One of them is very outside-in: it's a scenario-based document, describing the high-level challenge that I'm trying to address and the end user scenarios that we are trying to solve. This attempts to explain what we're trying to accomplish to anyone who joins the company or

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“Less is more” when it comes to an investor presentation. There are only a few key things most VCs look at to understand and get excited about a deal: the problem you are solving, the size of the opportunity, the strength of the team, the level of competition or competitive advantage that you have, your plan of attack, and current status. Summary f

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The five essentials ingredients to any company strategy document are:1. Mission - What are you meant to achieve2. Vision - What does it look like once you’ve achieved it3. Goal - How do you concretely know you’ve achieved it4. Strategy - What is the path to achieving it5. Strategic pillars - Three to five key bets that the company needs to make

Your competition and your sustainable competitive advantage. • An overview of your business and its management team. Provide a synopsis of your business model and show pricing and margins of your product or service. Describe your team and why it will make this business successful. • Your business goals for the next one, three, and five years. Inclu

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