Business Plans & Models

Getting Your Business Moving!

• Validate that you have a business
• Focus your strategy
• Quantify planned revenue sources and identify additional opportunities
• Perform reality check on key operating expenses
• Get a powerful financial model developed in a fraction of the time using a pre-built program customized for you
• Determine your real cash requirements
• Project equity needs and valuations for current and future rounds
• Develop your strategy for raising this and future rounds of capital
• Get your business better positioned to raise capital, even from sources you already know
• Move quickly- time is money

Business Strategy

• Identify broad strategies
• Sort out wide range of possible businesses
• Bring focus into overall strategy
• Determine if there really is a business and where

Revenue Sources

• Identifying sources you may not have thought of
• Feedback on existing revenue models and assumptions

Financial Model

• Uses pre-built program, customized for your business, for much faster and more accurate development
• Includes many features:
  • Clearly spelled assumptions, on one worksheet for easy review
  • Assumptions designed so model recalculates completely -you immediately see the impact of any change, rather than having to make many manual adjustments
  • Integrated financial statements- profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flows
  • One page executive summary with financial summary and key metrics
  • Equity valuation section (see below for more information)
  • Sections for each area of revenues, operating expenses and key balance sheet items
  • Formulas written in narrative form (using English rather than cryptic code) for easier understanding
  • Table of contents with clearly organized layout and links to move quickly around model
  • Automated printing with one click of button
  • Powerful scenario section (see below for more information)

Scenario Building

• Very user friendly tool to test out variations in your business strategy
• Developed using my expert programming skills in Excel
• Create alternate scenarios easily with major assumptions all on one sheet
• One-click button to automatically save scenarios
• One-click button to recall any scenarios

Cash Flow

• Timing of cash flow can be easily overlooked and lead to gross errors in cash required
• Look at the cash flow for each major component and verify all major components are there
• Make sure cash flows are tied in to rest of financial model
• Automatically recalculate all parts of cash flow for changes in assumptions

Operating Expenses

• Check your estimates using metrics developed from a number of businesses
• Include breakout on human resources- headcount and total compensation

Equity Valuation

• Provides overall picture for values at each round and changes in valuation
• Calculates future and initial value for each round
• Compares initial discounted value to amount raised to provides guidance for pricing each round
• Shows pre and post money valuations for each round to highlight trends
• Gives ability to simulate different valuations at each round

Summary

• One page summary for the executive summary version of your business plan
• Clearly communicates the results of your business
• Includes key metrics that drive home how your business operates and is projected to perform
• Customized to include the selling points unique to your business
• Automatically tied in to financial model

Charts

• Pictures sell the story and get the point across quickly
• Based on key metrics that fit your business
• Integrated with financial model to change as model changes

Business Plan

• Guide overall layout of plan and executive summary
• Bring in outside resource, if necessary, skilled in crisp, informative writing that investors appreciate
• Write up financial and other parts of plan as needed

Financial Strategy

• Tied in with valuation analysis
• Determine how many rounds to be raised
• Which kind of funding source to go after
• Compare against financial strategies of public or later stage competitors

Conclusion- Does one of these situations fit your business?

• You have a sense of what your venture will be but have trouble putting numbers down on paper.

• You are not quite sure about your revenue sources.
• You don’t feel comfortable about what it will cost to run your business.
• You are not sure how to put together complete financials or a financial model.
• You have friends and family, angel, or VC contacts, but need help to show them that you have a real venture.
• You are not sure how to value your business.
• You don’t quite know how to plan for future rounds of fund raising.

You have come to the right place!  We have helped a number of early stage firms developed their business strategy and financial model and get ready for their fund raising efforts. 

We have developed a process that can help you validate your business strategy and get you prepared for fund raising quickly.  Please call for a free consultation.