Topic

business plans

A collection of 35 issues

Kawasaki's Top Ten Entrepreneur Lies

When lecturing at Cambridge University recently, my attention was happily re-drawn to venture capital guru Guy Kawasaki. Seven years ago he wrote this seminal [http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie_1.html] blog on the delusions of people that pitch him their new business idea. These

5 Million Worth Of B-Plan Tips

[https://salespodder.com/content/images/wordpress/2013/03/anyonecandoit_cover.jpg] I enjoy the occasional blog on business plan elements. I feel good ones show many facets that can be beneficially applied to sales proposals. From their book, Anyone Can Do It, the founders of the Coffee Republic high street

Sequoia Capital Sustainability

[http://www.sequoiacap.com] There can be few more fabled venture capitalists than this crew. Check their CrunchBase [http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/sequoia-capital] and Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Capital] profiles for evidence. As of now, their assertion estimating that “14% of the NASDAQ’s value is

Investor Red Flags

[http://www.startupsmart.com.au/planning/2010-11-22/10-reasons-investors-dont-invest-in-start-ups.html] Having been paid to write business plans, I’m always interested in the parallels between launching start-ups and selling new products. A young Aussie entrepreneur here provides his checklist of 10 reasons investors don’t invest in start-ups [http://www.startupsmart.

Valley Of Death

To a salesperson, the phrase Death Valley usually triggers nightmares about the silence that can follow a final Board or closing presentation. For business plan pitchers, the Valley of Death could well mean something different. I was reminded of this extremely valid business plan pointer by way of a Harvard

Harvard MBA B-Plan Judge Tips

I occasionally blog on the murky world of business plans for two main reasons. I often get paid to help write them so have live exposure to their vagaries and I think many a pitch or proposal (especially a brand new product one) can benefit from lessons learned in this

Crafting A Presentation

As my recent blogs have described, I’m in the middle of prepping a big presentation at the moment. I had a discussion the other day about how you construct such an event. There are many common errors that you can avoid. A major one is structural. In our case

Business Planning Stages

I spent several enjoyable man-days earlier in the year helping construct a business plan. I’ve written a number of these during my career, as well as also being commissioned to craft specific sales plans for salesteams seeking to take a new direction. My recent work introduced me to many

No Numbers No Projections

A wannabe web entrepreneur talked excitedly about a South African idea for funding such start-ups. Crowdfunding [http://www.crowdfunding.co.za/] aims to be the continent’s first collaborative pool for such cash and expertise. I was informed they have a specific approach to filtering business plans and ideas that

Local Chippy; Under New Management

In Cape Town and seeking a warming late lunch, I wanted to avoid the storm. Irritatingly arriving just in time for my walk to the Green Point stadium for the Spain-Portugal last 16 showdown, I couldn’t face wandering far through the horizontal rain. In Sea Point I came across