1. Strategies for Preparing the “Killer” Business Plan
Neil Davis
TEDCO
October 2, 2017

2. Strategy 1 – Persona & Narrative
Create a narrative around your customers that explains how they interact with your product or service.
Use the persona as a touchstone to ensure that your development is in sync with the needs of the customer.

3. Strategy 1 Use the customer persona to…
Describe the “pain” you are addressing.
Describe the “pain” in personal terms.
Quantify the “pain”.
This helps create immediate audience buy-in!

4. Strategy 1 Use the customer persona to…
Explain how you will alleviate the “pain”.
Articulate value proposition thru customer's eyes, or how do you help your customer “win”?
Decrease customer’s cost
Increase customer’s sales
Increase your customer’s customer satisfaction
A well-articulated value proposition is critical!

5. Strategy 2 – Market Research
Demonstrate that someone other than you “cares”! Market research is one way to do this.
Spending $$ versus just talking to people.
Support need.
Validate price.
Identify competition.
Identify beta users and early adopters
Generate quotes and proof statements to include in the business plan narrative

6. Strategy 2 Demonstrate that you know your competition Your Company
Competitor 1
Competitor 2
Installed Cost 
Operating Cost
Speed
Waste
Safety

7. Strategy 2 Demonstrate that you know your competition Performance
Your Product
Competitor A
Cost Effectiveness
Competitor B
Competitor C

8. Strategy 3 – Market & Launch
Total market size
Addressable market size
How will you make money?
Who is the paying customer?
How do they currently buy?
How will you reach the customer?
Initial launch
Sales channels
Marketing

9. Strategy 4 – Financial Projections
Link your financial projections to the business plan narrative and to your market research.
Never be right, but have to make sense
Focus on cash in & cash out.
Burn rate is all-important.
Make sure your projections support your investment “ask”.
Include key assumptions and add operating metrics.
Double-check the arithmetic.

10. Strategy 4 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Units 20 40 80 160 320 Revenues
100
200
400
800
1600
COGS
(25)
(50)
(100)
(200)
(400)
Gross Margin 75
150
300
600
1200
SG&A
(150)
(250)
(300)
(350)
EBIT
(75) 50
850
R&D
(500)
CAPEX
Begin Cash 25
225
Investment
500
End Cash
1075

11. Strategy 4 Funding strategy.
How much do you need to raise?
From whom will you raise it?
What progress has been made with those investors?
What will you do with the money you raise?
Exit – investors want a return
IPO (give examples) or M&A (give examples)
Milestones
Where are you now & what does the future look like?
What steps are needed to get there & who is responsible?
How will you measure progress?

12. Strategy 5 – Finish Strong
Summarize Investment Thesis
An innovative and potentially disruptive technology.
Accessing a large and growing market.
Value proposition supported by solid market research.
A strong team who has worked together before and solid advisors who are adding tangible value.
Generating sales from early adopters, 70% of whom were non-paying beta users.
Raising $500,000 now – 85% will be used to scale the business – this gives us a 14 month runway. We project the need to raise an additional $1.2M to become profitable.

13. Questions?