There are hundreds of books, articles, and blog posts on what should go into a startup’s investor presentation and a very large number of what should go into a customer or partner presentation, but Jeroen Kraaijenbrink‘s Forbes article The 10 Ingredients That Every Strategy Should Have has four elements that every founder should include in their company’s strategic plan. Think of this as the founder’s presentation to their company at an all-hands meeting.
The first six of the author’s core elements should be included in your investor presentation and every one of your staff should be familiar with them, though Partners, number 5, can often be overlooked.
- Value Proposition: What products and services you offer, how you offer them, and what added value they have for the customer.
- Customers & Needs: The organizations and people you serve and which needs of them you fulfill.
- Competitors: Others that your customers will compare you to in deciding whether or not to buy your products or services.
- Resources & Competences: What you have, what you are good at, and what makes you unique.
- Partners: Who you work with and who makes your products or services more valuable.
- Revenue Model: What you receive in return for your offer, from whom, how, and when.
But let’s take a more detailed look at the last four elements of Jeroen Kraaijenbrink’s list of ten elements:
Risks & Costs: What financial, social, and other risks and costs you bear and how you manage these. Any with-it founder should have the financial costs of their venture down pat. Operational costs are the easiest costs to predict and to manage. And as such they will appear in your financial statements. However, what about social risks? And what about the “other risks and costs,” such as dealing with government regulations, your startup may face?
Going into depth about social risks is well beyond the scope of this article. But founders need to be aware of such major issues of the day as: diversity in startup’s founders, senior execs and staff; income inequality; and for manufacturing and packaging companies, environmental impact issues; and work-life balance. The day when investors and senior managers only had to worry about profits and losses are long over. Today’s companies need to be active forces in their communities. Founders need to assess the social impact of their companies. My recommendation to founders is get your heads out of social media and tech news and pay attention to local, national, and international affairs. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Guardian, PBS News amongst other news sources, can keep you abreast of what issues you and your team need to be aware of and take into account in your tactics and strategy.
Values & Goals: What you want, where you want to go and what you find important. I’ve written previously about values in startups in such posts as Values: the bedrock of startups and Netflix Culture and Values. Values are the foundation of any venture. If you haven’t elucidated your venture’s values to your team, what are you waiting for?
Organizational Climate: What your culture and structure look like and what is special about them. I consider corporate culture so important that I devote an entire category to it on this blog. Corporate culture is the invisible hand of management and can be a key competitive advantage. It’s the layer built above the foundation of corporate values.
Trends & Uncertainties: What happens around you that affects your organization and what uncertainties you face. A VC I worked with was fond of terming this as exogenous risk factors, that is external factors over which you have little or no control, like government policy and regulations. And like social and governmental risks and costs, founders need to carefully monitor their environment and always be on the lookout for issues and trends that could affect their venture, for good or ill, in the near-term, medium-term, and far term.
When I worked for the Thomson Corporation, now Thomson Reuters, I wrote a business plan for a new startup within Thomson. I wish I had kept a copy of their format. But there were two elements in Thomson’s business plan template that I’ve not seen elsewhere: What is the absolute best case scenario for the venture? What is the worst case scenario for the venture? and What risks does the venture face and how will you deal with them?
Take a look at a prospectus for an IPO for a public company in your market. It should contain a detailed section on risks that is worth studying and comparing with your list of financial, social, governmental and other risks that are part of your strategic plan.
Finally, review the Strategy Sketch above, that contains many of the same elements as the business model canvas. Both are excellent planning tools for founders
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