The Main Reasons for Failure: 

•     Inexperienced and ineffectual Management,

•     Inadequate Funding,

•     Inadequate Planning,

•     Inadequate Market Intelligence,

•     Insufficient Market Demand.

Not surprisingly, the most important features of a company that a potential Investor looks at are: 

1. The Management Team - Business Experience mandatory.

2. The Intellectual Property Portfolio - Legal control of the technology

3. The Market Size for the technology proposed - Bigger than cash going in

4. Time to Market - Within a reasonable time

5. The Time to Revenue - A little bit after the above.

Where do the Investors glean this information about your Company? 

Of course, it's you.

You prepare it for them.  They get it from the Company’s Business Plan; more specifically the Plan’s Executive Summary.  Few people ever read the entire Plan, cover to cover.  All of those involved are Specialists of some kind.  They only read the section that is their specialty.

To a researcher this planning effort seems a waste of valuable time.  To write a thick Business Plan when there is still basic research and product development to be done is premature. 

Why put so much time into something when it will simply change later?  

Of course, it will change.  It should change as the circumstances change.  A well thought out Business Plan is a proof statement to the Investment community that you know what you are doing.  For a Business, the search for adequate funding is an essential and continual tool for a start-up or developmental stage company.  It never ends.

Money - The Tool for Business Development.

Change your way of thinking about Money.  This is Business finance not your personal spending. 

Money is an invention, a technology, a tool.  Money is a device, an indicator of value and exchange, a Determinator.  You can't build a house without a hammer and nails or hammer substitute.  You need the cash-tool to keep things moving ahead.  Source(s) of cash need to be as predictable and secure as possible.  It makes the Company and the Employees more stable. 

Stability generates happiness.  Happy people work harder than unhappy people.

A succinct, well thought out strategy for moving the Company, as well as the research, forward is a required tool for fund raising efforts.   

This, by definition, is the Business Plan.

What is Good?

A good Business Plan demonstrates that the Management Team knows what is necessary for commercial success; that being Creating and Growing the value of the Company.

To the Investor, the Company is a product.  It has to be tweaked, modified and tested too.  The Management Team has to be experienced enough to know how to adapt to the ever changing commercial environment.  

Business Plans are unique for each situation, management team, technology platform and market of interest. 

For nine years, Molecular Biolectrics has been assisting companies in their strategic and tactical planning to prepare the best possible Business Plan.

Or see The Trade Craft Section here to read these documents on-line.

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Last modified: 04/24/2008