Planning process: The Shittest Idea You’ve Ever Had

Hello. This is Irino, a strategy consultant.

I will explain about business planning process today.

Table of Contents in Business Plan

Executive summary
Background
Management team
Organization
Vision
Product/service
Business model
Sales/Marketing
Market/Competitors
Startup phase
Growth phase
Operations
Human Resource
Financials
Fundraising
Exit
Risk management
Project management

Do’s & Don’ts for Beginners

■　Start with executive summary

Some people write executive summary at the very end after writing full version of business plan. But it’s better to start with executive summary. The first version of business plan is never a perfect plan. It’s the shittest idea you’ve ever had. It will be changed completely after a few weeks of critiques and fact-findings. Executive summary is 1 to 3 pages long. Full version of business plan is dozens of pages long. It’s easier to maintain executive summary than full version.

Do’s & Don’ts for Intermediate Entrepreneurs

■　Don’t hide business plan from others

Some people hide business plans for various reasons. Some think that business plan is business secret. Others feel a sense of achievement when finishing the first version of business plan, and put it in a bookshelf. Some feel shy from showing business plan to others. But one purpose of business plan is to get feedbacks from investors, experts, or customers. Another purpose of business plan is to execute. Motivate youself by exposing your business plan to the public gaze.

Do’s & Don’ts for the Master Class Entrepreneurs

■　Make up groundless numbers

Honest people hate making up groundless numbers. I also believe you should calculate numbers based on facts and logics. But such a down-to-earth calculation falls short of investor’s expectation. The minimum requirement of IPO exit in Japan is operating margin of 2 million USD. Venture capitals require IRR 30% at mimimum and 60% at desiable level. Early versions of busienss plan are often planned too low. You need to do some backward calculation from exit.

Editor’s Postscript: Moon Driving

I participated in a business plan contest at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. We had to work all night for preparing the pitch. After the competition, we had time to have some fun.

I was playing a virtual reality game to drive on the moon. NASA provided the real data of the lunar surface. I drove too fast and the buggy flew up in the air because he gravity was 1/6 of our planet. The car couldn’t do soft-landing. The front wheels just blew off 🙂

That’s it for today.

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