Sample Business Plan Q & A

After reading through a sample business plan for a fictional company called Startup Professionals, Inc. I had to answer that following questions.

Q:  How strong is the company’s industry position?

A:  After reviewing the Competitive Summary portion of Startup Professionals Inc. business plan one may find that 6 similar companies already exist.  It is unknown to me how thorough the search for similar companies was.  It is my opinion that Startup Professionals Inc. does not have a very promising industry position for the following reasons:  1) Many consultants are out there that offer services very similar to what Startup Profs are proposing.  They may not all have a LLC or an official company name but lots of help is out there and readily available. 2) It does not take a lot of capital investment to begin a company which helps startup entrepreneurs, this is one more reason why I’m assuming there are more than the one major competitor listed as www.CLevelEnterprises.com. 

Q:  How clear is the value proposition?

A:  The value proposition is not very clear to me.  The BP states that clients can benefit from Startup Profs by avoiding time delays and high cost but it is never quantified into meaningful values; e.g. Startup Profs never quantify or associate any timeframe to the plans that they offer.

Q:  How targeted is the customer base?

A:  The customer base is targeted to a person or people that want to begin a business venture.  That is about how narrow it gets.  The BP doesn’t specify that Startup Profs will have a competitive edge in technology based startups or fashion design.

Q:  How unique is the business model?

A:  The business model is not very unique for the following reason:  Many companies exist today and propose everything listed in the offering categories.  One may have to go to a couple of different places to complete everything on the list but the point is this - the only thing unique about Startup Profs is the fact that they are your “one stop shop”.

Q:  How protected is the IP?

A:  Per the business plan your IP is not protected.  Obviously this would be very concerning for someone who is trying to develop a new idea or product.  For $500 dollars you can pay Startup Profs to search to understand if your idea is novel and worthy of being patent protected.  That’s about all they offer – the $500 doesn’t get you a patent or even a provisionary patent.

Q:  How experienced is management?

A:  Per the Management background portion of the BP, both the Chairman and CEO appear to be very experienced in management “type” positions.

Opposites Attract - Applying this concept to my workplace

I recently read an article written by Katharine Miezkowski (Dec 1997) about design teams at Nissan Design International or NDI.  The idea behind the article was how auto designer Jerry Hirshberg, created some of the most world-renowned vehicle design studios - not by hiring the single best designers, but instead hiring a pair of designers.  In addition he wouldn't just hire two designers that got along perfectly with each other; he made it his goal to employ a pair of engineer/designers that "clashed" so to say.  As Hirshberg explained, he "believed in creative abrasion and hiring divergent pairs."  In his mind this lead to the production of “wonderful creative sparks”.

The idea behind Hirshberg's theory is not a crazy one by any means; in fact it has lead to many great automobile designs which have won many awards over the past years.  I believe this concept would be successful if applied at my currently company (United Technologies).  I don't think that the engineering/design teams should be limited to two people, but I also am strongly against having such a large engineering/design team working on a single project - this just leads to people getting in their own way and never making a decision and moving in a forward direction.  Depending on the size of the project, placing 3 "opposites" with 3 "opposites", creating a team of 6 would be beneficial.  I feel that it is important to have engineers that live, eat and sleep engineering and care about every minute detail but I also feel (as did Hirshberg) that it is important and in the best interest of the final product to pair these "nerdy" engineers with people that have an engineering degree but are realistic, don't discourage tweaking on the fly and think "out of the box".  With a team of opposites the engineering aspect would be challenged with realism and style.  Laws and standards would be broken and decisions would get made.  When the product is going through its development and prototype stages, a team of opposite would flourish.... That said, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for a product that is in its final prototype and production stage due to the fact that procedures and standards must be followed and maintained to ensure repeatability, quality control and last but certainly not least; the all important customer satisfaction.