Review of sample business plan (Startup Professionals)

How strong is the company’s industry position?
The company is in a crowded market place with other competitors -- I would say that the company's industry position is not very strong. The two principals have a lot of experience in winding down troubled companies - but not so much in the area of starting companies.

How clear is the value proposition?
The value proposition is somewhat clear ( 3 on a scale of 1- 5 with 5 being the highest). However, the market demand is not very clear.

How targeted is the customer base?
They are not very targeted with respect to their customer base. If we assume that 98.68 % of the new submissions fail, and 75 % of all submissions cannot pass basic screening, they risk having to deal with low quality startups who may rely on their stated web-site promises (including mentoring) but not achieve any success. They may be better off targeting the 12% who may need help with presentation and due diligence.

How unique is the business model?
Their business model appears to focus on a combination of consulting services and web-site  information - they appear to have one competitor in this same space (CLevelEnterprises) and others in the related space. Their network in Silicon valley may be useful to some startups. Overall, it doesn't seem to be a unique enough model.

How protected is the IP?
The knowhow of the company is in the heads of the founders. Their IP as represented by the web-site content, tools etc that are mentioned has not yet been generated. They cannot patent protect any of the proposed tools since such tools are available at some of their competitor sites.

How experienced is management?
They have a lot of real world experience both in stable and troubled companies. They may have a good understanding of the operational aspects of the business. However, they have not started their own startup before (consulting services don't count).

Creative Conflict

Tip: You can preview more of Hirshberg's book "Creative Priority" on Amazon than on Google books

Katharine Mieszkowski's article featuring Hirshberg's musings and Hirshberg's own book both describe how having people who may have different points of view on the same team can make your team more creative. Hence, Hirshberg argues that you should take the unconventional approach of hiring people with conflicting points of view and then make them work as a pair.

If this was all there was to it, then the point made here would only be mildly interesting. What makes it a bit more interesting is Hirshberg's description of why this is important, how to handle such individuals and how to institutionalize this practice so that it is part of the company culture.

What makes it authoritative is the experience that he has had with both the corporate world and the quasi-entrepreneurial world of NDI and the ability to clearly contrast those two experiences.

In fact, in my place of work, my best ideas have come via interactions with a highly talented & experienced colleague who always has strongly held views on how things should be done.

In one of our brainstorming sessions, when things between him and another colleague were getting heated, I was able to cool tempers and get everyone laughing by observing that " ...X is like a grinding tool - used properly, he will make you sharp".

This reflects the key point made in the book is that creative abrasion when handled properly does not have to wear you down - it can make you sharp.

Final thoughts

This does not mean that pairing divergent pairs is the only route to success though implying that it is so is a good way to market books and magazine articles. You can also follow the more common advise of partnering with people who have complementary skills.

One example of such a partnership is that of serial entrepreneurs, Wences Casares and Meyer "Micky" Malka, who have started multiple companies such as Patagon, Lemon Bank and Bling Nation.

Check out their very interesting talk at the link below.

The value of true partnerships

Introduction to 500Innovations

Creating a blog is easy - however, creating one that will resonate and add value can be very challenging.

The name of this blog reflects my belief that, as part of the SETR500 class, we will all be partners in developing new ways to learn, cooperate and build on each others ideas.

In that sense the 500 in the blog title is not a self-imposed limit the number of innovations I hope to discuss in this blog but rather a homage to the course and my cohort.

He who stops learning stops living - Dr. Muriel Petion