Archives July 2022

Attracting investors can easily be one of the most challenging things that you encounter when you launch your startup. However, you can’t grow your business without investors, which is why the sooner you start working on getting them on board, the better!

If you are starting a business, thinking about starting a business, or already well on your way and looking to raise your next round, here are a few things I encourage you to do to build excitement and successfully raise funding:

1. Make your business easy to understand. Do one thing, and do it extremely well.

Deciding on your “core competency” ! 

Without a clear core competency, it is very difficult for customers, investors, and even employees to get a firm grasp on what it is the business actually does. What’s the goal? What’s the one thing the business will be known for? What’s the problem, what’s the unmet need, and (in a single sentence) what’s the solution?.

If you can’t explain what problem your business solves, how, and why, in a sentence or two, then chances are you aren’t quite sure either. And if you aren’t 100 percent sure of what problem your business is solving in the world, investors aren’t going to know what they’re investing in.

2. Develop a strong business plan.

Your business plan is an essential document that proves one thing to investors: that your business is worth their risk. Your plan should clearly outline your business objectives and goals.

Show that you have a deep understanding of your target market and provide a complete description of the product or services you offer.
An essential section of the business plan is your marketing plan. It defines your market size and growth prospects and should show trend influences and sales potential.

3. Provide Management Team Bios & References

Investors have a keen interest in both you (as the founder) and the management team—from understanding their industry background to their business experience. They need to feel confident that you and your team can lead the company to grow and make a return on their investment.

Ensure you exude confidence and passion and demonstrate your willingness and ability to change course should your company need to shift direction. 

Other positive traits investors look for in founders are the ability to make decisions with input from your leadership team (there’s no room for indecisiveness), excellent relationship and networking skills, and the ability to build a company around core competencies and deliver on them.

Final thoughts

Investors assume risk whenever they invest. An exit opportunity provides them a “reward” for their risky move. It’s therefore imperative to integrate an exit strategy into your business plan. Let investors know how you plan to return their investment. Will you pursue an acquisition? Merge with another company?

Choose an exit strategy that aligns with your business and personal goals. Your time frame may vary, so think about when you may want to implement your exit strategy as well. The objective is for all parties to exit profitably.

As exhilarating as it is, the fundraising process can be intimidating. But when you’re prepared, you can go in strong and confident—moving you one step closer to achieving your goal. Need help getting your financials in order? Do you have further questions about how to attract investors to your business? Contact us!

A strategy is a set of decisions on where you want your business to be in the future, in line with your company’s mission.

A strategy is usually created in a strategic planning process by the senior leaders of an organization. Models that involve employees in developing strategies are on the rise and seem to pay off.

How do you know your strategy is the right one? Well, you don’t. But with some clear strategic goals, you avoid the confusion that prevents many companies from growing. Or to phrase it differently: “We might be wrong, but at least we’re not confused.”

How do you get there?

How do you make your strategy a reality?

Roadmap

The roadmap is your first step in executing your strategy. It defines where you are right now, where you want to be according to the strategy and then describes which milestones you need to reach to get to where you want to be.

STEP 1: DEFINE WHAT’S NECESSARY

To create a roadmap, make a list of things necessary in your strategic target state. To guide this, stick to the categories: People, Processes, Tools and Partners.

STEP 2: WRITE DOWN WHERE YOU ARE TODAY

In the next step, you define where you are today. Again, it makes sense to stick to the categories.

STEP 3: DEFINE AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO CLOSE THE GAP

Now create the actual roadmap – a high-level execution plan on how you will close the gap between today and your strategic goal. This road-map will be the basis for goal-setting for your organization and successful strategy execution. The roadmap will always have a time component to it as it lays out the milestones in a chronological way.

STEP 4: OBJECTIVES AND KEY RESULTS

Use the milestones identified in the roadmap to lay out the most critical tasks for the next three months. An excellent tool for this is Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). You are breaking down the 1-to-5-year horizon into manageable steps of three months. This clarity will help your team to set the right priorities. You will have to handle your regular business in parallel while working on strategy implementation. Staying focused on three topics per quarter will make sure your resources are used most effectively.

People

ALIGNMENT

You want your team moving jointly in the new direction. You must be able to transport the message of why the new set of strategic goals is important for the company. Your team needs to have a deep understanding of the strategic roadmap. Senior executives and team managers need to communicate the meaning of the strategic initiatives over and over again in team meetings. Provide insights into how the strategy execution process is going, where you stand and what the next steps are. The more visual, the better.

TRAINING

As for any change process, training your team is a powerful tool to ensure effective execution of your strategy. There are different training demands that arise from a strategic shift.

• Make sure everybody has an in-depth understanding of the strategy
• Create the capabilities and expertise that might be necessary but missing as per your roadmap
• Executive education to develop the right leadership skills across all management levels

REWARD MECHANISM AND INCENTIVES

When you change your strategic direction, the way you incentivize and reward your team might have to change as well. Make sure your strategy is reflected in your compensation components as well.

ORGANIZATIONAL RESTRUCTURING

Your new strategy might make it necessary that you restructure your teams. Let’s say you want to diversify your product offering for your two main customer groups, it could be a good idea to change from a functional structure to a divisional structure.

RECRUITING

When you need new roles or new employees, create a recruiting roadmap that is in sync with your strategy execution roadmap.

Resources

Your organization’s ability to effectively execute your strategy not only depends on your people, but also on the way you distribute resources. There are two possible implications.

WHERE YOUR RESOURCES GO

You might need to reallocate resources from one topic to another which is more important for your strategy. Make sure you cut budgets that don’t have relevance for your new strategy. That can be painful for the teams, but with the right people measures, the change will be easier to digest.

HOW YOU DISTRIBUTE RESOURCES

Depending on your strategy, it’s possible that you have to change the way resources are distributed. Where it is a top-down budgeting approach today, you might want to switch to a more autonomous and agile approach to enable your product teams to develop products quickly. This all depends on what your strategic goals are.

Measure Success

Last but not least, while executing on your strategy it makes sense to measure your success frequently. This will enable you to give feedback back into the organization, showcase the successes on the way and keep engagement up. And of course, you want to know if your measures are paying off. Share the progress widely and in graphical form, e.g. as a big printout of your roadmap and an up-to-date dashboard of your measures. Also, use the quarterly OKR workshops to communicate progress.

Regardless of what you want to do, owning your own business is a goal for many. Being an entrepreneur, growing a business, gaining financial security is a dream for most. Not everyone is equipped to be an entrepreneur or business owner. This is when the help of a business consultant is needed for assistance!

An investment must be made not just in the form of money, but also time, and other commitments. Starting a business is not easy. With many types of companies, the rate of failure is high. To increase chances at success, experts can assist. Experts through consulting services provide the necessary support for business startups and entrepreneurs.

Consultants work in many ways to assist clients with a new business. It can be from basic items such as help structure the new business, creating a business plan, doing research, achieve certain objectives, milestones, and more. A consultant puts best practices ahead since many have done the work already many times before. This strengthens the process and outcomes.

In the beginning of a new business, there is much that is required to be done. Not just done but done correctly. This can range from the basic setups of a business, the structure, licenses, to product design and development. Services may need to be created, priced, and so on. It all depends on the type of business. Are you needing a retail space? What type of business are you starting? A consultant can assist. Speak to one about your business startup and/or idea.

A key benefit of consultants when working with them is the momentum.

The speed of getting things done is critical with a startup business. Often, uncertainty slows things down or is the cause of a complete stall or stop. Procrastinations can happen here quickly.  Consultants move on business topics quickly. Working with a consultant helps avoid slowdowns. Momentum is created when working with the assistance of a business consultant. They add knowledge and details as required, keeping the pace moving forward. Consultants know the next steps are help entrepreneurs, investors, and business startups follow them. Steps are taking in the right order, tasks executed properly, and the startup is successfully established. Speak to a consultant and find out if this is right for you.

Click here to download Smart Interventions startup business brochure to discover our services!