Entrepreneurship: some interesting experiences across the world/2

Mostafa Shahat has been working in entrepreneurship field for 7 years. He founded a training company called G.O.L (Goal Oriented Learners). G.O.L is improving Egyptian youth employment’s skills to be qualified candidates for the job market by offering trainings on entrepreneurship, professional trainings (marketing, sales..ect).Mostafa succeed to deliver G.O.L trainings to 30,000 entrepreneurs & graduates in Egypt.Mostafa interviewed over 80 entrepreneurs from all over the Middle East and published their success stories in international entrepreneurship magazines.Mostafa succeed to build partnerships with several European organizations to organize funded Entrepreneurship programs by National European Agencies in Italy, Bulgaria and Netherlands. Here he gives us a collection of some very interesting stories from international entreneurship.

Building a sustainable community by supporting women with micro-credits

Fida Abu Turkey is a Palestine woman, who succeed to support 100 underprivileged women to start their businesses when she was only 18 years old, and started three different organizations when she was studying arts at Al Quds Open University, she is considered one the most influential civil society activist in Palestine.

Fida grew up in Palestine particularly in Hebron city , since young age, she was volunteering in local organizations that support underprivileged women socially and economically. In 1999 when Fida joined the university, she has successfully run a fundraising campaign and gathered $100,000 to support underprivileged women in her city to start their businesses; 100 women received microcredits, Fida has started three organizations when she was studying in the university, Palestine Center for Communication & Development Strategies  (PCCDS) is a Palestinian non-profit NGO founded in Hebron in 2009 by Fida and a group of young female activists working in fields of development, democracy and human rights, in order to empower the most marginalized and disadvantaged families socially, politically and economically, and she also established Mobile Legal clinic for Human Rights and Rural Development Committees, and lately she has joined them with PCCDS.

In 2009; Fida started Irada for comprehensive development, one of the biggest sustainable organization in the entire Arab world that supports underprivileged women with micro-credits, training and marketing consultation to grow and scale their businesses, Irada supported more than 2500 women to receive funds between $1000 – $5000.As Fida is always active, she has joined more than 20 international conferences in Asia, Europe and Africa to represent Palestine entrepreneurs’ women. She was rewarded with the 1^st place in King Abdullah II of Excellence and Youth Innovation Award in 2011, and 1^st place in Prince Abdulaziz International Prize for Entrepreneurship in 2014, and Ashoka fellowship.Fida has a dream to support women not just in Palestine, but in the whole Arab world countries, she wants to implement Irada model in each of the Middle Eastern countries to help and support women to receive a fund and build their business. Fida believes that women in 21th century are playing a big role not just in the community’s sustainability but as well in the country economic stability.

Sustainable entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Jordan

Entrepreneurship flourished in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region after the Arab spring in 2011, and with the support of the international donors, each of the Arabian countries succeed to build a sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem which has a varieties of main actors; incubators, accelerators, venture capitals and angle investors who invested in social businesses or ventures which have potential to grow up and be sustainable organizations or companies.Jordan is one of the Arabian countries that succeed to create a sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem before even the Arab spring, one of the most active entrepreneur and investor in the region his name is Saeed Omar a Jordanian who started the first accelerator in the MENA region in 2009, and have been running different successful businesses inside and outside Jordan.Saeed studied hospitality management in 1999 at Cyprus, he served for 9 years in multinational companies in different positions in many of the Gulf countries, but the company where he stayed longer was Media One as sales manager for 5 years in Dubai.Saeed went back to Jordan in 2009 to help founding the first accelerator in the middle east called Meydan (means in English square) with famous Jordanian social entrepreneur Maher Kaddoura, where they were supporting social ventures with an investment twenty thousands dollars each, and in return they have ten percentage equity of the company, Saeed was responsible for the selection process including receiving application and interviewing entrepreneurs. Saeed succeed in one year to recruit 19 social ventures from 500 who have applied, after the great success of the program in the first year, Saeed has decided to step down and work only as management consultant to Maydan and focus on his new venture.Saeed has founded in 2010 Sitat Byoot (which means in English women’s houses) is E-commerce website that helps women who are producing handmade products to sell it online, in less than 6 years, the website has 750 thousands women from 25 Arabian countries registered, with a revenue sales per month 10 – 15 thousands dollars, as well; they have conducted workshops to teach women who would like to learn how to make handmade products, around 100 workshops have been organized for 1000 women in Jordan, and they used to upload these workshops online so all the women in the region can learn how to make handmade products as well, almost 21 thousands women have access to the online uploaded recorded workshops.Parallel to running Sitat Byoot, Saeed has decided that his passion towards supporting entrepreneurs and creating sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem is endless, that’s why he started in 2015 Startupnow which is a consulting company that helps organizations that support entrepreneurs, their services varies between marketing and management consultation, to training & development, within a year Startupnow has conducted 224 workshops that served 13 thousands entrepreneurs from all over the region.Two of the most incredible achievements that Saeed is proud of, first; he wrote a book named “Company Startup Program’ currently being taught at 20+ universities in Jordan, that helps wantrepreneurs how to start companies or organizations, providing practical solutions for all the marketing and management issues that usually face all the startups when they launch, second; Saeed for one year during 2014 has worked as a consultant for Doha Business Incubation Center (DBIC) which is considered as the biggest incubation center in the world that is built on 22 thousand meter squared, Saeed was supporting the center through the selection process, interviewing entrepreneurs as well giving marketing and managements advices.Saeed has been awarded with many international awards for his great contribution to create entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region and his successful sustainable businesses, one of the most prestigious award is Queen Rania Award for Entrepreneurship.

 

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Entrepreneurship: some interesting experiences across the world.

 

Mostafa Shahat has been working in entrepreneurship field for 7 years. He founded a training company called G.O.L (Goal Oriented Learners). G.O.L is improving Egyptian youth employment’s skills to be qualified candidates for the job market by offering trainings on entrepreneurship, professional trainings (marketing, sales..ect).Mostafa succeed to deliver G.O.L trainings to 30,000 entrepreneurs & graduates in Egypt.Mostafa interviewed over 80 entrepreneurs from all over the Middle East and published their success stories in international entrepreneurship magazines.Mostafa succeed to build partnerships with several European organizations to organize funded Entrepreneurship programs by National European Agencies in Italy, Bulgaria and Netherlands. Here he gives us a collection of some very interesting stories from international entreneurship.

 

Entrepreneurs in Egypt: Ahmed Negm

Cairo is the biggest city in Egypt, with over than twenty million people, which makes it the largest city in Africa and the middle East, and the 5th largest metropolitan area on earth.The increase in the population, without a transportation infrastructure, makes the traffic jams in Cairo terrible and unbearable, especially in the rush hour where there are over than two million cars in the street. There are many consequences for the traffic congestion, not only pollution as cars produce different harmful gases, but it blocks ambulances, kills pedestrians and causes horrible pile-ups, and it all leads to either trade insults, smoke cigarettes and waste much of the productive time.Transportation infrastructure, doesn’t only mean building new roads, but maintaining the old ones, creating traffic light system, and ensuring the safety in the streets. Many entrepreneurs have tried to solve the traffic jam problem by using mobile apps, but they are only helping to avoid crowded streets, and the real problem that Cairo is facing in the number of the cars that are moving in 236,000 miles of roads.

Carpooling succeeded to solve the traffic jam problem in many crowded cities all over the world, and it’s the time for Cairo to use carpooling which is the most environmental friendly and sustainable way to travel, It reduces each one travel’s costs, stress of driving and importantly the number of cars in the street.Despite carpooling in Cairo seemed for many of the Egyptian entrepreneurs impossible because of the political instability and the safety issue in the street but Ahmed Negm with his sister Samira Negm succeeded to found in 2014 Raye7 means in English “Going”, the first carpooling mobile app in Egypt.

Ahmed studied at the Faculty of Engineering at The Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt (AASTMT), since young age, Ahmed used to travel all over the world for many reasons, between conferences, trainings to internships, he travelled to more than twenty countries.Ahmed lived in Tokyo, Japan for six months as he was a Solar Cells intern at Ulvac Technologies, ‘I used hitchhiking many times in Tokyo and I have travelled over than 2,000 kilometers by carpooling’ says Ahmed.Ahmed with his team faced many challenges to found Raye7 in Egypt, but the most challenging and complicated obstacle they faced was how to ensure safety with the political and economical instability in Egypt.‘We had to try the mobile app in small communities to build trust’ says Ahmed ‘that’s why we built partnerships with companies and universities so their employees and students can use Raye7’s mobile app’.Ahmed with his team usually update Raye7’s mobile app to make it as friendly and easy as possible, during the last year, Ahmed has joined many international competitions inside and outside Egypt, two of the most well known mobile app competitions that Ahmed with his team won the 2^nd place in, named Demo Africa  in Egypt, and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Ahmed is planning to use Raye7 mobile app in big major events in Cairo, where all attendees can come together instead each of them come alone in his/her car, as well they plan to use Raye7 in multinational companies around Egypt, they are very keen to try the app in small communities, where people already trust each other.Ahmed used to worked as Experience Manager at RiseUp Summit, one of the biggest entrepreneurship summit in North Africa countries that is conducted in yearly basis, and he used to organize leadership conferences and exchange programs in many of the African countries with AIESEC.

Entrepreneurs in Egypt: Muhammed Nagi

After the Egyptian revolution in 2011, the co-working space concept started to flourish. Young Egyptian youth started launching different initiatives to tackle many social problems. The revolution increased their ownership over their communities.The co-working spaces have supported many initiatives that allowed organizations and entrepreneurs to connect and work together for a greater impact. AlMaqarr (means The Headquarters) was one of the pioneers that started actively supporting NGOs, initiatives and student organizations by hosting them in their premises and offering mentorship, training and network, so they can operate effectively and grow to tackle community’s problems.Muhammad Nagi, AlMaqarr founder and MD, studied English Languages and Literature at The University of Ain Shams. Mohamed is an entrepreneur since he was a student. He co-founded one of the most active student organizations in his university called React. React focused on changing the students’ mentality and attitude towards their own lives by delivering employment skills training, as well as human development programs.“I believe that each one of us has a hidden treasure that needs to be discovered, that’s why I always wanted to help students not to underestimate their power” says Muhammad.Muhammad with his team faced many issues while running their activities. The lack of mentorship, facilities, networks and premises were the main issues they faced. In 2012, Muhammad with his team had the idea of starting a co-working space, which was designed to suit entrepreneurs and community leaders needs and become a real productive and creative environment where all the community players can interact and collaborate together.

“The idea of the co-working spaces was new. We were very excited to start AlMaqarr and all of us sacrificed to make it happen” says Muhammad.Nagi was a professional Karate player. He was representing Egypt in many global competitions. He used to work with several local organizations that mainly focused on charity projects to support marginalized areas in greater Cairo. Because he is still connected to sports, Muhammad is currently working as a Fitness Coach at Fitiology where he is instructing and coaching groups/individuals through fitness programs.AlMaqaar is supporting over 700 entrepreneurs with more than 300 project ideas. They have been selected as the best co-working space in Egypt and received local and international recognitions for their efforts.Muhammad is a true believer in collaboration and coworking, and how working together can build exceptions. With his team, he launched a great engaging experience that can be delivered to help reinforcing the networking concept. They launched ElRe7la (means The Journey); a social enterprise that provides extraordinary out-of-office experience for change-makers to widen their horizons and change their lifestyle to help them be more productive.They have organized over 6 entrepreneurial camps in different destinations in Egypt, and invited more than 700 change-makers from all over Egypt.Nagi has been selected by Cairosecene as one of the 25 entrepreneurs who are under 25 years old. He is very grateful for the successes that he has made but his passion towards entrepreneurship never ends.

Mohamed believes that entrepreneurship is the only way out for Egypt to solve the major economic and social challenges. Co-working spaces are one of the main tools that could help young Egyptians with the resources and networks that they need to reform their communities and build their ventures.Even though the Co-working spaces concept was just introduced to the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem, but we saw lots of great examples of entrepreneurs who shaped the community with their great entrepreneurial ideas and still willing to sacrifices to make greater impact.

 

 

 

Being on the edge

There are so many definitions of what a competitive advantage is supposed to be…

Outperforming competitors is really the key to understand this concept?

What if we take this concept the other way around starting from the customers instead than from competitors? Are we really sure that competitive advantages can only be considered as the leverage that a business has over its competitors.

As we often said during lectures, the name of the game is not about being the best but instead about being unique. What does it mean really?  Not that much if we don’t take customers side.

Let’s see everything from their prospective and the definition of competitive advantage may then sound something like: “what makes you essential for your customer”

Than you surely gain in perspective

Yes, because at this point competitive advantage becomes:_

-being special (kwowing EXACTLY for who);

-being able to timely indentify your customer spending time there not that nuch in identifying only your competitors;

-being resilient, I mean able to “absorb” customer inputs and changes (and interpret them all);

-being able to assess NOT what you can do TOO but INSTEAD what you are THE ONLY ONE able to do…like the Panda!!!

 

 

Facts & figures dilemma

WHEN IT COMES  TO STARTUP COSTING IT’S ALWAYS A TROUBLE!!

There are two predominant ways:

–a pragmatic “engineering” approach, full of technical terms and sometimes very poor when it comes to the financial figures;

–an accounting approach way, very keen and careful with excel papers, and sometimes very complicated

Truth (and affectivness) as most of the times lies in the middle.

Some suggestions:

1. at the very beginning don’t use a overcomplicated worksheets. Start with a reasonable list of costs a typical business may incur when starting up.
2. spend some time removing and adding rows, defining two simple and clear lists:                                                                                                                                                      a) General /generic costs: those that almost every startup has, whatever is its mission. Probably it’s a good exercise because those are either:

• COST YOU CAN REDUCE;
• COSTS YOU CAN SHARE WITH OTHER PARTNERS;
• COST WHERE INVESTING TIME IN SELECTING A LESS EXPENSIVE SUPPLIER IS WORTHY OF THE MONEY/TIME YOU INVEST                                                                     

b) highly specific costs: it’s only you who have those costs, they are really AND STRICTLY connected with your business model because that’s in the end not a cost it’s money invested to boost the uniqueness of your startup idea. Invest time in explaining their relevance in the business plan and briefly also while you are pitching: sometimes, those involve a careful choice of suppliers, sometimes they represents a kind of bottleneck because you have no choice, but that supplier/partner is hard to manage because of its power.

 

3. never forget to enter/make clear the financial year at the top of every sheet (year 1, 2, 3 perspective)

 

Concerning costs:

A) 2P2L costs:

 

1. PERMITS
2. Patents
3. License
4. Logo

In other words, write down carefully costs for obtaining the necessary patents, permits registrations and license, and the costs for developing naming, logos and branding activities. If you work hard on your startup uniqueness, you don’t want your idea or your logo  (or both) being spoiled by a competitor

B) RISKS costs: i. Insurance & liability costs: this side is most of the times not well explain/explored by startuppers, assuming is not relevant or that will come in future, but it may heavily affect your busines

C) TRAINING AND HR: let’s be clear. Unless you have a prototype what’s the asset value of your startup? Mainly it’s about people and the… content of their heads…so how much is f.i your academic backgroup worthy, how much money need to invested in keeping updated your company’s key people distinctive know how and core competencies? Have an idea of a 3 yrs training plan.

D) BACK OFFICE & INFRASTRUCTURE: no work can be done without a proper infrastructure/equipment : Rental lease cost; Utilities, internet connection, business continuity, software, specific hardware, instruments etc etc need  to be assessed? F.i. do they compulsory need to be yours or can be leased? That will definitely change your costs worksheets

E) SALES & MARKETING: products and services don’t have legs: they need a marketing and sales plan to be delivered and accompanied to market. Be careful to give an idea of such costs, including training sales agents, or doing an advertising campaign or taking part to specific trade fairs and printing, communicating, spreading commercial flayers or the like.

 

The naked busines pitcher Part 3

Everything you need to write in your vision is already in your strategic plan (if it’s a good one). Let’s go back through what you’ve done.

Referring to the The naked business pitcher- PART 1

Pick:

1. from the “Intro”: some words identifying you, your story, what may lead the reader identifying with you. For instance, almost every firm has its own slang, and sometimes their metaphors and idioms. TRY TO USE THEM, IT CAN BE VERY POWERFUL;
2. from “The issue and the solution”: the essence of your business, who’s is going to help (OUR PRODUCT/SERVICE ..IT’S UNIQUE BECAUSE ….CUSTOMER BENEFITS…. ) Values, your business values, should appear above or below the surface., in this case informing everything you write;

Uniqueness is often not about having a bigger business idea for the future, but an easier one.

3. the rest: try to set apart business goals you wrote down in your BP in 2 categories:                                                                                                                                    A) generic/strategic or long term goals: the one that define your ideal business scenario, the big goal. Those will help you define your VISION …                              B) …where instead the basical, quantitative objectives could be very good for your MISSION.

Referring to the The naked business pitcher- PART 2

A vision helps you pitching because:

-it could represent the key pitching takeaway

–tells a lot about your management style

-Your pitching is like music: Vision is the Harmony, whereas a good pitching structure/format  represents the rythm.

MOTHER YEAST: A RISK REWARD MODEL FOR BUSINESS MODELING BASED ON THE ENTREPRENEUR

Business planning is (and remains) certainly one of the most important task for an entrepreneur

But the rate at which business changes today is much faster than it used to be, as the available time left to adapt to such a drastic change.

Therefore is hardly possible to create a reliable/classical 3 year scenario-it often ends with depicting a depressing and unrealistic “hockey stick” diagram shaped revenues growth, where the stick is very often pointed in the wrong direction.

 

But that doesn’t mean at all that business planning isn’t worthy of investment, because the beauty is in its execution: if everything and everybody is changing there is something that changes very slowly and that’s probably what investor in the end appreciate the most: you. Investors don’t want to take risks without a good chance of profit and you represent the personification of this warranty.

Business planning can be considered as the life-code, the DNA enabling the creation of a sophisticated risk-reward model that requests the interaction between at least 3 stakeholders (investors, customers and you), a blueprint to build a social structure based on value creation and trust

Let’s take a typical representation of what should compulsory be inside a “modern” dynamic BP:

1. THE STORY
2. THE ISSUE AND YOUR SOLUTION
3. MARKET ANALYSIS
4. GO TO MARKET: WHY NOW, WHY BETTER THAN COMPETITORS
5. MANAGEMENT TEAM
6. FINANCIAL PLAN

 

Ok. Now let’s analysing it according to the following categories:

-RISK

-REWARD

What are you exactly communicating to your potential investor from this perspective?

1. THE STORY: how I (as an entrepreneur) do manage risk right now and how successfully I did it before
2. THE ISSUE/SOLUTION: how can I specifically mitigate risk and why is this way of getting reward unique/different than others
3. MARKET ANALYSIS: how efficiently such a risk is handled right now; How big our reward can be
4. GO TO MARKET: how fast I can handle risk; when can I expect my first reward
5. MANAGEMENT TEAM: I’m going to tell you why we assume we can be an efficient risk manager; how I’m going to manage rewards
6. FINANCIAL PLAN: How big is the risk we run; how long; which one is the minimun viable risk I’ m asking you to run in order to get our reward

 

 

As you can see therefore a BP can be interpreted as a risk-reward business modelling process that aims to fully align the interests of the entrepreneur and the investor while enabling a consistent and sustainable growth. And that’s definitely a win-win situation.

And then? What’s behind risk-reward? You again.

Then you are like mother yeast.

Each sourdough has its own characteristic that makes it typical and unique: different from any “baking powder” because it is “alive”.  You BP can be dynamic but never alive: you can.

Today’s bread is made of today’s yeast, but today’s yeast is a piece of yesterday’s and it carries with it the ancient characteristics: that is the reason why the products are so unique. Who’s is  bringing into business experience? You. And who’s is owning know how? Again you.  Exactly as mother yeast and against all the rest (which is by definition ever changing, i.e. market conditions, economics, competitive advantages, tec etc) your value increases with time.

Yeasts demand regular daily feedings of flour and water in order to produce the organic acids, alcohols, and carbon dioxide necessary to make bread rise: so invest also in your own development and not just in your business.

Yeasts improve the bread’s texture, nutritional value, and shelf life: a good entrepreneur improves business in many different ways, and only some of them is sometimes visible inside a BP.

The naked business pitcher PART 2

I’M LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL INVESTOR…..

And then in the mean time ? You probably will face a lot of exhausting presentations till you finally get to the right people. But, in the meantime, (business) life goes on…

Therefore the main supporter of you BP it’s you. A good business plan should help you to REACH THIS 8 GOALS:

Keep the pilot’s wheel in good hands…every firm needs a growth plan and a strategic plan. A BP can be the one.

Explaining to everyone in and outside the company how you run the ship; in other words, waiting for an investor to enable your firm’s full potential, let’s demonstrate at least your management style. If the BP is your recipe, your management style is…the etiquette. If it proves to be effective,  certainly someone will believe, if not in your present idea, certainly in you!!!!

Outside the company= deals with stakeholders… define therefore a disclosable part of your BP that can be used to inform external stakeholders and/or in order to establish a relation with them

Inside the company= a way to assign some  clear tasks to your colleagues…and therefore clearly define responsibilties inside the company. An organization chart without a job description is definitely not enough

Help entrepreneurs to plan and describe a (future) scenario; try to map the future through a BP…getting used to scenario planning is always a good exercise. And if yiu write it down is much better than just figuring it out in your mind.

Explaining with clear and simple words and consistent argumentation the benefit for potential investors…then confirm such a benefict with facts (=cash flow!)

Tell me your story I’ll tell you mine… To have a story to tell and disseminate: through the evolution of your ideas (keep all the different versions of your BP) and your…mistakes you will be able to tell your story as entrepreneur. Story is everything: business ideas are plants, time is the water (either too much ot too little it’s a problem!)……mistakes and failures represent the  fertlizer

Cash out cash in … how can you be (and make your potential partners/investors) confident that your company is going to survive the initial and crucial startup moments. Better to follow a plan and a process written in your BP

And by the way:

Pitching your BP is both an act of communication and an insane act of courage… but it must be fun! If it’s fun for you so probably will be for your audience too.

 

 

The naked business pitcher- PART 1

Let’s try to go back to basics. Business planning is nothing but:

1. something you simply need in order to explain your business footprint, and therefore the links between your startup business goals, organizational units, business functions and services and the degree to which it supports and contributes to make your business strategy feasible.
2. communication! Picthing is sometimes as hard as design your new product or service.

But the it’s strange that the two things are often considered and approached as separate moments.

Therefore here you get a table that tries to connect the 7 crucial topics you shouldn’t give up t in your Business plan, with pitching critical issues on presenting it, time percentage you should invest on it and the ideal number of slides in your pitching presentation.

 

CRUCIAL SUBJECT FOR BP	HINTS ON PITCHING	TIME (100% is total time)	AMOUNT OF SLIDES TO PRESENT IT
Intro: the story begins, tell headquarters, infrastructure, history, start-up plans, previous experiences that led you to this crucial pont. Keep in my mind, in a story of two, you and the firm. It’s like in good moovies: you just have got time to identify with the protagonist that something happens. If audience will identify with you, it’s likely the same will happen also with the following part of your plan & pitch	Always balance “images”, “sounds” and “emotions” when creating the pitch/presentation in order to exploit all the communication channels of your audience and maximize the possibilities to connect with them. VALUE SCALE (when pitching): Written words 8% Voice 38% Body language 55% SHOWING A PROTOTYPE 200 % !!!	10%	1.      “WHO WE ARE”; 2.      “OUR STORY”
The issue and the solution: what you provide, product and/or service, potential customer benefit, competitive advantages, what makes you think you are unique and standing out from you competitors	Eye contact: KEEP EYE CONTACT.   We all see mainly what we want to see nut at least try as much as you can, using images and graphic contents, to orientate your audience point of view exactly where you want. If the just keep on reading, it will be like speaking for yourself…and you, the protagonist, you will disappear from their screens. If something is supposed to remain confidential  don’t expect they will sign an NDA on this stage: mention just the essential keeping the rest for a possible further deepening (with NDA coverage)	25%	1.OUR PRODUCT/SERVICE 2. IT’S UNIQUE BECAUSE …. 3. CUSTOMER BENEFITS 4. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES TOWARDS COMPETITORS
Market Analysis: You need to know your market, its size, estimate time to reach it, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc	When pitching, a TAM SAM SOM approach proves real useful: TAM or Total Available Market is the total market demand for a product or service. TAM ≠your revenues ! SAM or Serviceable Available Market is the target segment of the TAM where you can realistically compete with your products and services. SAM≠ your revenue..you are probably not the only one standing in the target segment SOM or Serviceable Obtainable Market is the portion of SAM that you can realistically capture SOM= your expected revenue!	25%	1. MARKET ANALYSIS CRITERIA  2. TAM/SAM/SOM
Go to market Strategy and Roadmap: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budget. Business model Do you possibly have an MVP? If so, it’s time to introduce it	You are basically talking about time and different time scales: so it’s now that you are using the most precious and scarce resource your audience (and you) have.	15%	1. THE ROADMAP TO MARKET 2 A SHORTCUT: THE MVP
Management Team: Include backgrounds of key members of the team, personnel strategy, and details	GIVE to you and your partners a face and no an organization chart…. In your pitch the main product is you and your staff.  You won’t probably remember an org, chart, but you’ll certainly remember a face.	5%	1. OUR TEAM 2. OUR MAIN SKILLS AND PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
Financial Plan: Include profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, break-even analysis, assumptions, business ratios, etc. key metrics and minimun 3 yrs forecast be realistic!	Mention at least key assumptions and financial results highlights. Mention the break-even magic moment. If something is supposed to remain confidential  don’t expect they will sign an NDA on this stage: mention just the essential keeping the rest for a possible further deepening (with NDA coverage)	15%	1. FINANCIAL PLAN HIGLIGHTS 2. KEY ASSUMPTIONS AND KEY METRICS
Final abstract and conclusions	MAKE YOU SUPPORT AND/OR FUNDRAISING REQUEST!!!! OTHYERWISE WHY YOU WROTE AND PITCH A BP?	5%	1. IN MY DREAMS…

END OF PART ONE…