Business Plan

[UDT89]

I met my managers friend at work last night who is a venture capitalist. Granted he had a few drinks in him, but he offered to look at a business proposal of an idea i had for a private night club.

I wrote a 50 page business proposal in college, but he said he wont look at any proposals unless its 100 pages, an inch thick as he put it.

I called him today to see if he was serious, and he said absolutly. So i was wondering if anyone here at ATOT had to write up a business plan for their business and had a copy of it i can look at. OR, if anyone knows a website that walks you through writing one with examples.


Thanks for the help again AT.

Matt

 

[iamme]

well, start here first

g'luck

 

[Descartes]

100 pages? Good lord that's insane. I'd investigate to make sure this guy isn't wasting your time. Is 100 the norm?

 

[UDT89]

Originally posted by: Descartes
100 pages? Good lord that's insane. I'd investigate to make sure this guy isn't wasting your time. Is 100 the norm?

Hes definitly legit. He lives with my manager. He owns the house they live in among others; in addition my manager referred him to the club owners about getting money to expand.

Im not worried about validity, just worried about another 50 pages. And even if i get nothing from him, its good to have a business plan ready and have had someone look it over for faults.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: Descartes
100 pages? Good lord that's insane. I'd investigate to make sure this guy isn't wasting your time. Is 100 the norm?

Really depends on the business, the market, and what the VC wants.

Obviously putting a little hole in the wall bar in a town of 2000 people won't be able to provide as much market research as say putting in a full service restaurant in a city of 300,000.

 

[sash1]

I had to do a business plan for my entrepreneurship class, and it was only about 15 pages with diagrams and stuff.

I would say make a LOT of diagrams. Get blue-prints of buildings to stick in there. Take some lessons from strong-bad on writing a good paper: here

In all seriousness, I don't know HOW you would write a 100pg. business plan. I've seen some very good ones, and they're usually around 20-30 pages. Maybe do a lot of market analysis', predict the future (out to 10years) of the company, make lots of diagrams. And it is a night club, so get pictars of teh ladies and the stripper polls

Anyways, good luck!

`K

 

[UDT89]

Originally posted by: Kauru
I had to do a business plan for my entrepreneurship class, and it was only about 15 pages with diagrams and stuff.

I would say make a LOT of diagrams. Get blue-prints of buildings to stick in there. Take some lessons from strong-bad on writing a good paper: here

In all seriousness, I don't know HOW you would write a 100pg. business plan. I've seen some very good ones, and they're usually around 20-30 pages. Maybe do a lot of market analysis', predict the future (out to 10years) of the company, make lots of diagrams. And it is a night club, so get pictars of teh ladies and the stripper polls

Anyways, good luck!

`K

Strong Bad is the "ish".

 

[GL]

A typical business plan has between 10 - 13 sections, each of these subdivided into 4 or 5 sub-sections. So, it's not unusual to expect a report to be 100 pages. Remember, with lots of graphics (graphs, photos of the location, etc.) it's easy to fill pages quickly. Anyways, the thing to remember is that a venture capitalist will be reading that business plan differently than other people interested in doing so. A 50 page business plan can be more effective than a longer one if you're the type of person that can make a good plan and stick with it. Hell, many businesses start with no formal business plan and are extremely successful. Subway was started by a kid given a few thousand dollars in cash that he was to use to make sandwiches to sell, to help pay for his education. Kinkos was started by a dyslexic who'd probably have a harder time reading a business plan let alone writing one. There's no one single formula for success in business.

 

[FoBoT]

you better listen to GL , his user rating is 521.06

and he has a coherent post with good puncutuation

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
you better listen to GL , his user rating is 521.06

and he has a coherent post with good puncutuation

That's awesome. I'd give him a 10 but I don't want to hurt his average any....

 

[Danman]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: FoBoT
you better listen to GL , his user rating is 521.06

and he has a coherent post with good puncutuation

That's awesome. I'd give him a 10 but I don't want to hurt his average any....

LOL

 

[gopunk]

i'm taking a class where we have guest lecturers every class... these are venture capitalists and ceo's dealing primarily with bioengineering type things, like medical devices... very successful people. the venture capitalists have all specifically said that they won't read thick business plans, they just skim over them. makes sense, they get tons of these things every day, there's not enough time to read them all.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: UDT89
I met my managers friend at work last night who is a venture capitalist. Granted he had a few drinks in him, but he offered to look at a business proposal of an idea i had for a private night club.

I wrote a 50 page business proposal in college, but he said he wont look at any proposals unless its 100 pages, an inch thick as he put it.

I called him today to see if he was serious, and he said absolutly. So i was wondering if anyone here at ATOT had to write up a business plan for their business and had a copy of it i can look at. OR, if anyone knows a website that walks you through writing one with examples.


Thanks for the help again AT.

Matt

btw, you should just put in 50 pictures of scantily clad women... potential target market for your night club

 

[UDT89]

Originally posted by: gopunk
i'm taking a class where we have guest lecturers every class... these are venture capitalists and ceo's dealing primarily with bioengineering type things, like medical devices... very successful people. the venture capitalists have all specifically said that they won't read thick business plans, they just skim over them. makes sense, they get tons of these things every day, there's not enough time to read them all.

But i bet the ones they read arent the small ones.

 

[Tsaico]

interesting reading material.....

 

[Alchemist99]

Bah, I call B.S. I mean come on the criteria this guy gives you is "I only read plans over a hundred pages", please what a joke! If this guy is as smart as he makes himself out to be then he's already got you pegged as a n00b and he's messing with you. Have him look at your existing plan and see what suggestions he can give you.

A business plan can vary in size, obviously as it depends on the complexity of the project but 50 pages should be more than enough to get the point across, and besides the plan is just one part and the money its another but with any business it takes many other components to make it successfull,

 

[TommyVercetti]

A 100 page business plan? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO INCLUDE IN IT?

 

[TechBoyJK]

Hi. I'm dealing with a vc and incubator right now. Our business plan was well written and accepted with open arms by the incubator. It is 21 pages and is getting over a million in funding. Doesn't need to be 100 pages. Make him read your plan at 50 pages or even 25, and if he asks you to elaborate, then elaborate.

it could actually harm your plan being extra long, since many of the guiding principles might get clouded by excess bs and fill.

There are Angel Investors, then there are Venture Capitalists. Angels aren't usually as business savvy. They are people who got a large inheritance or legal settlement and wish to help entrepreneurs out. Then their are VC's. They are in the game in the first place for the money. They are going to maximize their investment and milk it for everything they can.

Angel investors are usually better to deal with. They, for the most part, don't try and stick their noses all up in the business they don't understand, which can be a pain. They usually just have faith in their investment and let it do its thing.

So, the VC you are talking about is definately an amatuer VC. He might be a VC, but any real VC is going to ask you for an executive summary only two pages long before he even asks for a plan. Thats the way it goes in the VC world. Since he asked you for a 100 page plan before a summary, tells me this isn't the best VC to get involved with. Just my two cents.

JK

 

[TechBoyJK]

case in point. At the last Angel Investors conference I went to in Silicon Valley, you saw all of the start ups walking around with their 1 or 2 page executive summaries. Nobody had biz plans with them.

I challenge this. Ask him if he would rather start with your 2 page Executive Summary. If he says no, ask why. Tell us his reason. I'm curious.

 

[spp]

Dude..... he's playing with you.
do you think he'll actually read the 100 pages once you've bs your way there?

 

[InverseOfNeo]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: FoBoT
you better listen to GL , his user rating is 521.06

and he has a coherent post with good puncutuation

That's awesome. I'd give him a 10 but I don't want to hurt his average any....

LOL

 

[UDT89]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
case in point. At the last Angel Investors conference I went to in Silicon Valley, you saw all of the start ups walking around with their 1 or 2 page executive summaries. Nobody had biz plans with them.

I challenge this. Ask him if he would rather start with your 2 page Executive Summary. If he says no, ask why. Tell us his reason. I'm curious.

Next time i see him i will definitly ask. Whats included in a executive summary?

But for everyone saying he doesnt know what hes talking about, id ask you to just help me with my question. I dont really need your input on the type of guy he is or if hes full of crap. I know his past business dealings, so im not worried about his creds.

 

[UDT89]

i decided to just call him. I called him and he said he doesnt want to see a summary because he already likes the idea. He said the summary would just repeat everything i went over with him the last time we spoke. He just wants a buiness plan, with a 3 month projection.


Im happy about the 3 month projection, b/c i have a 6 month projection in my current plan. Im just going to hand him my business plan after i edit it for my newer ideas. 50 pages is more than enough. Mines 50 pages only because i went into extreme detail on the designing of the club down to the type of carpeting and light bulbs used.

Wish me luck

 

[iwearnosox]

A good business plan is no more than 12 pages. Have an executive summary handy.

My last business plan was 9 pages. We raised 52 million dollars.

 

[sash1]

Originally posted by: UDT89

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
case in point. At the last Angel Investors conference I went to in Silicon Valley, you saw all of the start ups walking around with their 1 or 2 page executive summaries. Nobody had biz plans with them.

I challenge this. Ask him if he would rather start with your 2 page Executive Summary. If he says no, ask why. Tell us his reason. I'm curious.

Next time i see him i will definitly ask. Whats included in a executive summary?

But for everyone saying he doesnt know what hes talking about, id ask you to just help me with my question. I dont really need your input on the type of guy he is or if hes full of crap. I know his past business dealings, so im not worried about his creds.

The executive summary is the most important part of any business plan. It is usually one or two pages. It is concise and gives a complete overview of your business by not going into detail on any specific items. Make your executive summary very good, it is the most important aspect.

Just say that you don't feel as though adding 50 more pages of "fluff" would enhance your business plan. It is much harder to keep things "concise"--though I'd hardly consider even 50 pages concise --then to make them longer. Just say that you feel as though he would be more pleased with the business plan you have than one of 100 pages and just see what he says...

`K