Month: February 2010

You don’t need a business plan for your startup

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I recently tuned into a webcast hosted by Dharmesh Shah & Brian Halligan (founders of Hubspot) about startups, raising capital, and launching a new venture.  There were lots of great nuggets in the presentation and I am definitely a fan of what they are doing around owning "inbound marketing" as a concept at Hubspot.

Their contention, which I agree with in principle, is that going through the effort of drafting, editing, and constantly updating a lengthy business plan is not a wise use of your time or energy as you are trying to hash out an idea and/or raise capital to support it. 

Here are the three items Shah & Halligan suggest (with my commentary):

  1. A Powerpoint deck – how did we possibly communicate before Powerpoint came along?  Keep it short and sweet as nobody likes 30+ slide presentations.  See if you can nail it in 10 including a title and conclusion slide.
  2. An Executive Summary (1-2 page) – probably the only thing that will actually be read so keep it tight and to the point. This is for investors, potential hires, and just about anybody else so don't (please) think you need an NDA signed to share it.
  3. Three year proforma P&L – yes, the actual numbers are mostly fiction at this point but it is essential to understand cost and revenue drivers as well as the dynamics related to scaling the business to profitability.

Not having a lengthy and detailed business plan does not mean not having a thorough plan with details worked out…it just means that maintaining the "plan" does not take 30% of your time.

To really hash out your thinking and easily share with others use something interactive like a wiki (I like Pbworks but there are many others).

Also, here is the link to their presentation "Money, Marketing, and Management with the Hubspot Founders"

Slow posting here but busy over on the Gist blog

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Apologies for the slow posting here recently.  I have definitely not run out of things to say and have several posts about half written at this point.  I'll get focused and finish them off soon.

In the meantime, we've been posting quite a bit to the Gist blog and here are a few recent posts that I've written that you might find interesting:

Three reasons social media should be part of your business plan

Use retweet to introduce yourself

Gist is your virtual foot in the door

Going It Alone: Four Tips to Becoming a Consultant

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

Having spent a bit of time as a consultant, I thought this was a good article in the Wall Street Journal about how to do it right.  Here are the four tips with my commentary.

  1. Think Long Term – have a business plan and understand what you offer vs. being reactive to doing anything.  Don't be afraid to say "no" but make sure you know what you want to say "yes" to.
  2. Join a Network – cannot emphasize enough networking and even formal referral selling relationships with others.  This means doing more than joining a group on LinkedIn but truly having and engaging with a professional network.  The time to get involved is not when you are looking for business. 
  3. Have Your Own Space – working from home can be a challenge without a designated place preferably with a door to separate where you live from where you work.  If you don't have one, find a company with some excess space and see about renting or bartering for a desk.
  4. Think Like an Entrepreneur – you are running a business so you must be look at it from that perspective.  Understand your cash flow needs as well as have a plan (see #1) around what you want to accomplish on a quarterly and annual basis.

The interesting data point that jumped out to me in this article was that "20% to 23% of U.S. workers are operating as consultants, freelancers, free agents, contractors or micropreneurs."  Wow!  That's quite a large number and an interesting trend to grasp as it relates to the services and support this category of worker needs.

*Thanks to Scott Stanzel for pointing me to this article.