Writing An Effective Venture Capital Business Plan

Writing an effective venture capital business plan can be a challenging task to say the least. Business plans for venture capital require strength, determination and quality since you are going to be talking to the investors that hold the key to the future of your company in their hands.

Unfortunately, no more than 2 to 5 percent of companies looking for venture capital actually succeed with their goal.Some fail on the first attempt and give up, others learn from the experience, correct the mistakes they made with their first venture capital business plan and strategies and go back to the venture capitalists for a second, third and forth time before they get the growth capital they require.

The small percentage (2-5%) that succeed in getting a venture capital investment for their business probably know something that the others don’t!  Those that are successful in getting venture capital know how to position their companies in front of the venture capitalists, they know how to present them to capture the attention of their prospective investors and in many cases this is done in the first instance by the presentation of aneffective venture capital business plan.

It is obvious that this is no small achievement given the small number of people that are successful in finding growth capital from investors, so what did they do?

Here is a closer look at a few things that you can do:

1. Position Your Company – This means being in a successful industry with the potential for growth, ideally one that the prospective venture capitalists know well. Having a chain of ten successful stores is a very strong recommendation and would help your prospects as would the vision of ten successful stores presented in the right business plan to the correct group of venture capitalists.

2. Venture Capitalists Want A Sense of “WOW” – The initial response to your VC business plan needs to create a WOW factor.  An effective business plan is one thing, but a business plan that makes people sit up and take notice is another.  Having a WOW factor in your business plan doesn’t have to mean you set unrealistic goals, it just means that the vision you have, and your mechanism for implementing it are in line and that the venture capitalists reading your business plan can envision it coming to place with the correct injection of growth capital for your business.  The presentation may not be everything, but without it, there is nothing.

Business plans for venture capital will have the most unique approach of all. Venture capital business plans cannot be “canned”. Entrepreneurs who use business plan templates at this level of funding just won’t get this level of funding, its as simple as that.  The people who are reviewing these proposals have seen hundreds if not thousands of business plans and know which ones are genuine and which ones are from the wanna-bees.

A venture capital business plan presentation must be sophisticated, complete, accurate and, yes, it must also be dynamic. It must represent the company just like an ad in The Financial Review or The Australian would represent the company.

More than any other type of business plan, yours must have a solid foundation of marketing stats. Research, research, and more research.

You should create the most outstanding business plan possible. Sometimes there is no second chance at some venture capitalists, so make that first impression count.

Create an outstanding website. Whether your company’s business is based on the internet or not, a strong presence here is essential to convey your professionalism and seriousness to the potential investors.

It’s an mistake to believe the catchphrase that venture capitalists don’t invest in companies, they invest in people. Without doubt, an exceptionally strong management team with a so-so product will get a better response than a weak entrepreneur with a good product. The theory is that it’s easier to improve a product than it is to improve the people behind it. So strut your stuff — the VCs are watching. (This means you should “make that business plan so outstanding that they can’t refuse it, no matter what the product is.”)