Business Plans 2.0 Presentation

business plans customer validation traction

Yesterday I gave a talk with Kam Khare at the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University titled, “Business Plans 2.0.” The idea is that business plans have evolved, especially the type of business plan a venture capitalist or angel investor expects to see from a founder.

First Kam presented on the traditional business plan and how to think through financial models. Kam also spoke about specifics around competing in business plan competitions.

My half of the presentation (slides 10-17) focused on “securing investment.”

The way I see it, the landscape for founder fundraising has changed dramatically in the last 10, or even 5 years. Venture Capitalists and angels investors don’t care about business plans in the traditional sense any longer.

Instead they care about “validation” for both you and your idea. The tradition business plan is theoretical; show them what traction or progress you have made instead.

During the talk I describe the three steps I see as necessary for getting to validation. Also, apologies for having to leave immediately afterwards — if you attended yesterday, and have a question, feel free to follow-up by email.

I have embedded the presentation below using SlideShare:

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