Our first post . . .

Pop quiz — how long should a business plan be?

A: <10 pages
B: 11-20 pages
C: 21-50 pages
D: Over 50 pages

The answer: all are correct!!  And . . . all are wrong.

Welcome to Finch Walker LLC’s blog!  We are business consultants (someone once told me the word “consultant” was an euphemism for “unemployed”; that’s not always true, and it’s certainly not true for us, but it’s kinda funny).

This is our first blog post and hopefully not our last.  While we can’t promise to be consistent in our postings, we can promise to strive to make them somewhat interesting.

Now, regarding the business plan thing above, over the years I have consulted Entrepreneur magazine, the Small Business Administration, a business expert panel at MIT, dozens of business lawyers, angel investors and venture capitalists, not to mention a ton of blogs, websites and books.

They all tend to say different things when it comes to the length (and sometimes the content) of the ideal business plan.

I confess that this is a little unfair of me.  A business plan, of course, should be just as long as it needs to be to get the message across and to entice the reader to act in a positive way.

If the person you’re targeting likes to read shorter plans, make it shorter. If he or she wants more detail, include it. I know that’s a little obvious and maybe more than a little simplistic, but it’s the truth. Believe me — I’ve been there. Many times.

It just ticks me off a little when people try to say the best plan is always X pages.

We’ll talk about stuff like this in the future, I hope.  And we’ll talk about other things as well that might be of more interest.

I won’t be the only author (I’m sure you’re happy about that) and the specific subjects will vary. I think it will be interesting.

So, thank you for checking this thing out — we hope you’ll like what we say and enjoy the experience.

Know what you're missing

A friend of mine is a partner at a venture capital firm in Los Angeles. He says he sees about 1500 business plan each year and, in a good year, they will fund maybe 6 or 7.

When evaluating businesses for possible investment, he has told me that he looks closely at the company leadership, and he wants to see two main things: passion and business acumen.

Whenever he watches an entrepreneur eloquently describe his dream, and sees the excitement and fervor in the presentation, he always looks on the staff for "the nervous, book-ish person; the guy with the bow tie or the shy woman with the glasses."  If he/she is there the VC will feel much better about the enterprise.

He feels that many businesses fail because they lack a key resource (financial controls, management, etc.).  He feels you need to have both the passion and the business knowledge.  And he wants any new business to at least understand what they are lacking.

The point is, it's a good idea to take a long, hard, honest look at your company and see what resources you're lacking before you present to a potential investor.  You should at least be aware of areas you need help in, and admit to those needs, before you look for investment cash.