blog

Business Networking for Entrepreneurs - Make Connections - Not Deals

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:56:37 +0100

So you're an entrepreneur and you hate networking....

Get over it.

Great video by Kauffman Foundation on how to go about creating a network of influence that will help your start-up flourish.

Business Plans

The 5 Critical Steps to Funding Business Growth

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:26:50 +0100

Often raising funding is a life or death issue for businesses seeking to grow. Even the most successful businesses get to a point where they need to raise capital in order to move to the next level.

If you want to...

· grow locally or internationally,

· prepare for a major marketing push,

· access funding via grants, debt or raising capital,

· a step by step process to raising the funding you need.

This session will provide you with 5 concrete things you need to get started on NOW if you want to take your business to the next level.

Business Planning

Business Planning HQ Customer Grid Tential Raises $1m in Equity Funding

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 03:54:46 +0100

Roda Group, the venture capital investor that’s the largest shareholder in the biofuel companySolazyme Inc. (SZYM), is backing a startup using advanced production techniques to improve storage performance of standard lead-acid batteries.

Gridtential Energy Inc. received a $1 million seed investment from Roda, the San Jose, California-based battery company said today in an e-mailed statement. It will use the money to develop and test a prototype product by next year, with the goal of starting commercial sales in 2016, according to Chief Executive Officer Christiaan Beekhuis.

Gridtential is adapting the same battery technology used in automobiles. Beekhuis expects to improve charging time and energy storage capacity by using systems developed by Intevac Inc. (IVAC), a provider of capital equipment for the disk drive and solar industries.

“What we’re doing is applying a modern manufacturing method from the semiconductor industry to battery technology,” Beekhuis said by telephone.

The company is eyeing the traction-battery market, which spends about $3 billion a year on batteries for golf carts, forklifts and other small vehicles, and the stationary market for systems to power telecommunications gear and store energy from solar panels, worth about $5 billion annually, he said.

Gridtential isn’t planning to make products for the $22 billion a year car-battery market. It may eventually consider larger applications for grid storage, he said.

Roda, based in Berkeley, California, owns about 9 percent of Solazyme, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Closely held Gridtential was founded in 2010 and was previously funded by its founders and a grant from the California Energy Commission, Beekhuis said.

Acquiring Customers Online - Panda and Penguin

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:23:11 +0100

One of the most effective way of obtaining new customers that are interested in your product or service, is to originate leads online.

So, you've built a great website (or you are planning to build one). The concept of build it and they will come definitely doesn't work online.

Buying traffic is expensive (usually costing more than $1 per click), and with average conversion rates below 2 in 100, the direct cost of Pay Per Click Marketing online is $50. The issue with this is that if you build this cost into the cost of your product, most often your conversion rate drops significantly.

Recently Google has made some significant changes to the way it ranks and rate sites. Being on page one for your key search terms can be worth Tens of Thousands of dollars per month. How do you access this traffic. This video is one of the very few that I have seen that really explains the landscape in 2013.

Take heed of the issues raised in this video or ignore at your own peril.

5 Steps To Funding Business Growth

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 05:10:22 +0100

In this informative funding video, Business Coach, David Guest interviews Business Planning HQ Founder, Marcus Tarrant about what practical things need to happen in order to fund business growth.

Duration: 45 Minutes
Interviewer: David Guest, Managing Director, David Guest Coaching
Interviewee: Marcus Tarrant, Managing Director, Business Planning HQ

6 Questions You Must Be Able To Answer Prior to Pitching For Investment

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 01:48:33 +0100

Pitching for investment is one of the most important tasks you'll ever face in creating a successful, and well capitalized business. While you may feel ready to field any question investors throw at you, you should carefully think through and practice your responses. "More often than not, it's the obvious questions people fall down on because they haven’t effectively thought through all the issues," says Marcus Tarrant, Managing Director, Business Planning HQ.

1. What do your customers need and what is the specific customer problem that you are addressing?

It isn't enough to tell investors there's a need for your product; you require hard facts and real-world examples of how your product or technology interfaces with the customer problem. Customer problem discovery is one of the most critical activities that an early stage business needs to undertake. Investors like to see validation of the customer problem, with an indication of the cost of customer acquisition. If you have a clearly identified customer acquisition plan oriented around an identified customer problem, with evidence of the cost of customer acquisition and an early indication of customer lifetime value then, you will be able to build a compelling investment proposition.

2. What have you already accomplished as a business?

Your existing accomplishments create business credibility. If you haven’t already accomplished anything, why would an investor be interested in investing in your business? Be sure to focus on your accomplishments so far, such as clients you’ve secured, distributors you’ve reached out to, new hires you are bringing on board. Small-business owners often spend too much time talking about the story behind their product and the difficulties they went through developing their business rather than homing in on their milestones and achievements. In early stage businesses, your focus is most likely to have been on technical development or solving a technical problem. Highlight achievements in solving this technical issue in the context of how others have gone about solving a similar issue.

3. What's your competitive advantage in the context of the market in which you will be operating?

Ideally you will be able to provide some evidence of your competitive advantage, and how this advantage translates into goal based outcomes for your business. Competitive advantage is a market based concept and should be considered in relation to other players in the marketplace. If, for example, your competitive advantage is that you are more nimble than your larger and more bureaucratic competitors, provide a specific example of how this has helped you win and retain new customers. Sometime a map of competitive advantages and relative strengths can assist in clarifying your competitive advantage in the minds of your potential investors.

4. How do you define your market Niche?

Let’s assume for a minute that you are doing something innovative. Ideally your innovation will create or expand a new niche. The way you define your niche and the associated rationale for its growth (relative to the market) is critical for business success. Your definition of the niche can be used to communicate to the investor exactly how you see the business to be positioned, and more importantly to identify the key factors that will drive the wave of growth in the business.

Focusing on a broad based market entry strategy is considered by many early stage investors to be suicide. Ensure that you identify your niche and explain how you will become the dominant play in that niche. Research by the Harvard business review indicates that dominant players in a niche have a higher likelihood of success and significantly higher margins. The so called “Star” companies are what many investors have on their hidden evaluation forms!

5. What are the key drivers and sensitivity points of your business?

To show investors you really understand your company, point out potential vulnerabilities and how they might affect you. To address key sensitivities, we even take the typical SWOT model to the Next level (SWOTM), Marcus Tarrant, Founder of Business Planning HQ says. A SWOTM ensures that the mitigating activities for the threats are well considered and outlined. In addition to just considering these, they ideally should be modeled into the financials. A driver based financial model can be one of the best ways of letting an investor “Step inside” your business and give it a test run. Some businesses are highly vulnerable to referral rates (Web 2.0 companies) others are vulnerable to fixed and variable costs.

6. What are you going to use the money for?

If an investor is putting money into your business, he doesn’t want it going towards a new Porche for the founders! To avoid trouble down the track with your investors, a clearly laid out investment profile is required. This ensures that everyone is clear on what the funds will be used for and how the success fo the expenditure will be measured.

Investors like to know their money will be used to build products, hire employees or add to the business in some other tangible way. Entrepreneurs often make the mistake of talking about more general plans for the funding, such as marketing, distribution or product development. You need to clearly define and budget for each required activity on the business development path, and have a clear mechanism for managing this expenditure.

The London Startup Show

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:18:32 +0100

We exhibited at the London Startup Show at Olympia. There were over 350 exhibitors and we were strategically positioned next to the Business Planning workshop series sponsored by Sage Accounting.

Equity Based Crowdunding and the Jobs Act

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 22:40:35 +0100

For Immediate Release - Olay! Aussie Matador of Business Planning delivers for Mexican Startups

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 04:12:01 +0100

For Immediate Release

Thursday 27^th September 2012

Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne Based Business Planning HQ creates 10 Business Plans in 1 hour from 13,000km’s away.

Business Planning HQ, delivered 10 Business Plans in 1 hour for a “Group Virtual Consulting Event” at “The Wayra Space” in Mexico City earlier today. The event was held for South America’s leading incubator/accelerator Program, Wayra (A division of the Telecommunications giant Telefonica).

When initially working with Wayra Mexico, Business Planning HQ created a trial plan for one of their incubator companies (Nok Noker).

“ We learned today that Nok Noker has gone on to raise USD $350k with the documentation they generated in the workshop”, says Marcus Tarrant, Founder of Business Planning HQ.

Business Planning HQ’s ability to deliver for Wayra in Mexico is the result of 2 years continued development and refinement of the Business Planning HQ Toolkit. The Toolkit enables one facilitator to consult to up-to 50 companies at once with every company receiving a completed business plan, pitch pack and investor brochure. The unique Business Planning HQ technology and event format was pioneered in Australia, before being taken to Silicon Valley. “Following a trial at the Plug and Play Incubator in Silicon Valley earlier this year, there has been significant interesting from across the world in running these events”, says Marcus Tarrant, Founder of Business Planning HQ.

Using a proprietary “Virtual Consulting” technology known HyperQuestions® with one on-site facilitator we were able to create investment grade documents for can enable up-to 100 companies to create a complete investor grade business plan, pitch pack and investment brochure in a six hour frenzy of activity.

Unlike traditional business planning approaches, HyperQuestions® tailor to each business as it progresses through a proven planning methodology. This means that every company in the room experiences unique insight, and is able to resolve key strategic issues as they plan. The answers to the HyperQuestions are then fed into the “HyperQuestions Engine” (Australian IP) which enhances the answers, values the business and leverages the content. Using this technology that the user only enters 800 words and receives a 6,000 word investor quality business plan, 16 slide pitch pack, and investment brochure.

Unlike software, HyperQuestions use embedded logic to drive the company to strategic breakthroughs, trade-offs and decisions.

Marcus Tarrant, Managing Director of Business Planning HQ says, “We are very pleased to be able to work with an organisation of the profile of Telefonica, and are pleased to be able to supports its mission to accelerate the development of Ideas into growth enterprises. We have proven the effectiveness of our technology in delivering group based business planning outcomes, even where English is a second language.”

A similar event was recently held for the ANZ Innovyz Start program in Adelaide. Brett Burford, CEO of Credit Key, who was one of the 10 participating Innovyz Start companies in the says, “I found the Business Planning HQ approach motivating, yet challenging. It certainly pushed me to consider aspects of my company that I had previously not done. I have not come across a more productive way to get a business plan done.”

In addition to the traditional challenges associated with group based business planning, for Telefonica we have the additional challenge of language. The attendees at the Mexico City event are all Spanish native speakers, with English as a second language. The nature of the Business Planning HQ technology enables many of the language barriers to be overcome, even within a compressed timeframe.

Business Planning HQ is working with a number of other global Accelerators, Incubators and Training programs to enable truly global delivery of consulting services.

About Business Planning HQ

Business Planning HQ is a Melbourne Based company specialising in the rapid delivery of investor quality business planning documents. We have developed a unique approach to business planning that uses a combination of process an questions (known as HyperQuestions) to reduce the time taken to produce investor quality documentation from weeks or months to just on day.

Marcus Tarrant, founder of Business Planning HQ has over 20 years of experience in business planning. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Monash Univ. Melb, Aust) and a Masters In Entrepreneurship (Swinburne Univ. Melb. Aust.)

Over the past 20 years he has worked for some of the worlds largest consulting firms including Deloitte Consulting and Lloyd Morgan Consulting.
He has assisted some of the world's leading venture capital firms in assessing and structuring deals include 3i Plc, Innovation Capital, UniSeed, Melbourne Ventures, Stoneridge Ventures and Offspring Ventures.

About Wayra

Wayra is the startup accelerator arm of Telefonica, South America’s leading telecommunications company. Wayra has 12 academies across South America and Europe and have accelerated 172 digital and mobile technologies.

Wayra Mexico is responsible for the acceleration of 10 high profile start-ups each year.

Mexican Giant Telefonica to Power Startups with Melbourne Based Business Planning HQ

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:43:59 +0100

Following an 3 month technology evaluation crossing Australia, Spain, Mexico and the United States, Business Planning HQ has signed an agreement with Telefonica to deliver its unique Business Plan in 1 day event in Mexico City on September 27^th. This will be delivered on-site at “The Wayra Space”, in Mexico City by Business Planning HQ’s San Francisco based representative, David Brown. Document process and servers for the event will be provided from Business Planning HQ’s headquarters in Richmond, Melbourne.

Business Planning HQ’s ability to deliver for Telefonica in Mexico is the result of 2 years continued development and refinement of the Business Planning HQ Toolkit. The Toolkit enables one facilitator to consult to up-to 50 companies at once with every company receiving a completed business plan, pitch pack and investor overview by the end of the 1 day program. The unique Business Planning HQ technology and event format was pioneered in Australia, before being taken to Silicon Valley. “Following a trial at the Plug and Play Incubator in Silicon Valley earlier this year, there has been significant interesting from across the world in running these events”, says Marcus Tarrant, Managing Director, Business Planning HQ.

Business Planning HQ is working with a number of other global Accelerators, Incubators and Training programs to enable truly global delivery.

Contact Details:

Marcus.tarrant@businessplanninghq.com

PH: 03 9005 9710

Mob: 0404 029835

www.businessplanninghq.com

About Business Planning HQ

About Wayra

Wayra Mexico is responsible for the acceleration of 10 high profile start-ups each year.