Johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #3

Session #3: Strategic Management

Presented by

Glenn Alpert

Entrepreneur Development Seminar


Get Organized

• Things should be starting to move forward at this point, but you need a

way to organize everything within your business and keep track of

everything.

• Recommendation: Clear your entire desktop, organize your folders,

backup your PC on external hard drive and in the cloud

• Create Folders:

• Theoretical

• Commercialization

• Production

• Strategic Management

• At this point, you should be ready write version 1.0 of your business plan.


Business Plan Skeleton

• The purpose of your Business Plan Skeleton is to get all of your thoughts

onto paper in a more organized way.

• The business plan is a living document that will be added to continually.

• It doesn’t have to be perfect; very few people will even see it at the early

stage of your business

• People WILL ask you if you have one, you need to say that you do

• It is OK to leave several sections as “under development” (marketing and

sales plan, for example). Its fine to say that you don’t have the answer yet

or you will work with an expert to help you develop a strategy.


Business Plan Skeleton

• Table of contents

• Message from founders

• Company overview

• Objectives

• Vision/Mission/Values

• Entrepreneurial success principles

• Company summary

• Your methods

• Positioning for the future

• Problem

• Solution

• Who are your customers?

• Business information

• Company ownership

• Expenses / financial records

• Products and services

• Long-term vision

• More fully-explained version

of pitch deck in written format

• Independent expert evaluation

• Red Team, Gold Team members

• Market analysis

• Market segmentation

• Competitive differentiators

• Marketing strategy

• Sales strategy

• Milestones

• Founder and board member bios


Strategic Management

• Strategic management is the continuous planning, monitoring, analysis

and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its

goals and objectives.

• Strategic management is slightly different in a startup or early stage

company, since growth is very incremental and organic.

• If you don’t stay organized, you will inevitably miss opportunities.

• What do you need to keep track of?

• What do you need to document and monitor?

• What documents do you need to have accessible and easy to locate?

• Create lists and folders


TCP Cycle

Theoretical

Commercial-ization

Production

Customer

Validation ($)

Strategic

Management


Management Inventory

• Legal documents

• NDAs

• Sales contracts

• Operating agreement

• Email drafts

• Facilities

• Meeting notes

• People

• Resumes

• Employees/consultants/interns

• Security

• Strategy

• Strategy presentations

• Financial information

• Financial information

• Accounting records

• Bank documents

• Incorporation documents

• Business plan

• Competitive intelligence

• Roadmap progress

• Vendors / contractors

• Board minutes / meetings

• Operating procedures


Accounting

• Document all of your expenses while still pre-revenue.

• Speak with an accountant or bookkeeper you can hire hourly.

• Order company checks connected to your bank account.

• You must absolutely open the books when you record revenue.

• Consult an adviser about taxes, payment forms, etc.


Legal

• Helpful to have an attorney you know for basic questions.

• Legal review of operating agreement when recording first revenue.

• Have a legal professional available on an hourly rate for editing / revising

legal documents.

• Set up free consultations if you need basic guidance in early phases.

• Know any risks you accept by signing a legal agreement.

• Find out if you need any type of business insurance.


Office Space Decision

• At this point, it is worth examining whether or not it is worth moving into a

business incubator. Explore incubators in your city with similar culture, fit,

or mentors who can help your company.

• Incubators can either accelerate your progress or you feel you could have

accomplished the same work without paying for space. Choose wisely.

• If financial need is too much of an issue or you are not fully operational,

continue to work remotely. Ask yourself if you really need an office or not.

• If you are working on your business part-time, you may not need space

yet. For JHU Students - If you need a conference room for the occasional

meeting, use the Learning Commons conference room 301.


Strategic Vision Deck

• Begin building a slide deck that you can present to advisors, mentors, at

your board meetings, or anyone who you discuss strategic issues with.

• The purpose of the Strategic Vision Deck is to keep your thinking up to

date on all of the changes within your company and within its many

moving parts.

• Update the deck with up-to-date information before every presentation.

• Some of the slides and materials can be recycled from other

presentations.



• Bottom Line Up Front (Idea Deck)

• Roadmap

• Current Progress

• Your Story

• Your Original Idea

• Your Pivot

• Market Opportunity

• Value Proposition

• Creation Process (how did you create your value proposition?)

• Top 5 Notable Reviewers (5 prominent people on you Gold Team)

• The Problem (Idea Deck)

• Why Worth Solving?

• The Solution (Idea Deck)

• Value Proposition Slide (Value Proposition Deck)



• Vision / Mission / Values (Idea Deck)

• Guiding Principles

• Culture – Message From the Founders

• Culture

• People / Team

• Advisory Board / Founders

• Current Status

• Future Needs

• Business Model – Starting Points

• Go-to-Market Strategy – Starting Points

• Competitive Intelligence

• Funding Strategies

Predictability

Profitability

Scalability

Repeatability

Validation

Creation

Confirmation

Ideation


Design Your Roadmap

Reduce Risk

Incre

ase V

alu

e

Credit: Harvard i-Lab


Current Progress

(Adjust boxes as necessary)

• What are you next immediate / short term objectives?

• Next week / month / quarter?

• What areas are you having trouble with or haven’t solved yet?

• (sales plan / marketing plan, etc.)

Technology Market Opportunity

Go-to-Market Plan

Business Model

uncertainty growth potential certainty

Product

Value PropositionPeople / Team


Your Story

• 3 slides

• 1. The inspiration / story of how you started

• 2. How you discovered your initial idea wasn’t exactly what the market

wanted, but you made new discoveries through the process and made

your pivot.

• 3. Where you plan to go in to future and what you want to become or

goals you want to accomplish


Market Opportunity

• What industry verticals?

• What type of customers?

• How large is the market?

• What is your niche and how large is it?

• What questions do you still need to answer about the market opportunity?


Value Proposition

• The process you went through to create your value proposition

• Who were the key people on the Red Team / Gold Team that helped you

develop your value proposition?

• What key pieces of information that they gave you?

• Why is “The Problem” worth solving? (correlates to market opportunity)


Guiding Principles

• Find a thought leader on a particular mode of ethical or moral conduct.

• Emulate that person’s teachings / theories and behavioral codes into the

culture and ethics of your company.

• You may find several ethical codes that you like and you can blend them

together.

• Examples:

• Thought leaders in business ethics

• Family tradition

• Another institution whose culture serves as a model

• Military values (common among veterans)

• Religious ethical code


Culture

• Overview of your company culture

• Your company values ________

• Code of conduct when nobody is looking.

• People involved with your company will make thousands of small

decisions that will impact the business. Culture provides them with a

framework to work within.

• You can choose your own culture and your own values for your company.


People / Team

• Advisory Board / Founders

• Key employees

• Management team

• Type of people or skill sets you will need in the future

• Current progress / human capital objectives


Business Model

• Your business model may be in its early stages at this point

• How do you move through the TCP Cycle in a systematic way?


Go-to-Market Strategy

• Likely under development at this point (a few thoughts to consider)

• Brand Positioning

• Messaging

• Social Media

• PR

• Customer Targeting

• Segmentation / Pricing

• Measurable Metrics

• Channel Development

• Marketing & Sales Cycle

• Strategic Partnering: Large companies that need your product / service

• What products / services are needed?

• Awareness

• Interest

• Understanding

• Engagement

• Trial

• Purchase

• Sales Plan

• Marketing Plan


Competitive Intelligence

• Use open-source / public information to learn about the competition.

• Conducted extensive research on the landscape of known competitors?

(Make detailed competitor research available in a separate document)

• How is your value proposition unique?

• What companies come the closest to your value prop, product / service,

business model, and go-to-market strategy? What can you emulate?

• Ask experts that know your industry well how you compare to others.

• Have a Gold Team member provide you with criteria for competitive

advantage. Now it’s up to you to differentiate from other competitors.


Funding Strategies

• Are you currently self-funded and in bootstrap mode?

• Are you still pre-revenue?

• If you have made revenue, what is your profit / loss?

• At what point do you explore funding sources?

• Are you going to develop technology?

• Government loan or private sources?

• Strategic / Corporate Investors? VC at a later point in time?

Johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #3

Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Transcript of Johns hopkins innovation factory entrepreneur development program #3