I write business plans for some startup and SME clients. I review business plans for Enterprise Agencies. I also provide training on business plans. A question I am often asked is, ‘what content goes into a business plan’, with the follow up being, ‘how much information should be included in an Executive Summary‘. Most people…
I am delighted to announce that my latest online training programme, ‘Writing Your Business Plan’ is now live. To publish this online training was an early goal for 2020 as it was on my ‘to do list’ for a while as I regularly deliver one day workshops on preparing business plans for New Frontiers, IBYE…
I have said for years that the best investor ready business plan preparation guide is the Business Cube Methodology published by InterTrade Ireland the organisors of the SeedCorn Investor Readiness Competition. So I was delighted to see that a modernised edition, now referred to as Business Cube, has been published in 2019. It is a…
Congratulations to all the national winners of IBYE 2019 …link to official IBYE release I was delighted to hear the results via Twitter on Sunday 15th September that Sharon Cunningham of Shorla Pharma was selected as Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur having earlier scooped the National Winner in Best Start Up Business – TIPPERARY Sean McGarry,…
Managing a startup business is NOT easy. Startup entrepreneurs have lots of balls in the air. Lean Startup books, theory and practice are brilliant but the question is which model or framework do you follow and when – and are they all relevant to an Irish startup situation? To address this dilemma Donncha devised the…
How to address Exit in a business plan involves convincing an Investor that they will get a big return on their investment – the options from Trade Sale, IPO and further rounds are discussed with Irish examples (plus a short excerpt from a brilliant article about Facebook). The key issue of Valuation is also addressed.
I write several business plans for clients every year and I also regularly create tender documents for my own business, with partners and for customers. I review many more business plans to include InterTrade Ireland’s Seedcorn competition and tender submissions. Having a professional-looking document is a great start. Here are some of my top tips…
Bullet charts are a superb data visualisation tool – if you want to present results of a metric such as Sales across two periods e.g. this year versus last year (or against this year’s target) in for instance a business plan update. The advantage is that they allow presentation of comparative information while also presenting…
This blogpost will focus on writing your business plan so that it proves valuable to you during your first year in business – we don’t want it to just gather dust, that is never be read again. In essence, your business plan should concisely detail what your business is about, who your customers are, and why they buy from you. It will also set out how you plan to grow the business. You should write your business plan with the objective of copying and pasting the words, descriptions, images and graphs into other communications during your first year. You can refer to your business plan to explain to suppliers such as website and graphic designers and your accountant what your business is about. You can also use it with agents, partners, and your bank manager to set out the vision for your business. Finally, you can also use it for yourself and your team to record ideas for the future and most critically to track the progress of your business.
My presentation to Limerick City Enterprise Board Startup Network ‘Marketing : The starting point for Startups’
My reasons for choosing to set up as a Management Consultant on a self employed basis.