In researching the
factors that make a business plan or start up venture attractive for venture
capitalists and angel investors, I have chosen to focus on the advice provided
by Guy Kawasaki and Paul Buchheit.
Guy
Kawasaki, is most commonly known for his role as the former Chief Evangelist of
Apple Computer, however this design and sales guru actually started his working
career with a fine-jewelry manufacturer called Nova Stylings (Kawasaki,
2006). Over the past thirty-two years,
Kawasaki has watched his role in the ever-changing world of technology evolve
as he has co-founded three separate firms, two of which, Alltop and ACIUS, are
technology based companies, and the third, Garage Technology Ventures, which is
a start up investment firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs in raising capital
for the operations of their business enterprises (Kawasaki, 2006).
Over
the years Mr. Kawasaki has written thirteen books aimed at guiding
entrepreneurs down the path of successful business formation and operation. In a recent interview with entrepreneurial
community Startup Grind, Mr. Kawasaki shares his key insights regarding the
ingredients that make a company an attractive opportunity for investors. During this interview, Mr. Kawasaki
emphasizes that before creating a business plan, entrepreneurs should focus first
on creating prototypes of the products and/or services that they wish to sell
in order to gauge the reaction and acceptance of their work by the intended
consumer market (Startup Grind, 2015). In
his 2006 article The Zen of Business
Plans, Mr. Kawasaki provides specific advice regarding the necessary components
of creating a successful business plan once this initial “bootstrapping” phase
has been completed; stressing that the executive summary is the most important
part of the business plan from an investor’s standpoint (Kawasaki, 2006). Additionally, Mr. Kawasaki emphasizes that the
writing structure of the business plan should be deliberate, capitalize on the
excitement that the plan could result in a huge success, and also be focused on
and provide supplemental supporting information for the corresponding business
pitch (Kawasaki, 2006).
Paul
Buchheit is widely known, in the realm of Silicon Valley, as the man that
created Gmail (Buchheit, n.d.). While at
Google, Buchheit built the prototype for AdSense, and was responsible for
crafting Google’s now famous slogan “Don’t be evil” (Buchheit, n.d.). In 2007 he was one of the founders of
Friendfeed, which in 2009 became Facebook’s largest acquisition to date (Buchheit,
n.d.).
As
it pertains to his view on business plans, Buchheit has followed a similar
mentality to that of Guy Kawasaki. In
2009, Buchheit was quoted as stating that his view on start up success could be
summed up as, “Consider spending less time talking, and more time prototyping,
especially if you’re not very good at talking” (Nivi, 2009). This philosophy has begun to take root in the
minds of investors as the ultimate success of a start up enterprise is not
rooted solely in the business plan, but in the ability of the company to
produce the high quality services or products outlined in the plan. In most cases, investors would place more
value on companies that have “prototyped” as this experimental process offers
would be consumers a chance provide feedback on the company’s products or
services. As an example of this philosophy in action, Buchheit
has referenced the start up company Airbnb and pointed out several of the issues
that the start up suffered prior to obtaining investor funding, specifically
citing the issues which Y Combinator helped the company fix in order to offer
the best service possible to the target market consumer base (NPResearch,
2012).
Upon
analyzing the advice offered by both Buchheit and Kawasaki, it has been
determined that Blank Slate Animation will undertake the philosophy of
prototyping the service and product offerings of the company and also producing
a viable business plan in order to obtain funding. The purpose of the funding acquired by the
business plan will serve as the necessary seed funding that will allow the
company to scale the sales of their 3D model assets, while also serving as a production
outline for the episodic and animated features that the company will pitch to
broadcast networks, online content distributors, and partner production studios.
References
Buchheit, P. (n.d.).
[Online image]. Retrieved October 28, 2015 from http://www.inc.com/julie-strickland/30under30/meet-the-judges-2013.html
Buchheit, P. (n.d.).
Biography. Retrieved October 28, 2015 from https://www.ycombinator.com/people/
Kawasaki, G. (2006).
Biography. Retrieved October 28, 2015 from http://guykawasaki.com/guy-kawasaki/
Kawasaki, G. (n.d.). Guy
Kawasaki [Online image]. Retrieved
October 28, 2015 from http://guykawasaki.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Guy-Kawasaki-13.jpg
Kawasaki, G. (January
21, 2006). The Zen of Business Plans. Retrieved October 28, 2015 from
Nivi, B. (January 29,
2009). Paul Buchheit: "Consider spending less time talking, and more time
prototyping". Venture Hacks. Retrieved October 30, 2015 from http://venturehacks.com/articles/talking
NPResearch. (June 2,
2012). The Future of Venture Capital and
High-Tech Entrepreneurship (Paul Buchheit, Y Combinator). [Video File]. Retrieved
October 30, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGsOsNlNt58
Start Up Grind. (May
18, 2015). Guy Kawasaki (Canva) at Startup Grind Hangout. [Video file]. Retrieved October 28,
2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vyfl0k6GRk
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