Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Latest Posts from Eric Mathews on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Our very own Eric Mathews has been busy writing lately and has three recent posts on his blog related to Entrepreneurship and Innovation — our favorite topics.

To learn some insights on why innovation and R&D centers can fail check out this post . . .
http://ericmathews.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-innovation-centers-fail.html

To learn how your city can stimulate creative industry see Eric’s post on City Ventures . . .
http://ericmathews.blogspot.com/2010/07/city-ventures-my-proposed-program-for.html

To learn about to support new innovative tech startups at a very early stage see Eric’s writings on an accelerator model . . .
http://ericmathews.blogspot.com/2010/07/phantom-works-proposed-accelerator.html

As always our team is willing to take on challenges that you face in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation in both the public and private sectors. Reach out to us anytime to look at ways to engage Mercury Technology Labs. Our info at email address reaches us directly.




Business Plans and Pitches for Invention2Venture




Tips on Making Your Pitch

Here are our suggestions on how you structure your pitch to investors.  Regardless of the stage your business is at (e.g. back of the napkin or looking for an A Round), if you can answer these questions clearly, using plain language (and the story you tell is good and compelling), then you will convince others that your startup is ready for them to join, whether it is as an investor or as a team member.  Mind you that some of these questions may not be fully answerable at the earliest stages of the start, in which case you should state “I haven’t worked out {fill in the blank}. . . And that’s where I need you, your expertise, and support.”

What is the Company and its Core Value?
o    What is the name of the company?   It is not real unless it has a name.
o    State concisely the core value proposition or the unique benefit the company will provide to address the customer need.
o    This is the Company Overview

What’s the Pain/Problem that you seek to solve?
o    State the big, important problem that the company is going to solve
o    State concisely and clearly why this situation exists and persists
o    This is your Market Opportunity

How Big is the Pain/Problem?
o    Assert the size of the opportunity you have identified
o    Define the scope of the opportunity
o    This is the Market Size

What is your Solution?
o    State concretely what you will build that solves the problem.

What is the Benefit(s) or Value that your Solution Provides?
o    State clearly and quantify to the extent possible the three to five key benefits you provide

Who else provides a solution and why is yours better?
o    State clearly and concisely how your solution is better than what everyone does in the industry, including the status quo.
o    Do your homework on the competition and don’t misrepresent their strengths or their weaknesses.
o    This is your competitive advantage.

How will you get your solution to the Market?
o    Focus on articulating the non-obvious, potentially disruptive elements of your strategy
o    What are the critical hurdles that the company faces and how will the company address them to get the sale?
o    This is your go to Market Strategy

If you can get your solution to the market, how will you make money?
o    How do you make money?
o    Explain the pricing, the costs, and why this company will be especially profitable.
o    Make sure you know the key assumptions underlying your planned success.  Be prepared to defend them.
o    Be ready to articulate the sensitivity of your business to variations in your assumptions.
o    This is the Business Model

Assuming you can get it to market and make money, how much will you make?
o    What is your five-year financial projection for the company?
o    What are the two to four key metrics that will drive revenues, expenses and growth?
o    Convey that you really understand the economics and evolution of a growing a dynamic company
o    These are your financial projections.

What will be needed to succeed and how will you and others measure progress?
o    What are the capital requirements for the company?
o    Map the funding against your key milestones.
o    Tie the milestones to the key metrics in your financial projections
o    This is your operating plan for the funds you are raising – financing requirements and associated milestones.

Why you?  Why now?
o    Solidify the core value proposition of your company in words that are memorable and unique to your company.
o    If someone were to give a short summary the company, these are the words you want used – the opportunity and the solution
o    This is your Summary




How was the Weekend? Creative & Intense!

Here is a post I wrote for MemphisConnect.com here that I have place below: http://www.memphisconnect.com/2009/06/10/how-was-the-weekend-intense-and-creative/

Enjoy!  

On May 29th, 30th, and 31st, 2009, seventy (70) Memphians came together for one of the most intense, creative, and entrepreneurial events of their lives.   In just 48 hours (6pm Friday to 6pm Sunday) these creative class members from all walks of life pitched 14 ideas, selected 5 for startup, and launched 3 beta products.  In its second year of operation, LaunchMemphis brought Startup Weekend back to Memphis to support entrepreneurial action!

Why the excitement?

Last year, LaunchMemphis hosted over 100 people at EmergeMemphis and one idea was selected and born, Spynner.  That concept eventually died, but one other idea pitched that weekend went on to form a team, build a product, achieve user base, and garner revenue in 2009.  That company is NRange (www.nrange.com), a golf GPS app for smart phones that is cheaper but just as accurate as $300-$500 range finders golfers buy.  Now that’s entrepreneurial action!  This year with an enhanced entrepreneurship ecosystem and a dedicated group of 70 people, LaunchMemphis Startup Weekend delivered five new business concepts to our local economy. 

Will all of these startups succeed?  

According to Tulane University business Professor Lisa Amos, the average for entrepreneurs has 3.8 failures before finally succeeding.  At LaunchMemphis with programs like Startup Weekend, we encourage people to form teams, build startups, and ‘fail fast’ so that they can learn and get right back into the ecosystem of entrepreneurship to start again.

You did what?

When asked, “What did you do this past weekend?”  most may reply with the details of sporting events, yard work, and/or relaxing with a book.  Not for this crew of Memphians.  They can proudly say, “I launched a new business in 48 hours!”

What are the 5 startups?

Here I provide a very brief summary of the 5 ideas that moved forward.  Stay tuned to learn about how these startups evolve.  We will have a Startup Weekend Reunion on August 27th, 2009 to hear about how these businesses have progressed and if any of the other ideas not-selected moved forward, like NRange (www.nrange.com) did last year.  Learn more about Memphis Startup Weekend at www.LaunchMemphis.com.

The Roll Play (www.therollplay.com) is a new web system to allow students, writers, and others to build stories collectively with other members by assuming the role of a character of their own making.  The members in effect make a “rolling” play or even a debate.  The site is up and running with new differentiating functionality coming out weekly.

Mister Menus (http://mistermenus.com/) is a site that allows a user to upload menus of their favorite restaurants and to rate menu items.  This enables other users to search where to eat using criteria like dish ingredients and menu items.  This way if you need to find the best vegan dishes in the city you can easily locate them and know where to go.

CheezyWeezy (www.CheezyWeezy.com), another project that built a beta launch product and business plan in 48 hours, encourages the world to “Take a Smile Break” by heading to their site to view and rate photos of cute kids.  Grandparents unite and rate your grandchildren to the top!

Rezzie focused on designing an innovative business model for the real estate and print news industry.  By providing previously unavailable data to consumers on agents and brokers on print news web sites, all parties can benefit withrevenue and savings.  This idea easily could provide large returns to investors and the team is moving forward with technical specs.

GameWavMedia focused on providing a new cross functional gaming platform to change the way games are designed, distributed and played.  At the center of the idea is object oriented gaming independent of game functionality.  Sound complicated — it is — but the idea has some merit, especially since the average age of a gamer is over 35.




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