SMU Business Plan Competition Exec Summary Workshop Eric Engineer Sevin Rosen Funds

Important Dates November 16 th Elevator Pitch –And Rough Draft of Exec Summary November 29 th Executive Summary Due December 9 th Finalists Announced

CONCISE & CONSISTENT

Judges Scorecard 1. Company Summary 2. Customer / Market Analysis 3. Products / Services 4. Competitive Differentiation 5. Management 6. Summary Financials 7. Status and Offering 8. Investment Potential

Company Summary “tweet” pitch: summary of your summary Problem you solve and for whom Market positioning / advantage Initial strategy as part of a long-term vision

Customer Analysis Problem you solve How customers handling problem today? Adoption friction –Aware of the problem? Urgency? –Medicine vs. Vitamin? –Willingness to pay? Existing or new budget?

Market Analysis Why now?! Defining and segmenting your market SAM vs. TAM Bottoms-up vs. tops-down Time dimension

Products/Services (+ GTM Strategy!) Speak your customer’s language What’s your secret sauce? Product = tech + go-to-market strategy –Product Definition + Positioning –Marketing + Distribution + Sales Plan –Business Model + Pricing

Competitive Differentiation No competition = no market “doing nothing” / “good enough” substitutes What is the basis of competition? How does your advantage grow over time? Economies of scale Network effects Data scale Brand Distribution Virtuous cycles Patents are nice to have but not enough

Management Why are you the best team to capture this opportunity? Be open and honest about your gaps / weaknesses and have a plan to address them Avoid title inflation; think of future

Summary Financials Numbers are less important than the model Consistent w/ market sizing and GTM plan What are you biggest assumptions? What drive revenues, margin, and expenses? Overlay with key stages, milestones, metrics

Status and Offering of the company Key accomplishments to date Uses of funding Staged w/ value-creating milestones Near and longer-term capital needs

Investment Potential Where is sustainable value being created? Customer base / traffic / engagement Partner / distribution network Data / content / “real estate” Unique technology / capability Revenues / EBITDA Likely acquirers Analogs from the past

Q&A