Criteria+for+evaluating+business+plans

=**Criteria for Judging Business Plans**=


 * Here are some of the major considerations for judging the quality of a written business plan.**


 * **The executive summary.** Is it well written? Does it evoke an emotional response from you about a big pain and its novel, valuable solution? Has the team shaped the opportunity and its exploitation in a way that will allow them to provide value to a customer group? Do you understand how much money the team wants to finance its pursuit of the opportunity?
 * **The cool factor**. What's ** COOL ** about this opportunity and the way the team is approaching its exploitation? Don't be afraid to highlight the cool factor of your opportunity in your presentation and written plan.
 * **The burning problem / big pain**. Is the team's portrayal of the big pain convincing? (Or would it be better used as material for a [|Saturday Night Live laughmercial]?)
 * **The market**. WHO IS THE CUSTOMER? Has the team identified the initial target market narrowly enough to make sure that marketing efforts will pay off? Remember that virtually all new ventures have limited resources to attract new customers - if the target market is not defined narrowly enough then the venture will not attract any customers. If the market is defined too narrowly at least there's a chance for you to broaden it without squandering resources. In short, do you //understand who the primary customers for this product or service are?//
 * **More about the market**. Has the team identified the behaviors of the target market? For example, does the team know when its primary customers will want to buy, how they want to buy (online, telephone, texting, in-person, etc.), where they want to receive and use the product (they may be different), and what features they tend to want out of the product (this also includes consideration of what they don't want - e.g., an iPhone that distributes PEZ is probably not a highly-desired feature).
 * **Promotion**. How will the venture team attract customers to its product or service, such as radio ads, [|Google ads], web sites, [|crazy road-trip] promotional tours (check out this site from [|Sniper Marketing]), sample give-aways, etc? Has the team identified the **costs** associated with their chosen promotion approaches?
 * **The industry and competition**. What is the industry in which the team's venture will be operating? Remember that an industry is a group of companies that perform roughly similar business activities to satisfy a similar, common customer need. Has the team identified appropriate costs of entry that are specific to its industry? Has the team misidentified its industry? Who are the major competitors and, if possible, what is their current market share?
 * **Competition**. Has the team identified competitors //**by name**//? Has the team identified the one or two major aspects of its particular approach to the product or service that will make it // **stand out** // from the competition?
 * **Operations**. Has the team identified the major activities it needs to perform in order //to get started//? What activities will the venture perform on a //routine basis// after getting started? A bullet list with descriptions of each activity should suffice.
 * **Finances**. Has the venture team identified all reasonable and necessary startup costs? Keep in mind that you can buy some things, rent other things, and borrow other things. You can also negotiate to pay for equipment on a variable basis - the vendor-leaser of the equipment gets paid every time (and only when) you get paid. The most important thing to understand about the finances section for a business plan is that they are placed at the end for a reason - the finances should logically follow all of the assumptions and intentions stated in the previous sections of the plan. If there is a disconnect between the other sections and the finances, you've identified a ** big red flag ** in this plan. This happens more often that it should because plan writers usually assign the finances section to a "finance person" and the other sections to people with different areas of functional expertise. **The finances should be a quantitative retelling of the story presented in the previous sections.**