What Is A Target Market? How to Perform a Target Market Analysis Gather Secondary Research Analyze Competitors Perform Primary Research Using Your Analysis to Define Strategy An Ongoing Analysis Having in-depth knowledge about your target customers is the only way to serve them properly. Even if you know who your ideal customer is, success will require you to know where they are, how to reach them, what challenges they face, and more. The better you understand your client, the more effectively you will be able to serve them. The first and most important step to learning about your customers is performing a target market analysis. In this post, we’re going to explain exactly what a target market is, how to perform a thorough analysis of your target market, and how to use that analysis to implement a better business strategy. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK What Is A Target Market? According to Investopedia, a target market refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services. No business serves everyone. When your specific customer groups are clear, it becomes much easier to develop an effective and accurate business plan. A target market is a specific group of potential customers who share similar qualities such as demographics, psychographics, income, location, and more. Understanding your target market is critical - and not only because of its associated benefits. Companies who fail to understand their target market waste money on ineffective marketing strategies, and struggle to attract new customers.   There are five things you truly want to understand regarding your target market: Who Your Customer Is: How old are they? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Are they married? Do they have children? What is their education level? Are they homeowners? What Your Customer Needs: What are their interests? What do they value? Do you know what they like and dislike? What challenges do they face? What struggles do they have? When They Are Likely To Buy: When do they seek a solution to their challenge? Do they purchase in a particular season? When is the best time to approach them with your offer? Where They Can Be Reached: Where do they find out about new products? Where do they search for solutions? What places do they turn for advice and insight into their particular challenge? Why They Will Buy From You: Why aren’t their problems being solved currently? Why haven’t competitors been able to provide a solution? Is there a specific reason why will they choose you? Why would they pay you, specifically, for your product or service? How to Perform a Target Market Analysis Before writing a business plan, you must understand your target market. The key to understanding your market is to perform an in-depth target market analysis. A proper market assessment…

The SWOT Matrix Does Your Business Plan Need a SWOT Analysis? How To Create Your SWOT Analysis Internal Analysis - Finding Your Strengths Internal Analysis - Identifying Your Weaknesses SWOT External - Taking Advantage of Opportunities SWOT External - Managing Threats What is a S.W.O.T? (Example) From SWOT to Strategy Growing a business requires great awareness of how and where you fit within your industry. Knowing what makes your business stand out and where it can improve is vital to long term success, and being able to answer “what is a SWOT analysis?” also opens you up to learning about the important qualities of your business and market. In the simplest form, a SWOT analysis is an assessment of a business’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that are apparent within the market. While a few may seem to come close, the truth is, no business is perfect. No matter how many internal strengths your business has, inevitably, it will also have weaknesses. For example, Facebook may have more users than any other social networking platform, but they also seemingly have widespread dissatisfaction across their workforce. Likewise, even a business that has the most opportunities to take advantage of will face threats that could stunt their progress or even threaten their entire businesses. Although Facebook has managed to take advantage of the worldwide growth of internet and smartphone access, they also face major threats - like the inability to keep up with data breaches. If you’re confused on what a SWOT is or how to create one, don’t worry, your confusion ends today. In this post, you will learn exactly what a SWOT analysis is, why it’s key to writing a business plan, and most importantly, how to put one together. The SWOT Matrix Internal factors include strengths and weaknesses - factors that can be controlled and that the business has some ability to change. With the right resources and a commitment to do so, a business can work to gain more strengths and eliminate weaknesses that are present.The SWOT analysis is typically displayed in a matrix - with internal factors across the top and external factors across the bottom. External factors include opportunities and threats - factors existing within the market that affect your business. While businesses can control how they respond to these opportunities and threats, they can’t outright control the existence of these factors. Does Your Business Plan Need a SWOT Analysis? When you’re creating your business plan, a SWOT is not only necessary - it is the foundation of your entire business plan. Without knowing your strengths, it is impossible to communicate them to your audience. Without knowing your weaknesses, it is impossible to implement the steps necessary to overcome them. Without knowing the market opportunities, it will be impossible to take advantage of them. Without knowing the threats your business may face, it will be impossible to put the right measures in place to avoid them. It is a wise decision…

The One-Page Business Plan The Mini Business Plan The Comprehensive Business Plan What Type of Plan Do You Need? Business planning can be confusing, and one of the questions that entrepreneurs often ponder is, “how long should a business plan be?” Asking around doesn’t seem to help much. One camp of people believes that a business plan should be a single page, while the other camp believes that a business plan should be comprehensive and extremely detailed. The truth is, there is no perfect answer to this question. A business plan should be as long as is needed to fulfill its purpose - and not everyone has the same objective when developing a business plan. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Each business plan is unique. While some plans may be text heavy and go into deep detail with research about its market, others may use graphics to get their points across. The way a business plan writer presents their information can drastically affect the overall length of their business plan. Does business plan length matter? Yes, but the length of your business plan is highly dependent upon your business, your audience, your writing style, and the type of plan you are developing. The One-Page Business Plan Over the last several years, the one-page business plan has become more and more popular as an introduction tool. Very similar to a standard executive summary, a one-page business plan summarizes the important points of the business into a single page. This business plan format is extremely digestible but isn’t acceptable for all situations.   The most applicable scenario for a one-page business plan is for introducing an investor (or another party) to a business that they are unfamiliar with. With only one page, it isn’t too time-consuming for them to read, and provides just enough information to spark their curiosity. When building your one-page business plan, it is important to realize that a single page does not leave much room for extreme detail. With a one-pager, you will have to choose the elements that are most important and the information that will best describe your business to drive the interest of readers. However, for an investor who is already curious about your business and seeking to learn about it in detail, a one-page business plan is often not enough. Unfortunately, a business plan of this length does not provide enough context to get into the fine details of your overall strategy. Is a one-page business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons. Pros Easy to put together quickly when in a pinch. Provides just enough content for readers to easily digest. Allows entrepreneurs to explain the market problem, their solution and their strategy for reaching the market. Cons Often does not provide enough context for readers to fully understand your business. If investors are interested after…

Title/Cover Customer Problem The Solution Unique Selling Proposition Target Market & Market Size Business Model Founder/Team Traction Financial Ask Designing Your Pitch Deck Slides Most entrepreneurs know what a pitch deck is - a presentation that a startup puts together to pitch their business to potential investors. It sounds simple, but it’s easy to become immediately confused about which pitch deck slides should be included and what information should be added. An investor pitch deck is not meant to be long and exhausting, and sometimes, this can be the challenge. It’s not meant to explain every detail of your business or answer every question a potential investor may have. Instead, it’s meant to introduce your business and to drive interest; initiating relationships that can lead to investment. Knowing what information not to introduce is just as important as knowing what information to add to your deck. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK We’ve helped hundreds of startups create and design their pitch decks, and we want to help you too. In this post, we will introduce you to the nine most important pitch deck slides that you need to focus on and give you several examples that you can learn from! Without further ado, here are the nine slides you must include in your deck to maximize your chances of fundraising success. 1) Title/Cover The first pitch deck slide you should add to your presentation is a title slide. You’d be surprised at the impact that a simple title slide adds to your pitch. They say that you only get one chance to make a great first impression, and when you pitch your startup, your title slide is that immediate first impression opportunity. Before you even open your mouth to deliver the first word of your pitch, this initial pitch deck slide will set the tone for investors. If your tagline is underwhelming, it may immediately turn off the investor. If your logo is boring, it may give investors the immediate perception that your business is boring as well. It is important to set the stage for a great pitch, and this begins with a strong pitch deck slide. This title slide that was displayed in Mint.com’s pitch deck is over a decade old, but there’s a reason why it’s one of the best pitch decks out there. It’s designed well but minimally, using white space to draw the viewer’s eye directly to the logo. The tagline “Take Back Your Wallet” is presented in all caps, driving in Mint’s message the moment the slide is opened. The title slide for We Are Onyx is less minimal, but equally effective. Like Mint, they added a strong tagline that allows the audience to immediately gain context of the business. Additionally, they added in strong imagery of their products to further draw in the attention of viewers. Here are a…

Before You Write Your Business Plan The ThinkLions Business Plan Format Executive Summary Company Details Industry and Customer Analysis Marketing Strategy Competitive Analysis Operational Strategy Management Team Financial Projections Funding Requirement Exit Strategy Using Our Business Plan Format Let’s face it, writing a business plan isn’t as easy as it looks. Sure, you know your business – but putting it in a business plan format that investors can easily digest can be tricky. Developing an investor-ready business plan can be a major undertaking – especially if you’ve never written one – but if you are seeking funding for your business, you will likely need one.   Sometimes, your business plan will need to do all the speaking for you. In some occasions, potential investors may ask to see your business plan before they agree to listen to your pitch. The unfortunate part is, an investor’s attention span may be extremely limited to businesses they aren’t already familiar with. If your information isn’t structured into the right business plan format, you may lose their attention quickly. At ThinkLions, we have worked with hundreds of businesses; helping them create winning business plans and raise funding for their app startups. After years of developing our process, we have put together a tried-and-proven simple business plan format that has worked for many of our clients. In this article, we’ll discuss the business planning process, examine what you need to do before writing your business plan, explain how to develop the best business plan model, and introduce our business proposal outline. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Before You Write Your Business Plan Writing a business plan isn’t the first step you should take in bringing your idea to life. Every day that you actively advance your business, you will uncover new information that will be important to add to your plan. By nature, basic business plans are full of projections. However, if you haven’t done the necessary work beforehand, you won’t have the data needed to make an honest assessment of your business. Knowing how to format a business plan is part of the formula, but the preparation is key to success.  Your business plan format is important, but it’s more important to make sure that you have met the milestones required to prove the potential of your idea. Before you write your business plan, put the necessary time and effort into accomplishing the following: Know Your Market: Having a fantastic idea means very little if it doesn’t solve a real problem for a real market. The majority of your business plan will center around proving that a market and market demand actually exists. Before writing your business plan, identify your initial market of focus. Learn everything there is to know about your customer. Go out and talk to real consumers. Join forums and online communities where your consumers hang out. Find…

Why Is Valuing A Startup So Difficult? The Value of a Founding Team Traction is Proof of Concept How Valuable Can Your Startup Become? The Perfect Mix For The Best Startup Valuation For a pre-revenue startup, calculating a startup valuation can bae confusing and challenging. From the founder’s point of view, they have an awesome idea, a minimal viable product and some traction – and if you ask them, their app has the potential to serve millions of users and create billions of dollars in revenue. Ask a potential investor to evaluate the same startup, and they may see an unproven revenue model and a startup team that has little to no experience. In the early stages, a startup’s true value is likely somewhere in the range of: lower than what a founder hopes it to be, and higher than what an investor is hoping to pay for a portion of equity. When revenue is not in play, there are many other factors that become more important to calculating a fair startup valuation, and many of these factors can be quite subjective. What are these factors? When it comes to a pre-revenue startup valuation, what do investors look for? How do you secure an investment for your startup when you haven’t yet produced any sales? In this post, we want to find the answers to these questions and show you everything you need to know to prepare the best startup valuation when seeking investment. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Why Is Valuing A Startup So Difficult? Negotiations between an investor and a startup can be tense. On one end, founders approach the situation hoping to raise the largest amount possible while offering the lowest amount of equity. On the other end, investors are looking for the best deal – invest the least amount of money and receive the largest percentage of equity. While these type of startup and investor deals make headlines, really they are no different than any other transaction – a seller wants the highest value for their offering, while a buyer wants the best product or service for the lowest price. When investors invest in a company however, they are buying into the future value of a company; and using previous and current value to assess how high that future value may be. For an established company, investors can look at financials over several years and use historical data to predict the future performance of a company. Early-stage startups don’t have historical financial data though, and value must be assessed by examining other important factors. Investors have to be especially realistic about the value and potential of a startup; on average,75% of venture-backed startups don’t make it far enough to return cash back to the investor. There are many different elements that can be considered for a pre-revenue startup as a proof of potential; but really, which factors are most relevant and which are weighed most heavily is highly dependent upon the type of business itself.…

The Benefits of Winning A Business Plan Contest Finding The Right Business Plan Contest Winning Big At Your First Business Plan Contest Writing A Business Plan That Wins A well developed business plan creates the foundation on which a successful startup will be able to establish itself, and is especially necessary when considering participation in a business plan contest or pitch event. When every factor is considered – market and industry, finance, marketing, operations, and etc. – success becomes a long-term plan as opposed to a hope for a stroke of startup luck. Along with a solid pitch and pitch deck, a business plan is a critical element in your journey to landing a successful seed funding round. Writing an investor-ready business plan can be difficult, but securing funding without a solid plan in place is pretty much impossible. Once you finally get the perfect business plan written, what’s next? For those who are far enough along in their business, submitting the plan directly to investors might be a wise step. For those who aren’t quite ready to approach VCs yet, but could use a financial boost to get thing going, participating in business plan contests can be a tremendous help. Not only do these competitions often provide significant rewards for the winners, they also often draw the attention of angels, VCs and even corporations looking to invest in or partner with the next billion dollar startup. Unfortunately, where there is honey there are bees – business plan contests often attract some of the brightest minds, and the higher the reward, the more competition you can expect. In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know to find a great business plan contest, enter it with confidence, and win against other participating startups! Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK The Benefits of Winning A Business Plan Contest Business plan competitions are beneficial platforms that allow entrepreneurs to showcase their idea, product or startup to a group of judges. Often, these competitions involve pitching the idea or startup to judges over one or more rounds. Once each competing startup has presented, judges vote on which business (or businesses) will receive the offered reward. While business plan competitions highly benefit winning startups, they offer immense benefits to investors who attend them also – access to early stage businesses that they can invest in before others have the opportunity. Furthermore, these competitions work to even out the playing field for entrepreneurs who otherwise may not have access to investors – winning a business plan contest could be the difference between funding your business’ launch or failing before you even get the chance to begin. The most obvious benefit of winning a business plan contest is winning the offered reward. The reward value of these contests can vary from small amounts to extremely large amounts.  For example, the Panasci Business…