Financial Planning Jh V2 100202

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Financial Planning Jh V2 100202

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Gantt Chart Tutorial

What a waste

That's me that is. 3.5 hours a day travelling to work and back.

All that commuting time... Imagine if you could use it for studying via online lectures by the great and the good in your industry?

On the way home you could relax and watch a movie or catch up on last night's TV.

I know you can do this already, but with Funnel it's so much easier. The software does the hunting and gathering for you. All you've got to do is switch it on, sit back and soak it up.

Who do we need on our start-up team?

According to The Beermat Entrepreneur (by Mike Southon and Chris West)

Five is a magic number:

There's a reason for this. Two people are a marriage. Three people are a marriage plus an outsider. Four people are two marriages. Groups of four often split into two feuding individuals watched by two passive ones (eg The Beatles onece they had cut themselves adrift from Sir George). Five just seems to be the number that works. It's big enough enough for flexibility, for grouping and regrouping of individuals round different ideas at different times. It's too small for cliques to form within it. And it's odd, so a majority vote can always be taken.

What should the five-person team look like? My ideal line-up is:

The Entrepreneur:

The person with the vision and the charisma. The boss

The Technical Innovator:

The brains behind the product. 'Supernerd', the future Technical Director / Chief Technical Officer

The Delivery Specialist:

Also a techician, but in the very different area of 'delivery'. The future Operations Officer / Chief Operating Officer

The Sales specialist:

No revenue, no business!

The Financier:

Not expert at flashy high finance, but at cash management, cost control and managing relationships with capital providers and other professionals

The Entrepreneur's job is to keep the flame of the business' vision ablaze, both internally and and when presenting the company to outsiders; to the media and to potential customers.

The Beermat Entrepreneur, 2005, p28-30

Technology Research

We need to find out how to make our service work. I would start looking at rival products and find out how their products work, looking first online to see if there are any explanations from which I could learn. For the purposes of the business plan I would want to look and understand what the component parts of our product would be, where to source them, or how long it would be likely to develop them if they don’t already exist to a satisfactory level. Step one is to trawl the internet, step two would be to ask technical staff and students at Ravensbourne.

Elevator Pitch

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Elevator Pitch

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Watering Holes

Watering Holes, if used appropriately, can be a powerful tool for building and testing ideas so they provide value for customers/clients.

But, like any powerful tool, if used inappropriately Watering Holes won’t do what they are designed to do, (and also run the risk of giving a useful technique bad press.)

So, to ensure that people who take part in Watering Holes are not wasting their time and resources, here is a reminder of the rules. None of the rules are optional. All of them need to be adhered to, for the process to truly build ideas of value for customers/clients.

A Watering Hole is: a place where people come together to build and test ideas within a formal structure.

When to use Watering Holes

To develop new ideas or business opportunities or to test an elevator pitch

To gather a range of perspectives from across teams (and if appropriate from partner organisations) for new or big initiatives

To explore ideas that might have the potential to be truly innovative – the ones that might break the mould.

How do Watering Holes improve an idea?

By having common objective criteria (NABC) which are applied to ideas/projects

By avoiding purely subjective criteria

By bringing together people with different skills and experiences, from across teams, to collaborate in the development of ideas.

The etiquette of a Watering Hole enforces constructive feedback

The Rules –not optional!

Presenting the idea at a Watering Hole

The framework for the presentation should embrace need, approach, benefits and competition.

You must have the following:

· A champion who owns the idea.

· A facilitator who runs the Watering Hole session

· A number (8 –12) of people who are chosen to bring a range of skills and experience to help build or test the idea.

Champion - The person who presents the idea to the group

· Must be passionate about the idea on a personal level

· Must be clear enough about the potential for the idea to make it useful to conduct the Watering Hole

· Must have plenty of back up from development team and its research resource

· Must be open minded, and able to cope with criticism and debate – understanding that ideas are brought to Watering Holes partly in order to find flaws in them and improve on weaknesses.

Facilitator - The person who runs the session

· Must be trained and skilled in running Watering Holes and knows the rules

· Able to facilitate – inject energy and purpose into the session, and not defer to rank

· Must command respect of senior people although does not need to be a senior member of staff

· Must possess firm but polite technique for enforcing protocols – especially keeping people to time!

· Must be able to ‘gently’ push the participants beyond initial thoughts

· Must be able to summarize the meeting and articulate the core issues that need to be addressed as a result of the Watering Hole

A Diverse Group of People to Discuss and Help Build the Idea

· Invite between 8 –12 people

· Make sure that you have included people with a wide range of experience, knowledge and skills

· Widen the group by including people outside your particular area or team

· Remember – A Watering Hole is an opportunity for people across teams to come together and build on an idea!

How does a Watering Hole work?

People who come to a Watering Hole are not invited as ‘Judges’ but as supporters and builders.

The facilitator introduces the champion, purpose and format.

There are different kinds of Watering Holes. Some are to gather a range of views on an early idea. These are usually looser than the more formal Watering Holes which are for testing ideas which have had considerable work done on them.

The facilitator will always split people into 2 groups, designating them as either green or red hats.

The champion presents their idea. Their presentation should be constructed in such a way that it addresses the key criteria (NABC). The pitch should take between 2- 5 minutes depending on its level of development. The less developed, the shorter should be the presentation.

Green Hats listen out for the positive aspects of the idea and identifies the specifics of what works and why.

Red Hats look at the shortcomings of the idea (what doesn’t work for them as far as delivering on the need, approach, benefits and competition) and suggest how it could work. The goal is to generate constructive ideas which could make it better – it is not to trash it.

The facilitator will then get the two groups to ‘swap’ hats, and encourage further considerations

At the end of the session, the champion should be offered an opportunity to respond.

The facilitator will summarize and articulate the core issues that need to be addressed as a result of the meeting. A plan of action should be decided. This might be to have a further Watering Hole to improve the idea even further.

Remember Watering Holes are an iterative improvement process. It is likely that ideas will need to be put through several Watering Holes over a period of weeks or months – with, of course, lots of development on the idea in between.

Business Planning4 Jh 100202

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Elevator Pitch

100209 Tuesday 9^th February 2010 - Sally Spinks’ lecture on elevator pitch

Feedback on my presentation:

Positives

Style

Simple

Clear

Selling

Pointer to structure

Examples/content

Looks like….

Challenges

Computer barrier

Distracted by computer

Confidence

Needed a story (of a potential user)

Time – intro too long

Getting the story and the content right is the key thing

What is the Definition of a “Value Proposition?”

People need to understand the value of what’s being sold to them

NABC

N – Customer/Market Need

A – you unique Approach

B – Client/Customrer Benefits

C – Alternative approaches Competition

There should be an even spread across the 4 sections

This NABC was developed and used in the BBC for internal pitching against independent companies

Needs to be quantitative (specific and measurable) rather than qualitative (feel)

Needs

• Busy people – 2.5 million people daily commute for 3.5 hours
• Drowning in information , too much choice – hundreds of TV channels. 65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube per day.
• Narrowing down the choice – 28 viewing hours per person per week
• Speed and efficiency – Rather than searching for information, it comes to you

Approach

• Narrowcasting. Providing the right content to the right people at the right time – Recommender engine sorts through your preferences and viewing habits to find the right content for you
• Bespoke content via multiplatform to the individual – so you can watch the same content on a device of your choice on smartphone, computer, and TV/PSP
• Can be downloaded or streamed, depending on your preference
• We’ve created a one step process that replaces the current multi-step process to the same quality, via a recommender

Benefits

• Saves people’s time – Using my idle time, (commuting) to relax, study, whatever. 2.5 million people daily commute for 3.5 hours
• Proactively creating a demand – imagine the customer’s delight when they find they can use their dead time for positive pursuits
• Broadens horizons -
• Like a good assistant it gives you what you need before you even know you need it
• Educates and entertains
• Easy
• Reduces cost to customer, generates revenue to content providers and us
• Your wasted time becomes productive time

Competition

• Itunes
• Vuze
• Kapow
• Apple.com
• YouTube
• Metacafe
• iPlayer

Executive Summary

100208 Monday 8^th February 2010 - Executive Summary

“Anytime, any place, any where – there’s a wonderful world you can share...”

We’re not talking about Cinzano Bianco in the 1970’s, we’re talking about cross-platform bespoke television and media.

What does it look like?

It’s an iphone app AND an online web profile that will look like your favourites profile on YouTube with all your customisable preferences.

“What you want, when you want it.”

The first iPod ads boasted “1,000 songs in your pocket.” As we enter the second decade of the 21^st century you can now enjoy the time-saving luxury of having any amount of media from any part of the internet sent directly to your phone, your computer, your PSP player and your TV.

Anything you want, you got it

When you sign up with us you express a few preferences based on your interests. We send you the media content you’ll enjoy; the movies, the TV shows, the music, the news, and the sports that you love.

If only I had more time

Imagine having an extra two hours a day. Imagine if you could spend your daily commuting time watching lectures for college, listening to audio books, or director’s commentaries on your favourite films. Whether your aim is to learn more or relax more, our service is for you.

If you liked that you’ll love this

Our software takes note of what you watch, listen to and read, and sends you similar content. The intelligent aggregator learns your preferences and actively searches on your behalf to update you with the media you’ll love.

So what’s the plan Stan?

Our plan is to build this service and roll it out as an application. It will free to our customers.

A free service

Our service will be funded by advertisers. Our unique service will focus heavily on the demographics of our customers, ensuring they get what they want when they want it.

Niche marketing

The intimate knowledge of our customer base will enable advertisers to spend their budgets in the safe knowledge they’re sending their messages to the right people.

Premium service

Viewers who don’t want to see advertising they will be able to benefit from our premium service whereby they pay a small fee and view their media without advertisements.

Home-spun productions

Once we’ve secured a steady income stream from advertisers we’ll start making our own programmes and films.

Sell the lot

In about 5 years as the market rises again we’ll sell out to a giant corporate like Time-Warner AOL for a huge profit, buy new houses and cars, take a well-earned holiday, and look for our next project

Business Planning

100201 Tuesday 1^st February 2010 - John Hatfke – Small Business Advisor

Planning for a party:

Alcohol, location, music, people, food, invitations, security, style, impact, theme, transport, license, health and safety, cost, profit/mark-up, objectives.

*Goals

*Timelines

*What if?... Contingency/ wet-weather plan

*Metrics and milestones – Was it a success? – feedback/survey

Business Planning - Goals

“Goals – you got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because might not get there.”

Yogi Berra

Personal Goals

• Lifestyle
• Income
• Recognition

Personal goals

• Profit
• Invention/innovation
• Market share

Long term vs. short term goals

Business Planning – Environment

• No business operates in isolation
• Economy and financial conditions
• Industry and market conditions
• Competitive products/supplies
• Competitor companies
• Suppliers
• Labour market
• Regulatory conditions

Google – Do no evil – cultural statement