VentureWoods

My colleague David Cowan writes on how to construct a business plan. He distinguishes between the more elaborate version prepared as an internal operating document and a more concise version that’s better-suited for getting through to a VC with a limited attention span! I’ve been guilty (along with my former colleagues) of consistently violating this principle, in my earlier role at McKinsey. We regularly prepared dense slides with loads of data, that were ideally suited to leave behind as a document of record. However, the same slides were disastrous to present in a progress review and communicate key messages to senior client managers.