-
Interviewer's Note: The following is the meeting record of the most important training link in the training course of the third "Challenge Cup" National College Students' Entrepreneurship Plan Competition. The speaker, Mr. Zhang Tiemin, is a judge of the previous two national competitions and an authoritative figure in the venture capital field. From the perspective of a venture capitalist, Mr. Zhang talked about the problems that should be paid attention to in writing business plans, and some shortcomings in the works of past years' competitions recognized by him as a judge. Some of the key points deserve our attention and consideration. The organizing Committee is now issuing it to all participants for your reference.
Several problems that should be paid attention to when participating in the business plan competition —— Summary of the training course of the national college students' business plan competition
Time: April 2002
Venue: Wuhan University
Speaker: Zhang Tiemin (Senior Consultant of CITIC Group, Judge of the First Two National Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Competition)
First, the positioning of the Entrepreneurship Competition
The purpose of holding an entrepreneurial competition is not to attract capital, but to improve the quality of students. Business plan competition is the carrier of cultivating students' creativity and innovative consciousness, perfecting students' knowledge structure and cultivating students' team spirit, and it is a higher level of learning.
Second, the business plan competition related issues
Business plan, also known as business plan. The specific writing methods are introduced in the writing guide of the competition, and there are also related books on the market, and many websites also have guidance on related content.
I mainly talk about how to write a plan from the perspective of a venture capitalist.
As a judge, I mainly consider three factors in grading a business plan: first, from the perspective of protecting the interests of investors, as a consultant, I am responsible for investors; The second is to compare the "highlights" and "shortcomings" of the business plan comprehensively and determine the score; Thirdly, the evaluation is made from the perspective of project decision analysis.
Some of the judges of the national competition are people in the venture capital industry or experts in the industry. They are very demanding about the plan, pay attention to social reality, and will not talk to you on paper. The three main points that judges usually value most: technical risk, market risk and financial risk.
A good entry should include three elements: excellent creativity (such as high technical content), excellent team and good business plan.
Regarding the three elements mentioned above, I want to talk about the team first. Because the model of the plan is similar to the general feasibility report, and a good business plan and a good idea can be copied, but an excellent team can't. Therefore, some judges suggested that "first-class team, second-rate creativity" is more desirable than "first-class creativity, second-rate team". An excellent team should dare to innovate and challenge, have their own specialties, cooperate with each other and complement each other's advantages. With regard to professional knowledge, I think a good team should have professionals in the following aspects: market, law (which was ignored by many teams in the past), production, technology, management, finance and so on. Our evaluation of a team depends on its comprehensive strength.
Next, I want to talk about business plans. Once, I heard a story in Zhongguancun. The research institute of a university found a good idea, but I don't know how to write the scheme, and I want to entrust a company to write it. The company offered to write it for you at a cost of $200,000. Thus, a good business plan has its own value. However, it is not easy to write a good business plan. In my opinion, if a team wants to participate in the competition and write a plan, it must work hard and write it well. Don't try to do it a few times and take it out.
I think the basic requirements for writing a plan are mainly the following aspects:
First, words must be fluent, concise and focused. In the judging of the national competition, a judge usually watches the works of 8- 10 for half a day (about 2 hours' judging time). Calculated, that is, a work takes about 15 minutes, which also includes the time for grading and writing comments. In addition, when defending, each team's time may be shorter, so it should be more focused and condensed into a summary and highlights.
Second, innovation consciousness should be strong and creativity should be new. When starting a business, college students should emphasize high-tech works, and they should be high-tech or have "bright spots" instead of buying and selling things in general. A good idea should include three characteristics: originality, advancement and reliability. I'll talk about the details later.
Third, we should do a good job in market research. A good market research will be half the success of the plan (a business plan usually has 5-6 pages of market research). In the first two competitions, I came across a project about medical equipment, because the target market was hospitals in big cities, so it was not rated as promising at first. After investigation, the prospect is not good. Later, their team did more than two months of market research, and finally found that this kind of equipment was very popular in county-level hospitals, thus finding a solution.
Therefore, market researchers are very important and useful. A good market research should be credible and reliable, but it is not easy to achieve these two points, because market research is very hard and boring. However, this is an indispensable part of a good plan. It is the "eye" of investment, which can help determine market positioning and product prices. The market research report must stand scrutiny. After investigation, you should not only know something about the market, but also know about your competitors.
Fourth, the "plan" should be commercialized and the industrialization plasticity should be high. Here, I mainly talk about financial issues. Your business plan must clearly tell investors how much money you will invest in your project, how you will make money, how you will return, and when you can recover the cost. Because all investments are commercial capital, and commercial capital is about returns. The amount of investment you require must be feasible, and you can't just set a number by daydreaming. In the past, some projects generally put forward millions or tens of millions of integer amounts, which is very bad. You should have a specific plan and destination for each sum of money.
First, the evaluation criteria of the judges
Here, I mainly talk about our grading according to the contents of each part contained in the plan.
First, realize the summary part. This part mainly describes the product prospect, which is the essence of the plan. A good executive summary must enable the judges to understand the general situation, "highlights" and future development goals of the project in a short period of time. Concise, distinctive and novel. Can impress the judges in 2-3 minutes (if not, it will be very passive later).
Second, products or services. In this part, it is not feasible to boast and appreciate your products or services for a long time, so it must be objective and reasonable. Because the judges are experts in the industry or related fields, and they all know a lot of things. Too much will make a joke. In addition, in this part, you must be clear about whether your product is leading. We believe that a good entrepreneurial product should be internationally leading, at least domestically leading.
Third, the part of market investigation and analysis. Including customer response, competitors and customer groups. Market research must be done by people who know professional knowledge, and the analysis of its competitiveness must not be overestimated.
Fourth, the part of marketing strategy. We must consider the issues of marketing channels and marketing costs. In the past, many projects only mentioned technical costs and product costs, thinking that marketing would not cost too much money, but in fact, marketing costs are relatively large, so everyone must pay attention to this problem.
Fifth, the company's basic strategy. The strategy must be distributed and phased, and the investment and development goals of each stage must be clear. For example, the industrialization cost of a new material product is different in different stages, and its cost in the three stages of "R&D, production and marketization" may be 1: 10: 100. In addition, the image design of the company is very important. The last winning project was called Xingzhi.com, and the icon of their company was designed as a little turtle. The judges asked them why they designed it this way, and they said that they built this website to pursue a step-by-step approach. The judges felt very good after listening to it, but other entries often ignored this problem, so they lost points and suffered a lot.
Sixth, the operation management part. The quality of a company and the quality of managers play a decisive role. For the difficulty of operation and the requirements for resources, each stage of enterprise development is different. Please pay attention to this. In addition, with regard to investment, the requirements for resources are different between the start-up period and the expansion period of enterprises, so entrepreneurs should estimate the investment amount reasonably and objectively. Never take the method of "fishing"-the first step is to lower the rating of funds, first "fish" investors, and then "open the lion's mouth" slowly.
Seventh, the financial analysis part. This part must be done seriously, so that the judges can know the whereabouts of each sum of money and calculate it realistically. Venture capitalists are not afraid to invest a lot of money, but they are afraid that the money will be spent inexplicably.
Eighth, the return on investment. Venture capital requires not only returns, but also high returns. Generally speaking, we have a "passing line" for the return on venture capital, which is about 30%. If your return on investment is lower than this figure, you may want to consider adjusting your plan as follows.
Ninth, the key risk part. The so-called high risk and high return, commercial capital investment is definitely risky, so you must clearly analyze your own risks in the business plan. If there is no risk analysis in the business plan, it will definitely be deducted.
Tenth, the entrepreneurial team. This part of the content was generally ignored by previous players. I suggest that all participating teams must cross departments and disciplines, and the structure should be sound and reasonable. When introducing and defending, you should clearly introduce your respective majors, and don't generally introduce which department you are in. In addition, it is best for each team to hire a senior consultant. Also, you must consider the ownership of intellectual property, such as whether your technology is patented or not, and how to divide the money you earn in the future. It's better to have an agreement, don't be vague.
First, the problems found in competitions over the years.
1, entry.
Two years ago, there were many online works. Judging from the competition in Tsinghua this year, there are fewer online works and more technical projects.
2. About technical risks. The argument is too strong and underestimates the technical risk. It seems feasible, but it can't stand scrutiny.
Technical risks here, I mainly emphasize three characteristics:
First, originality. Some previous works are not original enough. However, originality is often the first concern of judges and the key to occupy the market. A good entrepreneurial work, preferably a patent work, should not be a low-level redundant construction. For example, some of the previous entries were online advertisements, but there are many such things at home and abroad, and there is nothing new. Therefore, your entries must carefully consider your own differences, don't imitate others, and have your own uniqueness.
Second, advanced nature. In other words, your work should be ahead in related fields. There is a popular saying in the network world that "the network is only the first, but there is no second", which means this. It is not impossible for you to make similar things, but you should be more advanced than others (the "shell line" project in the competition is better in this respect), and you should be able to understand the status and competitive strength of similar products.
Third, reliability. In other words, your work should stand scrutiny. Your product must have certain technical barriers that others can't easily break through. In addition, the works in the medical industry should pay attention to the requirements of relevant industries and policies such as "approval" and "appraisal" (it is impossible to produce without appraisal and batch number).
3. Problems of market analysis.
Before the project, the market analysis was relatively rough, and the industry investigation was not deep enough, which was far from the requirements of venture capitalists. Because the market is dynamic, we should do dynamic analysis. In the past, people made market analysis mainly by subjective inference, which was too ideal and put themselves in a quite high position. Here, I suggest that you must do a good job in market research and analysis. Some projects aimed at national competitions are willing to spend a summer vacation doing market research and analysis, at least answering questions such as who the customers are, why the customers accept your products, and what is the attraction of your products.
4. Risks of capital operation.
The previous entries lack experience in financial analysis, and the financial analysis is too simple, in which the virtual cost is relatively large and the risk preparation is insufficient. I mainly remind you of two points. First, RNB cost (scientific research input cost); First, the marketing cost must not be ignored. In addition, when you are financing, don't overestimate your technical value. Don't make small profits and make big losses because you are eager to sell. I suggest you ask the evaluation company to evaluate your technical value. The state now stipulates that the technology share cannot be higher than 35%, but in the reality of Zhongguancun, it is ok to be higher than 35% as long as both parties agree.