As I am nearing the completion of my Master’s degree, I
thought I would take a break from writing about church media and talk about
business plans. Actually, having a “business plan” for your media ministry is
not a bad idea because I think it would help you understand what you or the
church is trying to accomplish and where you want to take the ministry to. In researching about creating a business plan
I found two experts that I think worth listening to.
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| Courtesy of timberry.com |
The first expert is Tim Berry. Tim Berry is the business
planning coach for Entrepreneur.com and has currently written five books on
business plans. He has a MBA from Stanford, a MA in Journalism from the
University of Oregon, and a BA in Literature from University of Notre Dame. Tim
Berry is also a successful entrepreneur who founded Palo Alto Software,
bplans.com, and co-founded Borland International (Berry, About Page, 2012) . According to
Mr. Berry, some of the key factors that investors look for in a company that is
in an interesting market, has a
credible management team, and a defensible and scalable product. These are
factors that to investors make good investments (Berry, 2011) .
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| Courtesy of growthink.com |
The second
expert is Dave Lavinsky. Dave Lavinsky is the co-founder of GrowThink a company
that specializes in helping entrepreneurs develop their business plans. He has
a MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and has a background in market
research, small business and finance. Dave Lavinsky is an internationally
renowned expert in business planning, capital raising and new venture
development (Growthink, 2012) . Mr. Lavinsky
believes that most investors mainly venture capitalists look for small
businesses or entrepreneurs that have a stand out business plan but also has
already accomplished a few milestones in their business. This means that an
investor might look for a developed product or a customer base that can make
the investment look less like a risk (Lavinsky, 2012) . Lavinsky believes that when an
investment looks less like a risk the better it is and that is why these
investors look for milestones as key indicators for giving funding.
Both experts
have valid points in what investors may look for when looking for an investment
to fund. In the end it really does come down to the individual investor or
venture capitalist as to what he or she looks for. Dave Lavinsky suggests
asking the investor or researching the investor to gain insight into what he or
she is looking for.
In the church
media world, we are in a way looking for investors through our parishioners to
buy into what we are trying to accomplish. It is important that you look for
individuals or a group that has similar goals than you do because they are the
ones that will most likely invest in what you are trying to do.
References
Berry, T.
(2012, January 1). About Page. Retrieved October 28, 2012, from Tim
Berry: http://timberry.com/about
Berry, T. (2011, January 29). How Can I Find Investors
When I'm Just Starting Out? Retrieved October 28, 2012, from
Entrepreneur.com : http://www.entrepreneur.com/answer/222232
Growthink. (2012, January 1). Dave Lavinsky.
Retrieved October 28, 2012, from Growthink.com:
https://www.growthink.com/team/dave-lavinsky
Lavinsky, D. (2012, August 18). How To Raise Funding
Using Milestones. Retrieved October 28, 2012, from Growthink.com:
http://www.growthink.com/content/how-raise-funding-using-milestones
