Business Plans: What Do The Experts Say About Having One?

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.

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).

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