An Executive Summary should be just a summary….really
An executive summary should be what it says it is – just a summary. Two at the most three pages. It is meant to be a quick introduction to your company and to check the level of interest in the target audience usually a potential investor into the company. Other audiences could includes potential strategic alliances, vendors and customers – anyone who needs to know more about your business really quickly. If the person reading the executive summary likes it, they can always contact you for a business plan (in the event of a potential investment) or other relevant information. It should not contain any trade secrets and should clearly state your contact information at the very top.
Before you start writing the executive summary, you will need to have finished your 5-year financial projections and business plan.
Your executive summary should start off with a clear message about why you are in business, what is the business, the pain in the market and how you address it. It should also contain the following information in a very clean and concise manner:
– Management Team and their track records
– Business decsription
– Market size and scope
– Operational Roadmap
– Business Model
– Revenue Model
– Marketing plan
– Strategic Alliances/ Partnerships
– How much capital you are trying to raise
– Use of proceeds
– Financial projections over next five years (Revenues, EBITDA)
– Product development plan
Once you finish your executive summary, make sure you do a spell check. Also, send it to your team and advisory board (if any) for their feedback and comments before sending it to any potential investors.
There is not set format to an executive summary. Make sure you give enough information to the reader in 2-3 pages so as to want that person to contact you for next steps.
Here is a template of an executive summary that I have used in the past. As always, this is just for reference purposes and should be modified by you for your business as per its needs.
I welcome your comments and experiences that you can share with me and the rest of the community .
Fight ON!
–nrj
9/XVII/2009
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