On 21 February 2023, AwakenHub co-founder Sinead Crowley hosted our online community event on ‘How to Craft a Killer Business Plan’.

The focus however was not on the weighty version that tends to sit gathering dust which you might well need to submit with certain funding applications but they are not aways useful, intentional or currently reflect the state of your business today. Instead the session focused on agility and having an up to date living breathing current state of play which can be utilized at the drop of the hat as and when needed. This will ensure you maintain focus on the financial health and growth of your business whether that’s targeting customers, finance, investment or indeed scaling to dizzy heights.

Joining Sinead were three women founders, from different sectors and company stages. Larissa Feeney, Lyn Markey and Michelle Connor

Sligo born, Donegal dweller - Larissa Feeney Founder & CEO of multi-award winning Accountant Online, Ireland’s largest online chartered accountancy firm, working with micro businesses and SMEs in Ireland and the UK. Larissa is also one of our OG Big Sisters in AwakenHub.

Having raised pre-seed investment and utilized many of the eco-systme supports over the last decade, some of Larissa’s key takeaways include:

Using a scorecard to monitor on a weekly basis where the company is at in terms of growth, targets and clear view of what is coming next.
The team all contribute and use this as a live document
Metrics are king (or queen as the case may be)
Develop key relationships early when looking to access financial supports or raise investment / finance. This applies both to your wider founder community as well as eco-system players, government organisations and investors
Whilst you want to ‘own’ your internal documents, sometimes it might be worth paying external people to help when it comes to submitting bids or making your offering slicker and more relevant to a specific target audience
Do the work – having grown her business over 8 years Larissa started out having to do it all herself which meant laser focus and stepping back from the business to make sure she was on track and her ‘Scorecard’ was on point. At you grow and onboard team members you can not only share out the workload but also let those whose natural skillset or proficiency take the lead where appropriate

Galway girl (as the song goes) and chemist Lyn Markey jointly established Xtremedy Medical in 2020 with Camille O'Malley after undertaking NUIG’s BioInnovate Fellowship and witnessing the devastating impact of muscle and bone infections including amputation for up to 1 in 5 patients. Xtremedy's surgical device is up to 1000x more effective than the standard of care. Xtremedy has successfully secured awards and grants from EI Commercialisation Fund and Big Ideas. and EIC (Women in Tech EU), and the Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund at the end of 2022.

Lyn focused on the different lead in time as a medical device company and tends to use a Summary version of their Business Plan to keep them on track

Focused on a longer lead in time to market so have to ensure they keep funders, investors and prospective clients on the journey with them
This also means retaining confidence in the product and the team involved and ensuring your data is up to date and accurate at all times
Tripple helix engagement of startup, industry and academia is also an important route to success for Xtremedy
Starting out applying for relatively low level programmes at an EU level which require a reasonable but not burdensome level of application which can be done by the co-founding team is a good approach to building key relationships, establishing credibility, raising profile and preparation for submitting for larger bids/ programmes in the future. These however might require the help of a professional bid writer who knows the specific programme being applied to
As Xtremedy are embarking on a fundraising round – Lyn also spoke about not underasking or underselling your proposition and the opportunity

Michelle Connor from Lisburn, Northern Ireland native is Co-Founder/ CEO of Kinva - a digital platform to transform the delivery of multi-disciplinary therapy. After a career as a Govern Advisor, Michelle’s motivation to set up Kinva is her second child who has a rare genetic and life altering disorder resulting in ongoing and lengthy therapy, guided by experts from around the world. Michelle also won our SheGenerate Showcase by popular vote in 2022. Michelle has secured grants and financial support in NI and the UK and is preparing to raise investment so her laser focus from a daily business plan point of view is her Investor Deck.

Her tips include:

Using your deck stay on message, be clear on your proposition and your solution
A tight deck will help reduce risk, demonstrate finances, cash flow or secure funding, prove viability (market & competitor analysis / research/ existing client data), show market research, operations and marketing plans
Be sure to iterate as needed – you should be able to amend and differentiate tone and content based on target audience
Always look for feedback. It can be super useful to have it especially if unsuccessful as it might help to get across the line the next time. It also helps to build relationships with the relevant stakeholders
Align the founders story to the offering especially as an early stage startup when your story holds so much power

Other bits that came up in discussion were:

‘Paying the piper’ – there is no such thing as free money and it’s important to measure time/effort versus return. It takes a bit of trial and error to figure this out but you do need to prioritise what pots of gold to chase and make sure they are closely aligned to your your current business plan?
Be realistic on timescales as the process of finding, applying, (hopefully) getting positive response, delivering on what you said you would do and getting the money in the bank has to be built into your living plan