In the competitive market for venture capital funding, it is often easy to overlook helpful resources for start-ups that are both easy to access and free.  One of these resources is the Small Business Administration (SBA).  For many entrepreneurs, one of the most difficult parts of growing and funding their business is knowing what investors want to see and how best to present it to them.  Here, the SBA can provide valuable tools that when used properly can reduce the time and expense involved in securing growth capital while increasing your chances of getting funded at the same time.

A starting point for most conversations with investors is the company’s business plan and financial projections.  Many entrepreneurs will often have a good idea for what they want to achieve with their new business and how they want to grow, but have difficulty organizing their ideas on paper and expressing their vision in a financial model.  Here the SBA provides some powerful tools to take the guess work out of the process.  Business plans, when done well, can help entrepreneurs put a structure to their vision which can help guide decisions as the business grows and maintains a common set of goals toward the company’s success.  The business plan will make it easier for investors to understand the entrepreneur’s vision for their company and give them comfort that the entrepreneur has a solid structure and plan in place to execute on it.

The SBA provides entrepreneurs with a useful framework for writing a plan as well as several examples.  This structure will be familiar to investors and so will make it easy for them to review and decide on whether to fund the business. 

Some useful tips for writing a business plan are:

1. Be Concise: Investors read hundreds of business plans a year, make yours easy to read and understand.  Eliminate unnecessary information or detail that doesn’t add to their understanding of what the business is and how it will generate revenues and profits. 
2. Identify your problem:  Businesses are created to solve a problem for their customers who are willing to pay for its solution.  Be clear in what problem you are solving and how big that problem is for the customer.  Investors want to see that you are addressing a large problem that affects many people.
3. Present Your Solution:  Once you have clearly articulated the problem that your business will address, lay out in layman’s terms how you plan to solve it.  Avoid jargon or technical terms and use graphics when possible.  As they say, a picture tells a thousand words.
4. Make Your Financial Model Simple:  Most businesses have a limited number of important factors that determine their success.  Identify those for your business and build your financial model around them.  While entrepreneurs deal with many issues each day, it is important to show that you understand what the key ones are that really make a difference.  Always apply Occam’s razor: the simpler the equation, the more likely it is to be correct.
5. Do Your Homework:  Show investors that you know not just your business, but also the market and your competitors.  Show that you understand how you are different from your competition and how you fit into the industry.  Don’t hold back on admitting to your challenges.  Your potential investors will see them, and they want to know that you do to.

The SBA will work with entrepreneurs to help them get their business model right, and this valuable support is free.  In the world of competitive finance, every little bit can help to attract investors to your business, and smart entrepreneurs will take advantage of all the resources available to them.  Afterall, their investors will expect nothing less from how they run their business.