Objective and Problem Solving: The offering of any startup should be differentiated to solve a unique customer problem or to meet specific customer needs. Ideas or products that are patented show high growth potential for investors.
Market Landscape: Market size, obtainable market-share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, macroeconomic drivers for the market your plans to target.
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Sales and Marketing: No matter how good your product or service maybe, if it does not find any end use, it is no good. Consider things like sales forecast, targeted audiences, product mix, conversion and retention ratio, etc.
Financial Assessment: A detailed financial business model that showcases cash inflows over the years, investments required, key milestones, break-even points and growth rates. Assumptions used at this stage should be reasonable and clearly mentioned. See sample valuation template here (to be sourced under templates section)
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Management and Team: The passion, experience and skills of the founders as well as the management team to drive the company forward are equally crucial in addition to the all the factors mentioned above.