Writing A Strategy Paper

When starting a new business. product or venture, many people get caught up on how do they get an idea out of their head and into some format that firstly articulates the idea, and secondly is a format that can be circulated. You hear about business plans, modelsetc etc, but I find that when you start one of these, they get outdated before you even finish writing it. What is useful, is a Strategy Paper.

So what is a strategy paper? It is much like a cross between a short form Business Plan, and an elevator pitch. When you speak to VC’s they will often ask you “Send me a 2 pager”, and this to me, is the strategy paper. It should have enough information to get the idea across, including how you intend to execute and make it into a viable business, but it should also be the elevator pitch in the sense when someone reads it, they get excited and want to know more.

It is important to have one of these for yourself for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is something that you can easily hand out or email when someone wants to know more. But in the first instance it helps you define what you are doing and align everything that you are working on with the original idea. Yesterday I wrote about the significance of having a Scenario. The Scenario is how you determine the functionality that you will deliver, the Strategy Paper is how you define the business.

Write the Strategy Paper in much the same way as the Scenario; early on in the process, while you have the catalyst of the original idea in your head. Losing this vision is a problem most businesses have as time goes on. The Strategy Paper should describe why its a good idea and what the business model is. How is money going to be made, and why is the idea unique?

The areas that you need to focus on are;

• Overview – What is a summary of the idea in a paragraph
• Product Mechanics – how does it actually work, focussing on the aspects that are unique and make this idea different
• Business Model – How is it going to make money, also worth talking about the market here as well
• Execution – How are you going to get it done and launched

You don’t need to get into details of competitive analysis, SWAT analysis or other details (Although you will probably need this elsewhere to back up your argument when you get to that point). Try to keep it short, 2 pages is perfect, 3 if you have diagrams. 5 pages and you have missed the point.

I roboccasionally re-write Strategy Paper’s from scratch (my bad habit), but you may want to have the Strategy Paper on hand for exactly this reason that you can then update whenever you want to send it out.

This is also a ‘living, breathing’ document. Make sure you read and review it often and go back to it and change and update if need be. Not every day or week, but at least once a month. This will help you on two fronts; 1) am I getting off the point of why I thought this was a great idea in the first place, or 2) has the idea now evolved that what I am really working on needs to be factored into this document?

Finally, don’t spend days it. If you can’t bang this out in a couple of hours, you are having issues somewhere along the line. It almost needs to be a free-flow from your head (initially anyway). As time goes on you will work it and re-work it to get more detail and clarity as well as omitting the irrelevant.

Good Luck!!