Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
how to create an Executive Summary.
An Executive Summary, at the end of the day, is like a one-pager. It’s the best way in
which you can really position and package your business for anyone to review. Particularly,
what you would use an Executive Summary for is perhaps when you want to gain access to
an investor, and maybe one of your advisors wants to give an introduction or give to someone,
like a generic overview of the business. So, let’s get into it.
The first section is who we are. On who we are, you want to talk about the business,
some of the team members; it’s the really interesting highlights of the business and
like a 30,000-foot-view of what the business is all about.
The next section of the Executive Summary is the traction. When it comes to the traction,
you want to talk about some of the key highlights of the business. Here, you want to talk about
the big milestones, your big accomplishments, some of the progress that you’ve done. You
can talk about the number of users of how great you’re doing on the revenue side,
or how great you’re doing with repeating customers. Here, what you want to do is highlight
the most critical components and the Wow-factors of your business.
The next section is the problem. It’s not going to be one, two, or three different problems.
It’s going to be one single problem, and you want to position the problem in a way
in which whoever is reviewing can get that background relatedness to it. It’s either
they have experienced that problem, a family member has experienced that problem, or someone
else that they know that has experienced that specific problem that you’re looking to
resolve. You’ve got to be very specific here. You don’t want to mix the problem
with the solution. Keep it to one problem and go into it in a way in which you’re
going to really identify a way to get a problem that people can relate to very easily.
The next section is the solution. It’s like, what are you doing to address that problem
that you were talking about earlier? That’s your business. You’ve got to understand,
and the best way to think about the solution is when you came up with your business idea,
with your concept, what was that Ah-hah moment when you said, “Okay. We’re going to do
this, and by doing this, we’re really going to tackle that problem.” That is the exact
solution that you want to put here. It’s not one; it’s not two; it’s not three.
It’s one solution that you’re bringing to market, to a market that has a gap, and
where you are addressing that gap head-on. The next section is the opportunity and landscape.
When we’re talking about the opportunity and landscape, you want to do a deep dive
on the market, how big the market is. Who are the players that are already in that specific
industry and that segment competing against you directly or indirectly? Perhaps, here,
what you can talk about are some of the advantages that you’re bringing to the market with
your own business. It’s going to allow you to move faster and farther than anyone else
that is already operating in your same market.
The next section is the revenue model. Here, what you’re going to be talking about is
how you intend to make money. How are you monetizing? What is that business model? You
don’t want to just throw in a big screenshot of the financial plan. It’s a very simple
way in which you’re describing to the investor how you are making money or how you intend
to make money. The best way to do this is by giving a summarized breakdown of the way
that you’re doing such things.
The next section is the one related to fundraising. Here, what you want to talk about is how much
capital are you raising? Rather than just throwing in one figure, you want to throw
in a range, instead of saying 2 million – because here’s the thing. If you go with 2 million,
you’re going to be missing out on everyone that is investing under 2 million. If you
go with 2 million, you’re also going to be missing out on everyone that is investing
over 2 million. So, if you want to go for 2 million, say that you’re raising between
1 million and 3 million. That way, you’re going to be able to tackle all those investors
that are investing under 2 million and over 2 million. So, the pool is going to be even
bigger.
The next section is the team. When it comes to the team, you want to talk about the leadership
team, maybe the founding team, or the C-suite of the business. You don’t want to put absolutely
every employee or even the interns. You just want to keep it simple, and what you want
to convey is that you have the right people seated in the right seats of the bus because
eventually, as many, many, different experts say, a startup at the end of the day is a
bus without a direction. If you have the right people seated on the right seats of the bus,
you will eventually get there. For that reason, people want to know that you have some type
of seniority level, or that you have people with the track record that are going to be
able to identify how to execute and how to get, in a powerful way, the next 18 to 24
months of roadmap in order to really get to the next milestones.
The next section of the Executive Summary is the advisory board. Here, on the advisory
board, you want to throw in the advisors that are helping you. You want to also talk about
what kind of advisors are those? Why did you decide to bring the advisor? Maybe you can
label the expert. Maybe it’s a fundraising expert, a marketing expert, whatever type
of expert that is, but you want to label it here. That is also going to act as a way for
doing social proof because, in many instances, for example, the investor may be like, “Look.
I know this advisor. I’m going to give this advisor a call and see what they think of
this business.” Don’t miss out on the opportunity of putting your advisors here
and putting them in the best light possible so that they understand not only their accomplishments
but also how can they apply their accomplishments to help your business?
The next section is the address. You want to put the address on your business. Where
are you guys located because, in many instances, the investors for them, the geographic location
is supercritical before making an investment? So, I really do encourage you to put the address
of your business. Also, the last piece here is the contact information. On the contact
information, you’ve got to put your name, you’ve got to put your number so if they
have to call you at 2:00 am, they need to reach you somewhere if they want to invest.
Also, you want to put your title in the business, whether it’s founder, CEO, whatever that
is.
With that being said, that’s the Executive Summary and how you create it. If you like
this video, make sure that you click the Subscribe button below. Also, leave a comment. Hit Like,
and then don’t forget about the fundraising training that you can see on the link below
where we help founders every step of the way from A to Z with everything fundraising-related.
On that training platform, you’re going to find anything related like templates, agreements,
live Q&A sessions, a community of founders that help each other. With that being said,
thank you so much for watching.