An executive summary is a one-page overview of your business, used to introduce it to investors. It should highlight who you are, your team members, and key traction points like milestones, accomplishments, user numbers, and revenue.
What this video covers
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.
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.
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.
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?
The next section is the address. You want to put the address on your business.
