The base anatomy of any business case is always the same:

Try to design for (good) Investors. Hear me out:

Sometimes it's worth thinking about what an Investor wants to hear and see whether this is aligned with what you are doing right now. Especially in an early-stage environment:

What convinces an Investor to think that any product is a good investment? It's the same as building a business case.

In order of importance you want conviction on:

• Story: What is your overall hypothesis, and what problem needs to be addressed? Who is the villain?

• Traction: Who is the hero to save the day? This comes ideally in the form of existing, good retention data. The next best thing is product-market fit, showing that your customers would riot if you took their product away.
  If you don't yet have any data showing qualitative indicators (real interviews), be creative.

• Potential: What happens if you don't deal with this? Do your homework so that there is a growing need independently from your solution in the market. Stay on top of market trends and what's happening. Think bigger.

• Execution: Are you and your team the correct ones to address this need? Do you have the technical abilities and proven track record to pull this off?

Traction takes the longest to fabricate, so deal with it first. A short financing runway without Product Market Fit is definitely a reason NOT to get funding or buy-in.

Not having yet found your next hotshot CPO or CMO is not a biggie. Because it's an easy-to-solve problem.

Why does it help to think in these terms? Because good investors are trained to spot good opportunities, they are incentivized to do so, so put yourself in the shoes of one.

This is how good pitches have been structured for the past decade from in-house cases to financing rounds. Once you understand the structure you can adapt it to your scope.

#businesscase #entrepreneur #productmanagement