Maureen Burke has
over 30 years of finance and entrepreneurship experience.
Her career began on Wall Street as an underwriter and
trader. Several years later, she began
working on her MBA in finance from Yale.
Since graduating, she has been advising entrepreneurs with
technology-based companies. Maureen is
currently a lecturer at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She also is an advisor to the Yale Entrepreneurship
Society’s Y50K business plan competition.
In her 2008 lecture, How to Write a Business Plan, she
discusses how essential a business plan is and the elements that make it
great. She says that 75% of business
plans are “bad”. They are either badly
written or missing vital information. She
goes on to discuss the essential elements of a business plan and how to
structure them.
The most enlightening part of this lecture, for me, was her
discussion on the Executive Summary portion of the business plan. Burke believes this is one of the most
important elements. The executive summary
is an investors first impression of a company. If this portion is not up to par, investors
may not read any further. This summary should discuss your company, what you do, the
experience of management, marketing opportunity, and your strengths and
weaknesses. It is important that you convey what makes your business unique in the executive summary as well. This will spark the interest of potential investors.
Burke ends her lecture briefly discussing how important it
is to do your research. She advises
entrepreneurs to only include information that is credible and can be proved.
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| The NewWomen Magazine |
Andrea Cockerton is the founder of the company Mudhut
Consulting, located in United Kingdom.
Much like Maureen, Andrea works as a consultant, assisting and guiding
entrepreneurs as they develop their business plan and lauch successful companies. In an article with The NextWomen magazine,
Cockerton discussed funding and pitching a new business. This article was very informative, especially
her discussion on the most important elements of a pitch. Cockerton explains that all pitches should
mention that the business is “targeting a growing market with a need for your
product or service, that the team is talented and able to execute the business
plan, and that your product, service or idea is groundbreaking”.
As I continue to develop my business plan, I am excited to
research more of their lectures and articles.
Andrea gives a lot of great tips for women wanting to successfully launch
a company, while Maureen works with college students on a daily basis. I am both a woman and a student, so I think
these would be two experts that I could learn a lot from.
