Startup Professional, Inc. is a startup company intended to help startup companies start their new business and achieve their dreams of success. You might need to read that sentence again to make sure you got it strait…. Anyway, sounds to me like the new business owners that Startup Professionals are seeking to help not only those looking to start their own business, but also themselves. So how about it…does Startup Professionals really have a good business plan? Will they be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors? Will they ultimately be a profitable startup company? And most importantly, if you were thinking of starting a business, should you consider using Startup Professionals’ services, or should you seek advice and counsel elsewhere? To help answer these questions, let’s take a look at a few elements of Startup Professionals’ business plan.
2. How clear is their value proposition? Not very clear. In fact, Startup Professionals’ business plan really never highlights any specific sectors that they specialize in; rather, they offer their service to all startups indicating they have helped companies in “multiple industries” and “multiple countries.” Additionally, the company talks about saving companies time and money by guiding them through the startup process, but they offer no clear examples of actuals savings recognized by companies they have helped to date. In short, the value proposition is vague at best and lacks supporting examples.
3. How targeted is Startup Professional’s customer base? As discussed in the analysis already, the customer based being targeted is very broad with the only real defining factor being they seek to enable entrepreneurs to more successfully start their business. If you are an entrepreneur, than Startup Professionals wants your business.
4. How unique is the business model? Again, Startup Professional’s business model does not appear to be unique. They note that there are at least five other companies that already provide similar services to entrepreneurs.
5. How protected is the IP? In this case, I would submit that there is little if any true intellectual property in this line of business service.
6. How experienced in management? Startup Professional’s fails to impress in this regard as well…. Only one of the two founders of Startup Professionals holds a master’s degree, and his degree is from a non-US business school. Also, neither founder graduated from a well know undergraduate university (not that this matters, but it could hinder the company’s success until it builds a strong enough name and reputation to override ride an initial perception of limited education). Some of the competing company founders have MBA’s from graduate schools such as Harvard. Also, the founders of Startup Professionals have not been profiled any national magazines or newspapers as many of their competitors have been. Again, these factors can be overcome, but will present initial challenges to the company’s startup prospects.
In summary, there is certainly a market for startup business services. However, after reviewing Startup Professional, Inc. as one of the choices, they receive a “D-“ grade at best when it comes to startup solutions for entrepreneurs.
Stay tuned for continued coverage of our journey though ETR500….
Is there anything Startup Professionals can do to make their business plan more robust and "investable" for you?
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