Too Ambitious or Too Cautious business plans ?

The level of ambition set in a business plan is the very first test on the level of entrepreneurship of any individual I meet with as a VC.

True entrepreneurs always set (for themselves and their ventures) high level of ambitions. Our job is to challenge them in order to assess their level of “mental sanity” while preserving their drive….particularly if we have already invested in them.

On the opposite wannabe entrepreneurs always fear they would be measured against some kind of budget or plan rather than on wealth creation and typically present you plans incorporating some kind of safety net. Those people sometimes even come to include in their models lines with “contingencies” and in general when challenged one can easily sense that even on topline projections they remained on the conservative side.

Please don’ misread me… I’m not advocating that entrepreneurs should come up with absurdly inflated projections to show their drive and commitment to investors. Particularly since large ambitions on topline are most likely to come with aggressive spending in marketing and overhead the sanity check on the business plan remains a must do well for any VC investor and the “contingency” shall be provided for in the investor’s internal estimates, particularly when one has to estimate a cash out date for a certain round and plan to prepare the next fundraising !