good morning good afternoon good evening everyone my name is Jessica Kings and welcome to inp 4.0 empowering African startups for Global impact it has been a wonderful week we started um with um dealing on business opportunities we've looked at digital marketing we've also looked at accounting and Taxation and today again we'll be taking developing a business plan um it has been a wonderful week it has been very insightful and then we look forward till next week today is the last day of this week but please do remember that you'll be joining us again from next week Monday today taking us on developing A business plan is Mr Mustafa Mr Mustafa is the co-founder and CEO of EU youth he has been able to impact over 2 million students in the Mena region he is also a vice chairman of the youth entrepreneurs Network a US Aid funded initiative he guides the Network's financial and strategic Direction um Mr Mustafa holds an MBA from the Arab Academy for science technology and martime transport he also has a bachelor's degree in Business entrepreneurship and a bachelor's degree in electrical and Communications engineering from AIT University currently he is pursuing a PhD in business management at the Swiss business school so he is loaded with so much knowledge and um we can't wait to for him to impact Our Lives um Mr Mustafa you're welcome and the floor is yours thank you so much Jessica happy to be with you another time this week and I hope our last session was beneficial and people get the benefit from it and I get the benefit from the P I received last time today we will speak about the business planning why we should have a business plan the importance of the business plan and how we create our business plan and also we will see uh what business plans important for the business and how we use it uh welcome everyone uh this is and the cound EU let's start with introduction about the business planning business planning is the most important part of your business because if you start your business without planning you will face a lot of challenges you will face a lot of problems in terms of the future your vision your mission your objectives and also uh the relationship between you and between anyone in the in in the market your investors your partners your employees as well and the co-founders for sure so the business plan is a comprehensive document outline all the goals strategies and operational uh activities of your company and also the road map and pel of your business and if you have a will for and CFT business plan and it will give you a PST and like you would attract investors you would attract partners and also you will be have a road to success in your in your team and in your employes as well uh why the business plan is important the business plan is very important because it's your passport as a business to everyone wanted to interact with you as a business the business plan is the gway to every single idea of your business idea into an implementation page it's converting your idea from the idea stage into an implementation stage or funding the stage as well so the business plan is a document that you can convert your ideas into a reality based on a successful business plan you build so the business plan it's like a part of your journey and there like the main part of your journey the business plan serves all the part in your business like your co-founders from your business plan you can select which co-founder or like the type of co-founder you're looking for and also it helps you to create the relationship between you and any investor like any investor will ask you about what's your business plan what you will do with the money there is the answer inside your business plan when you go to any partner you offer them like your idea or business model or your startup and be asking you what is your business plan to do that so if you have a valid and a good business plan it will affect you a lot in your work what is the key component of your business plan we have four key components here the executive summary the executive summary is the part in the beginning of the business plan when you anyone see the document in the first page reading your executive summary he would be motivated to continue reading the business plan or no so the executive family like the door of your home if someone open your door and see your first lock of your home okay it's a good home no in the first look no it's not a good home the executive like ad door when you open it or read it in the business plan you will estimate what you will find inside the business plan so the key components of the business plans and the executive summary as the first part is very important because it gives the summary of all things written inside your business plan the company overview there's like a statement of what is your company the shareholder the team the people and the establishment style like it's established where it's established type of the company LC or any kind of a company establishment so it's like the introductory basically like if you are meet a foral like range of people you you you introduce yourself like my name is Mustafa I'm working I'm from Egypt uh like working in EU and Etc this the same for your company over here the second third part the market analysis what is your market and what is your potential market and the analysis of your Market what is your goals like the market numbers uh the market uh gross numbers and the analytical part of the market we were targeting the African countries we targeting Nigeria Kenya G Egypt Tunisia and what is targeting specifically inside the location and the TG segment as youth woman men big people like whatever you target number four the product or service description here you explain in detail what you are offering do you offer a service or a product and what is the service for whom like and also what is the component of the service as well or the product what is your product and what it contain in your product so the first four parts here executive summary company overview market analysis and the product or service description let's go deep in each part of that executive summary the executive sum is an overview of your business plan is the first thing investors leaders Partners everyone see in your business plan the executive summary should br in a way that easily understandable you don't you should not complicate things in your different use an easy words and if your business is a technical business or technology business or like like biochemistry a business should be like a scientific part or academic part or a hard part you should make it very easy as you speak with a child you can imagine yourself speaking to a child how you will deliver your business idea to your child this is a way of thinking how to write your executive summary so the executive summary should be very easy very e words very known words as well please don't use a hard words don't use award very scientific don't use award is very needed like to be a very expert person to get it the company overview the company overview it gives the history of your company out tring the key Milestone and a if your company achieve some some stuff you put in the company over so let's take example for EU our company overview EU is an LLC company established in Egypt serving youth in Africa and in midle East we provide online Interactive Learning programs in order to help people to get the needed skilles required in the market in order to hiring them and also we support companies with a good good qualified youth can be imported in their corporate our achievements we are like 21 million Learners we have with more than 500,000 people to find their job throughout our programs we have 700 people working with inuse this is our Achi reported and the company overview and then we describe the structure of the company the company like the shareholder who is having or owning the company the percentage the cound is percentage investor VC and investor whatever and the structure of the company that the CEO CH Innovation CH marketing CH commercial whatever you have and then the legal state with LC or cooperation or what so in your company overview it's one page containing your history achievement Milestone and also the description of the structure of the company shareholder and last thing the legal structure of your company so market analysis here we see the market analysis of what is your market and how big is your market and what is the factor to analyze your market so we need to put all your stuff like in terms of the market analysis says the component whenever component you have the location the the target segment the specification of segment the classification as well of segment so here you are putting the people reading your business plan or your track now we will serve these kind of people we will serve this tet segment here people will start thinking about your business model about your business idea product or service description in this part you describe all the aspects of your product or service like for E use we can describe we are a website and mobile application providing online recorded programs and online live programs for use from 18 35 years old our service we provide assessments based on AI we provide learning management system we provide educational content we provide accreditation from International universities and partners we provide job matchmaking our four services and we describe each service to a detail that helps anyone to like read and see what you are able to do with your and service or product as well operations plan here you state how you will do your service here you will explain what kind of operation like Marketing sales operation management uh production take operation all the operations should be done in terms to reach your service or product to as a Target segment so you started with market analysis stated what and who is your target segment and then you go to explain what is specifically your service or product and here you answer how you are delivering your product or service into operational wise so what is your sales operation what is your marketing operation what is your management operation what is your product how you product product or service how you assess the successful of your product or Services also here the management team here you will explain who is your management team and their their qualifications and your expertise as well who these people the name short for you and you should mention how many years they work the experience in each field and also if they work with big names before you should mention the name of the history of each one in the management team is very important because the team is the guarantee key of anyone investors partners of anyone that your plan your business plan will be implemented on the ground because the management team these people will manage the operation that provide the service or product to that Target segment so if you provide a good qualified management team related to your business and they have a good experience you and to your business as well so anyone read it will see okay it's a very good team so we we we are trusting the team to operate this so the objective for us as a co-founders or Founders or entrepreneurs for the management team is to convince anyone reading your business planning your business plan that your team is capable and have the needed qualifications to do that and here we should figure out and present in a good shape your team and the expertise for each one in your team and then the financial projections you can make it three years or make it four years and or five years I prefer five years because all the investors wanted to see the five years plan and most investor the lifetime for the investor in the start is 5 years so they always looking I will invest now $1 what will coming out to me after 5 years and the valuation now for the company is like 1 million USD as example and after 5 years what would be the evaluation of your company it's this way so the financial projection you put the cost to projection what you will pay money in and then you will do the money cash flow of cash in or revenu or sales how you you will get money and how much for me I do per year year one year two year three year four year five and also I do year 1 12 months year 2 12 months year 3 12 months because you can see if your Market or product or service is a seasonal product or service how if you found thir months you will work very high and get more revenues in January and February but in March you will get low Revenue what I should here I should manage the finance from January and February to facilitate my weakness point in March so when you do the 12 months per year plan you will help yourself first and you will help the investors to see you have like points you need to have some money extra so I need to inest money in these points or the Reven from previous monthes will cover me and the months that's not the same of the regular cash flow and then the funding and financing are you looking for funding yes for sure if you send your business plan to invest how much you looking for and what type use this funding and how many money or how much money you're looking for and also how you will invest this money into your business remember the last slide we was talk about the cost the cost projection is how you will use your fund and also you can calculate the runway of your fund if you get 1 million USD how many months you can spend on your team on your production or your service and how much money you should get as a revenue to cover your time if the funding will only sustain for five months so I need my revenues to cover the the seven months the rest month in the year is how you integrate between the funding and financing you looking for funding how much and which like shares percentage and also this funding how I use it will use it and how much I need from my revenues to cover the rest of the need mon l what's your competive advantage instead like of your competitive so you put like a comparison table your name your startup and the convertors you see and to consider the direct and indirect compe as well and put the points you see there a competive advantage in the market and check like this picture what is the point you are covering and other the points are not covering and after you stay the comparison the most important part to analyze the competition to put the analysis of this competition and also you put how you overcome your weaknesses point and always every startup and everyone have a weakness point it can't be happen to put all five stars of your comat advantage competing to the comp is not right because no one serving 100% their service and the W or product you should have a weakness point and a strength point and you should know that and you should be honest when you deliver this knowledge to the investors we have these point and we have witness points one to three we will work to to adapt with these weakness points we will work to make it strength in the next two three years we should be clear and honest because the investors get like fact when you are saying I don't have competitors um five stars everywhere everything I provide is very high quality everything is good it's not like that and also the the price is not a combin Advantage you can't tell people my competive advantage I'm Che no you should do a competive Advantage with the core business so I have more quality I add more features I add more thing is to my business it can't be like either way I'm a cheap because the cheapness is not a competive Advantage because if a big name in the market come they can new they can provide it with a very low price to P new startup because you have luxury of money but you don't have that's why the feed and the cost or like the pricing it can't be a competive Advantage anymore the ComEd Advantage should be coming from your business main points like quality like service product features mobile apps whatever marketing and sales strategy how you will Market your business and what you will use online offline what will using the channels specifically online and what can be used offline and the market strategy retention everything in the marketing class and the sales strategy how you will do a sales channel from getting the lead convincing the lead and also get money from your lead so you need to put your market and sales strategy in a very good way in order to convince the people in reading your business plan about that then the Milestone and the key performance indicators what your milestone for the next five years the numbers what you will achieve in the next five years and what your kpi please don't make more than three kpis in is we have two kpis number of Learners and number of jobs offered to our graduates this only the Ki and make it simple our kpi is that Uber is a number of cars a keep eyes and also number of trips easy way don't complicate your PBIS because this kpi is the parameter of your success and the investors okay tell me what your pbii number of paid users number of Reven and Etc so you need to simplify your PV eyes make it straight to the point make it clear easy to anyone read it to make it okay yes P eyes is very clear and last thing is a conclusion and make step what is your conclusion for the business plan and the next steps as well what you will do in the next steps and the and business plan should be around 15 to 20 Pages maximum don't make a big business plan because the investors and these people they don't have a lot of time to read and when you clever or like smart you can easily address your point and the this number of pages because it will give you like an advantage to anyone read it if you can read it in one hour it's easy but if you make a big business plan with a huge number of pages it's very hard also remember the business plan is not something it's not fixed something it always revisit after every six months you need to revisit your business plan there's a lot of changes like currency economic situations problems challenges pricing whatever feedback from customers feedback from investors feedback from Partners you need to consider your business it's a flexible one every six months we go and Revis the business plan and updated I finish with I finish with my presentation but I wanted to ask you question I before like I was studying in USA I I meet the COO of uber he asked me a question and I will ask it to you and you can answer in the comments he asked me what is the most important skill should be in any entrepreneur so write your answers and the comments and I will tell you the right answer after I listen from you what is the most important skill should be and the entrepreneurs to have a good business plan and business model okay thank you so much Mr Mustafa for that wonderful presentation like he said he would like us to answer the question what is the most important skill and enterpreneur should have is that right Mr yes correct okay so would please um we would be reading out the answers in a short while but first I'd like to thank all our sponsors nro Technologies upun soft Africa's business and spirit TV for creating this wonderful platform to learn as young African entrepreneurs um we also encourage everyone to please follow our social media handles to stay updated and connected we are on Facebook Twitter Instagram and Linkedin in at inp connect our official website is also ww. in.org and please follow our community inp community which is um connect. in.org um over there we would be able to access the materials and also um we recently uploaded a video tutorial on how to locate the attendance um sheet so please do well to follow the inp Community um I'll just be checking I will read some answers like subject M matter expert no creativity and Innovative skill no the one will answer right I will give him like a promo code on OS learning platform you can get uh courses uh for free to make it more tangible that's that's wonderful thank you so much Mr MFA so please financial management this SK no leadership and organization no only one word that's one word okay the answer is only one word yes someone said leadership and organization skills bu propos no someone said a good business proposal are you cool another said it I think it is an ability to communicate good and effectively cre um Adrian says creativity comes again saying problem solving skills um successful entrepreneur says resilience Godwin Emmanuel says critical thinking um Wellness solution says communication we have one more minute until if no one answer I will answer one more minute okay so for um Karen Jong says passion John says most important skill and interpreter should have is communication skills um I think we already said that was a no um sopia says tenacious Anthony says enterprising Carl says res resilience and determination buyers company says business management skill Ojo says leadership um I think we took Godwin already youf says negotiating skills s nden says SWAT analysis and John says ability to see an opportunity um Dei says ad adaptability okay we can stop here no one answer the right one I will answer it he told me that like was the sales skill sorry you said sales skill sales sales skills why because like you sell it you sell your business to five five people if you have a good sales skills you will sell it to the investors to your partners your co-founders your team and yourself to the investors when you go to S idea to them to get their money for the partners when you sell the idea to them because you you are looking for their partnership the team because you sell it to the employees will be believing in your business and they come to work with you for for your co-founders because in the beginning you're looking to have a co-founder and you should sell the idea to them to come to number five to yourself if you are not selling the idea for yourself you will have it very hard and also you will not be motivated to that I am ready back to answer you all questions about the S okay thank you so much Mr Mustafa um if you have any questions for Mr Mustafa on today's session please um you could start asking your questions someone wanted a Clarity on is sales not negotiation skill yes the negotiation skills is different the negotiation you are offering already something and you negotiate about it and the negotiation is part of the sales sales is something big you go and you make a strategy s everything the strategy the pre meeting the post meeting G meeting and proposal everything and the negotiation comes after all that stuff after you finish all the stuff then you negotiate about what you already s to them if they didn't accept your sale they will not negotiate so you not preaching the negotiation area if he didn't successfully sell to them your idea or service or product thank you Mr Mustafa um we have a question from Ali the question is what are the key operational processes required to deliver any service what what are the key operational processes required to deliver my service okay the key operation proces to deliver your service is very different based on the service itself each service have its style it's operational plan it's work so it's not it's not like something you will do as a fix of something it's different from a service or product it's different from a kind of service to a kind of service another service so the operational process is the easiest way to offer your service or product to your clients is the easiest way the key oper process is something you do with a very no steps and very clear steps in order to achieve your client thank you Mr Mustafa the next question is from yourself it's says is there a fixed format for writing a business plan no it's not a fixed format there's like the components we speak about today there the main components you can add any extra component you need but you know don't make it very big thank you Mr Mustafa for the answer next question is from jimo please what skills do we need to acquire to lead our competitors like did you get skill yes yeah sorry the lag in the internet yes sir the skills we need to acquire to lead our competitor it's not a skill it's the idea of your business it's how you will offer more feature and more part on your business in order to lead the competition it's not like a skill it's like a business idea it's like your operation it's like your sales points every single part of your business is very important but it's not like a skill you have but it's a group of activities into the business in order to leave the competition thank you Mr Mr for that um answer the next question is from amth and the question is what are the challenges facing business plan and how to overcome them the challenge is facing the business plan and there's always a challenge in the business plan and you should you should see like if you're facing the challenge you are in a regular case every business plan should be challeng and you should face The Challenge and what you do is to like making your business plans leful to interact with the challenge wonderful thank you um Mr Mustafa the next question is from Tang the question is why is the business plan so important yet business nowadays change so [Music] quickly uh the V plan so important for sure and your flexible business plan is more most important because nowadays a lot of challenges everywhere all over the world so if you have a flexible business plan you will be adapting and flexible on what we have now but if you are have a fixed business plan it will not leave you to success you will have it as like a parer between you and your success so make your business plan flexible and make your business more flexible it will help you to be in a good sh in the market wonderful thank you next question is from buyers company the question is thank you Mr Mustafa my question is is there any danger giv a professional my business plan to write for my company no you can do that if you don't have a a good writing skill you can do that for sure but also now you can use AI writing it Prof yes thank you Mr ofer the next question is from your Anthony the question is are my competitors my enemies no the competitors you can be smart and you can use them to have more users or client because the compor help like if we see this a client this client is not anym familiar with the product or service or the industry what you should do you should interact with this person and make them interested in the topic or the service or the product and then sell to them if your competitor do the first part for you then you can easily get the second part if they learn them for the industry learn them how to use industry and service or product so it's converted from someone is they don't know anything to a one he is a learner user or a learner client then it's easier for you to sell to learner client than selling to any un learner client wonderful thank you for the answer the qu next question is from Godwin Emanuel the question is what can you say is the market analysis for an itri business and an agricultural business okay the market analysis should be like have a lot of things the location the selling the revenue is coming from where there is your B2B or b2c business your product or service I think he your product and very important to mention the challenges because in these kind of businesses it's highrisk businesses because you fa with environmental challenges you're facing with some challenges is not faced by the take start if you have a take start so you should put this kind of factors inside your analysis as well wonderful thank you Mr Mustafa next question is from successful entrepreneurs the question is if I have two products or more and looking for financing should I write my business plan on one product to investors or grants no no make one business plan for you two product is a business plan for the company not the product if your company provide two business products it's okay put it in the same and make it like two business lines Reven is from the product one R from the product two cost for the product one cost for the product two but there is the business plan is for the company you can make a business plan for a company with holding company have companies and product Services under 100 one business thank you Mr Mustafa um the next question is from um Mr John the question is must one have his business plan penned down in a document for a oneman business can you just operate your business business plan from your head um second question is is my business plan for me alone or for public view your business plan is for public and I don't get the question very much but if you ask about you have everything in your mind and you work with your mind I think it's very risky no one will like trust that from your investors because you thinking if you forget something the business will affect negative so better to write it down that's true thank you Mr Musta next question is from Godwin Emanuel question is um is there a tool or software to write the financials for a business plan yes there is a lot of tools also inbp and the bait version you can do that easily thank you Mr Mustafa um next next question is I think we're still waiting for more questions to come in so please if you have more questions we still have a bit of time to answer those questions so keep the questions come coming in um as we wait for questions remember to follow us on all our social media handles next question is from Ola jumare the question is previously I have heard that as a small business for to 10 pages business plan will do but I Lear of 15 to 20 business pages today kindly share your thoughts okay there's like a lot of Business Schools like you can do that 4 to 10 or 15 to 20 I prefer 15 to 20 to make more detailed one but you can make it 4 to 10 but it will not have all the details if you successfully do that in four pages you put all the days you are great but in the regular like average startups it's around 15 to 20 Pages support all your detailed on thank you Mr Mustafa um we have a question from Ibrahim the question is what is the difference between business plan and Pitch deck the pitch deck is a summary of your business plan to have it in PowerPoint but the business plan is a document of word document it's more detailed but the best is the presentation of your business plan wonderful thank you Mr Mustafa next question is from Teo the question is is it always important to include or outline marketing and sales plan in your business plan and also perform a business financial analysis to be able to make projections how important is this very very thank you next question is from calb calb says is it best for us to include figures or amount of money we want to use in our business plan 100% yes I believe that answers your question Mr Kell next question is from Matthew the question is does one need a business plan to establish a F you need business plan yes but it's not as like a complicated business plan must be easier but you need it to see your future there's a good investment or no how you will sell who will get your product uh the projections everything thank you um I think we've answered this question before about um fixed format for writing a business plan next question is from Lawrence and the question is what should I do to make an investor invest on my business I have a good idea with a needed service or product and a good business plan wonderful thank you Mr Mustafa next question is from maed the question is is SWAT analysis not necessary in writing business plan necessary but if you add it it would be a good point if you don't and another question is you mentioned that a business plan should be reviewed how often should I review my plan once for six months okay every six month to that's every six months okay thank you Mr Mr the next question um I think it's still loading our next question is how do I manage or handle challenges in business plan when the business is not going the way you did not plan you need to analyses what happening and why happening and you need to affect or change your business plan in order to address these challenges and handle the challenges as well so the analysis the reasons and the solution what should you you do in order to come over these kind of challenges and the change your business plan based on the new stuff thank you Mr Mustafa for that answer um next question is okay I think we answered this one on Pitch deck okay no how do market research and Analysis play a crucial role in shaping the business plan very important because the market research and Analysis is the ground of your business plan is the ground the floor and then you build is other flow of your business PL on this ground wonderful um due to time we might be taking our last um two to three questions next question is what traction can you include in funding pitch deck if you if you have not yet sold any product and just preparing to launch your business you should do the projection not the previous structure the wonderful thank you next question is how can I assess the potential demand for my product or service through the market research and market analysis if you do that well you will know the potential demand for your product and service and then um next question is from Sophia how do one write a good business plan for follow the structural research day and also should use a good like writing English skills and an easy words and include all the details mentioned today and you can add more that's wonderful thank you Mr Mr far question is is the price of the product or Services included in the business plan yes sure that's wonderful and our last question for today I'm trying to check last question is from Teo is what is the difference between a business profile and a business plan can one have both documents or one that covers all aspects of my business business plan is something bigger and more detailed and more data as well business profile is something to be for the external part like put the overview and the product services and the pricing of your product only but you can't you can't include the investment the revenues and the shareholder for the company and all the stuff so the profile is only for something like Outsider not an not a investor or partner that can see the profile but the business plan is designed for more detailed one to pay for investors wonderful thank you so so much Mr mopa for your wonderful Insight um please if we're unable to answer your question question um you could always connect with us at our community and then um where you have access to some of our mentors and then they'll be able to answer your question from there um Mr Mustafa do you have any concluding um statements for us no I want to thank you so much for the second time to be with you I want to thank everyone interacting with us and was with us here in the session and I hope uh please wonderful um Mr AJ is also with us before we hear a few statements from him um I would like to thank each and everyone of you for joining in with us it's been a wonderful week and then it's still going to be a wonderful um session from next week Monday till Friday so please do well to join in with us if you're yet to subscribe to our you YouTube Channel please do subscribe so you get notified when each session begins Mr AJ good to have you please a few words for us uh thank you Jessica and it's good to be here um I it's been again another amazing uh session and I'd like to say a big uh thank you to uh Mr Mustafa we are really grateful for uh having you again today uh it's been an insightful and wonderful uh presentation uh on behalf of the entire team and of course the particip uh thank you uh very much uh for uh being part of U this community uh with your great contribution uh we are grateful thank you very much and also thanks to uh all the uh participant Jessica thank you very much for um your great job so over to you Jessica uh one last I think there's someone that asked a question um the question was whether we they are going to write a business plan that is absolutely right um for those who will move to the um the last phase or the next phase of this program uh you will definitely be required to uh write either a business plan or a pitch deck uh depending on what the panel dis side regarding that so yes you should actually prepare for that because I'm sure they will be happy to see what you can come up with Jessica thank you Mr AJ um please just a reminder again if you're still unable to um know how to access the attendance link um a video has been uploaded so that it makes it easy for you to um Locate it so do well to check out the video the link is um on the inp community so if you're on the community you'll be able to see the video and know how to access the attendance um form it is a wonderful it's been a wonderful week like I said again and um we hope to see you guys next week from Monday so From Me Myself and the team have a wonderful weekend and see you next time bye for now e e for