Five Resources to Help Build Your Startup

Elevate Perspective

Five Resources to Help Build Your Startup

By Marketing and Communications

Starting a company is an exciting experience, but it can also be extremely intimidating. The amount of information in the form of books, podcasts, articles, and more can make things even more overwhelming. With a decade of experience helping startups launch and grow in Indiana, Elevate Ventures has amassed a great deal of knowledge and insights to help entrepreneurs throughout their journey. We’ve compiled some of the most helpful resources that will help you with business planning, fundraising, and more. Below we share a few examples that you might find useful.  

Developing a Business Plan – A Complete Guide

A business plan can be a powerful tool to ensure that your startup is moving in the right direction. You can use the plan to establish growth strategies and implement them. It can also help you identify holes in your plan and keep you focused. When looking for financing or seeking investment, you need a well-written business plan. The business plan can be shared in part, or in whole, with professional advisors as well as to help build business alliances. In this guide, you’ll find tips to think about before writing your plan.

Guide to Writing an Executive Summary

An executive summary serves two main purposes. First, it gives prospective investors a quick overview of your most critical elements. Second, it allows you to demonstrate the big picture of the company to people who are essential to its success, such as co-founders, partners, or key employees. In our Guide to Writing an Executive Summary, you will find steps to help you create an executive summary. While there is no set length a summary should be between two and three pages long. The use of pictures and graphs ensures a quick and easy way for you to communicate. Learn more and find our guide here.

Guide to Investor Pitch

If you’re raising capital for your startup, a great pitch deck is essential. A compelling pitch deck engages potential investors to learn more about your company, hopefully leading to an investment. The presentation gives the audience a quick overview of your business plan. In our Guide to Investor Pitch, we go over the 10 key items you should include in every pitch as well as tips on formatting and presenting your deck.

Marketing Plan Template

Starting a company is a complicated process, now let’s add in marketing! You’re most likely working on a budget, but you still must make your presence known. Analyzing which marketing campaigns have the highest impact can help you allocate your money efficiently. A marketing plan template encourages you to compare the return on investment of marketing and its payback. It will also help you develop a disciplined method for reviewing, evaluating, and setting goals for your marketing efforts.

Human Resources Plan

No matter the industry, people are a vital asset to any and all companies. As a founder, hiring decisions should be well planned out as your startup scales. It’s important to prepare for future growth, facilities, succession, and other factors, as well as anticipate your organization’s future. In this article, we share a few human resources tools to help you develop a current and proactive plan for hiring and contracting resources.

To find all our templates, guides and resources on a variety of topics, click here. If you need more assistance or have specific questions, our Entrepreneurs-in-Residence are well-versed in the specific challenges that founders face while scaling their business.