Evaluation Process
If you are interested in partnering with us, please submit an executive summary and business plan to bplans@hpvp.com. Your business plan should include:
- Business Idea, and why it’s important
- Proposed Solution
- How it addresses an important current problem
- Differentiation and defensibility of your approach
- Market Size and Trends
- Go to Market Strategy
- Competition
- Management Team:
- Track Record
- Particular skills relevant to this business
- Business Model
- Unit economics and sales channel economics
- “Bottoms up” financial projections
- Capital Sought
- Current raise and use of funds
- Long term financing strategy
We review every plan that we get. If you submit your plan you can count on hearing from us within 10 business days, and frequently sooner than that. And if you meet our threshold criteria, we will be eager to meet you shortly thereafter. We like spending time with creative entrepreneurs, and we learn something from every meeting, so we’re excited to meet you.
We receive many business plans each week. In a given year, 30 or so deals will undergo extensive due diligence. Of those, three to five will be selected for investment. Frequently we decide, for a variety of reasons, not to invest in a company despite liking the people involved and having some basic faith in the business. In those instances we will always make an effort to be helpful regardless, with either references to potential partners, thoughts on possible hires, and, at least, some candid advice and feedback.
As a rule, we are unable to sign NDAs. We receive so many plans that if we signed every NDA request, we would quickly be overwhelmed with legal documentation. For entrepreneurs who are concerned about protecting their idea, Guy Kawasaki has a frank and excellent summary of NDA’s in this article from Forbes magazine.
