Over the last 15 years representing early stage companies, we have met with hundreds of private equity and angel investors. One message that each investor communicated (in many different ways, but all tinged with frustration) was that every time they closed the conference room door they hoped to hear a compelling story about how the company they were meeting could be the next blow-out -- the next BIG THING!
One particularly impressive meeting revealed the investor wanted to hear the company's OPERA. I got him talking about what that meant to him. Driving from that meeting our founder decided to take that thought further to its logical conclusion. Out came O.P.E.R.A. Our codified message framework development process. This proprietary process now has helped companies we served raise more than $300 million. Let PrimeAxcess help you define and produce your own OPERA. Read on to get a sense of the elements.
Once in a lifetime Opportunity
What is your market? Who is craving your product or service? How mature is the market? What are the trends driving your market? Who are your competitors? How is the best competitor doing? Top 3? Bottom 3?
People, Product, Planning, Performance
Who are your people? What is your product or service? What are you planning to do and how good is your team at planning? How are you performing? What are your performance milestones and metrics? How well have you performed in the past?
Experience, Execution, Evolution
What is the experience level of you and your team and what have you experienced to date with this company? How well have you and your team executed in the past and more importantly, how well are you executing on your current plan? How has your company evolved? Where did the idea come from? How is it changing as you proceed on your planned trajectory? What do you expect the company and the market to look like in 18 months? What do you expect they will look like in 36 months? How do you attract and retain topgraded employees?
Research, Reach, Revenue, Returns
How well do you know the market? Who is your team Oracle and how does your team keep abreast of marketplace activities? What is your plan to reach the market? How will your prospects become loyal advocates and paying customers? How do you earn revenues? How much do you expect your penetration to be? How will you achieve those goals? What do you anticipate your revenue per employee to be? How will your company make money for its investors?
Accomplishments, Activities, Acceleration
What have you accomplished so far? What are the biggest historical accomplishments of your team members to date? Can they each hold up their end of the corporate responsibilities? What is going on today in your company? What do the CEO, CMO, CSO, and CTO do daily? How is their time allocated? What does your IT personnel do daily? How fast do you plan to grow in different areas? How fast can you grow with $250k? $750k, $1M, $3M, etc? What would you do differently if money was no obstacle?