Writing the winning Executive Summary II: Nuts and Bolts

Barely 72 hours before the deadline for the 8th Start-Up@Singapore business plan competition, have you prepared your executive summary for submission? Of course, we continue to provide some more tips on writing the winning executive summary. By no means is my advice meant to be the be-all and end-all standard for the judges, but most people could use it as a guideline in writing their summaries for the competition.

Now we come to the nuts and bolts of a winning executive summary. If you have read part I, you will know that we are looking for innovative, sustainable and scalable ideas. That is the strategic part of the summary, but now we want to talk about the way in which you write your summary:

• 1. The structure of the executive summary is organized and understandable: You should break it down into different sections, for example, introduction, market opportunity, idea/technology, route to markets, financials, business model and exit strategy.
  2. Use plain simple language: Here are some examples which will give you a good idea what kind of phrases you should refrain from writing. Avoid phrases like “We would like to…”, “We would make $X by the end of this year.” and “We should do this and do that”. Instead, use phrases like “We aim to become the leading provider ..”, “Our core competency is …” and “Based on our financial projections, we estimate our sales revenue to be $X and our profit margins to be $Y.”
  3. Present a simple and clear idea: When you finish writing your article, show it to someone who has totally no idea what you are doing. If you cannot convince someone within ten minutes what your idea is, the same can be applied to the judges.
  4. Tell the truth – Honesty is the best policy: If you have a prototype, tell us that you have a beta working product. If you have an idea, don’t lie that you have built a prototype. You should also be honest about your customers. Some executive summaries promise the moon, but they don’t realize that some sharp judges can make phonecalls or Google search to check their claims.
  5. Selling a solution to the problem: The executive summary is short, so you need to make it brief and explain the market opportunity in a simple way. You have to explain what the niche area you are exploiting and how you can create a “blue ocean” that can protect you from the competitors. If there is an interest to your business recently, do tell people about it so that you can demonstrate a demand for it. Here are some mock-up examples: (i) Recently, the Singapore government has placed S$13.25B into high technology research and development, focussing on three areas: materials science, biomedical sciences and renewable energies. or (ii) The digital media market is estimated to be about US$3B.
  6. Refrain using jargon in technology: You need to make your technology sound simple. The judges don’t like to know whether your product has sodium hydroxide, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), or need you to explain what light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (LASER) means. Always compare your technology to the existing ones and explain why you are better. Here are two made-up examples which I often used to teach people when they write up their technology: (i) MaterialSoft uses a state of the art composite ceramic material to build fibres which can efficently hold vehicles on muddy grounds. or (ii) RealTime utilizes smart known heurestic algorithms to resolve blurred objects of old movies in mp5 format 1000 times better than present format.
  7. Making risks and problems sound good: You need to convince the judges that you have means and ways to prevent your competitors from replicating what you do. You should not say things like “We are the only ones who know how to do it” or “We have the intellectual property which makes us invincible.. Here are examples which you can understand how to make it sound reasonable: (i) MaterialSoft faces the risk of a saturated and traditional ceramics industry. It requires to change the business mindset of traditional materials firm. or (ii) The compression format of RealTime is not easily replicated but there is a possibility of other emerging movie formats which can overtake mp5 format.
  8. Write relevant things about the team: Please make sure that you have a team with diversified skills and also tell the judge how your management team with the appropriate skills can make the business flourish. It is often good to get grey hairs with experiences, and if you have big names in your advisory board, you are ready to get good marks from judges (but please be honest that you have approached these people and they have agreed). Examples include: (i) John Ho is the CEO of the company. Prior to joining MaterialSoft, he was working in Nippon Materials as a Vice President in Sales. or (ii)Larry Pang is a co-founder of the team. Currently a second year undergraduate in engineering, he has been working on RFID technology and done a couple of research projects under Prof Eastwood, an expert on RFID technologies. He has won a couple of technology competitions and has strong expertise in writing software for gadgets. He will act as the CTO of the RealTime.

So, now that you have some idea on what you should or should not do. I will leave you to your own devices. My only last word to you is, “Good luck.”

Related Links:
[1] BL, Writing the winning Executive Summary I – What do the judges want?.
[2] BL, Why and how do you write an Executive Summary?.

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