Resources for Entrepreneurs

Executive Summary

Executive Summary is the primary document with which entrepreneurs approach potential investors or corporate partners. To assist SVOD participants in preparing this important marketing document we prepared a tutorial that will help you navigate through the process of drafting an executive summary. The tutorial is based on the extensive experience accumulated by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. You can download tutorial here. Please use Adobe Acrobat to see and print the document. While an executive summary is not required to participate in the conference, you need to submit your executive summary to be considered for a company presentation/exhibit, and for inclusion into the conference catalogue.

Please check Executive Summary tutorial and Executive summary example.

Business plan

You are not required to submit a business plan to participate in the SVOD conference, but since you will spend two days at the place with high concentration of venture capital firms we highly recommend to write up a business plan and have multiple copies of it with you at the Conference. To assist you in putting together an efficient business plan AmBAR experts and venture capital professionals prepared a Tutorial which you can download here. You will need Adobe Acrobat reader to view and print the file. We also recommend you to take advantage of a number of publicly available resources: United States Small Business Administration - a comprehensive resource for entrepreneurs on building small companies, raising capital, and managing a growing enterprise. There are a number of internet websites that offer free sample business plans and numerous business planning tools: Bplans.com Center for Business Planning Please note, however, that a coin laundry business plan differs substantially from a business plan for a high technology venture. That is why we recommend using our Guidelines developed specifically for a growing technology company based on day-to-day experience of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.

You can find Business plan tutorial here

Presentation

Presentation is your best chance to market your company to potential investors or corporate partners. You cannot miss that chance, which is why presentation should be clear, understandable and should cover all principal features and advantages of your business. There is no established format for a presentation, and its content depends primarily on your audience and the goal you are trying to achieve. However, there are basic principles and topics that need to be covered in an investor presentation, which are covered in the tutorial developed by our experts. If your project selected for a presentation at the SVOD conference, you will have a chance to discuss your presentation with our experts.

You can find Presentation tutorial here

One-pager

One-Pager is a form that will be enclosed in the SVOD Conference Brochure for investors to get short and concise information about your company.

One-Pager contains the most important information about your company, website info and ONE PARAGRAPH on what is the purpose of your business, its unique and innovative technology, market size, who are your customers, how is your company different from its competitors, your “smartest and most clever” team members.

Here are a few onepager templates you ca use in order to submit one-pager:

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

“We are glad to have an opportunity to meet with the movers and shakers of the Silicon Valley and to invite them to participate in building the new high tech industry in Russia. We will continue using AmBAR/SVOD as a platform to dispel some old myths about Russian ways of doing business and tell our partners a new story – that of a reliable and competent friend interested in building long-term relationships.”

Leonid Gozman, Board Member, RUSNANO

"The wonderful thing about entrepreneurs is that their passion for starting new companies transcends languages and geographic boundaries. I felt very comfortable at SVOD and recognized its participants as having the same type of DNA that made Silicon Valley what it is today."

Ron Conway, Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds, early stage investor in Google and PayPal

"The progress SVOD has made over the past five years is to a great extent a reflection of the overall progress evident in Russia in the areas of entrepreneurship and venture capital. Even though much needs to be improved before Russia can become a consistently preferred destination for foreign capital, the overall quality of Russian companies and savvy-ness of the entrepreneurs participating at SVOD 2009 is an indication that the Russian start-up market, and the technology sector in general, is moving in the right direction."

Peter Loukianoff, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Almaz Capital Partners.

"AmBAR/SVOD is a unique organization serving as a communication platform for Russian speaking technology and business professionals, start-ups and service providers. It is also a successful non-profit startup that has grown meteorically over the course of five years driven by the grass-route participation and a committed management team. Were it not for its non-profit charter, SVOD would have made a very solid portfolio company for most VCs in the Valley!"

Alexei Andreev, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Harris and Harris.

“When in 2002 we started AmBAR in the Silicon Valley, we dreamt of creating a professional Russian-speaking community (a high-tech club with a Russian accent!) that would help the Russian expats start their companies, as well as making our experience useful to the fledgling high-tech industry back in the old country. I'm delighted to see this dream come true at the 2009 SVOD conference. Seeing so many promising startups with Russian technologies at the core, gives me hope that in a few years these entrepreneurs will become successful and take their turn to mentor and invest, giving back to the community.”

Igor Plotnikov, Visionary Engineer and Executive

"If one were to stack up 1 billion dollars, the stack would be about 1 kilometer high. At the present time, Russia has several high-tech venture funds whose monetary “stack value” is higher than Everest. At the same time, a small university startup project has no viable venue to present its technology to a community of like-minded individuals. Fortunately for us, U.S. CRDF (United States Civilian Research and Development Foundation) has taken an active interest in our projects via its experts in Siberia and financed our students’ trip to the Silicon Valley. We hope that our participation in SVOD 2009 will help us to commercialize our projects. Our heartfelt Thank You goes to U.S.CRDF and SVOD!”

Alexander Uvarov, Pro-rector of Computer Science and Engineering, Tomsk State University

“Please accept our sincere "Thank you" for putting so much of your time, energy and heart to organize such a remarkable event.
It is hard to overestimate it's importance and uniqueness as well as a "make-a-difference" profile in building an innovative infrastructure promoting an active dialog between two half's of the progress - Entrepreneurs and their partners - VCs, Private equity, Banking, etc .
By hosting this interaction SVOD helps break-through technologies to be commercialized for the benefit of mankind. It was pleasure and honor to be a part of it...”

Elmira Ryabova, CTO, ADCO Engineering

"The SVOD-2009 conference was a wonderful event. Networking is very important for start-ups. The challenge for them is often not money: it is mentoring and finding people who can give good advice from experience. That’s why it’s important for RUSNANO to send people back and forth, so they can get more involved in the global start-up community. SVOD can help to attract more experienced advisors, entrepreneurs and investors to Russia, so that Russians and Americans can learn from their foreign counterparts."

Esther Dyson, Founder, EDventure Holdings

"I consider AMBAR and SVOD absolutely fantastic venues that help entrepreneurs in a very real way. When we started our first company, DB Best, we were able to find angel investors and a lead architect. Three years later we were acquired by Microsoft. I don't know if we were able to achieve that without dedication of the folks from AMBAR. Presenting our new startup www.Pikaba.com at the SVOD 2009 generated excellent contacts for us and I'm looking forward to report another "success story" in the very near future. So big THANK YOU to AMBAR and SVOD"

Dmitry Balin

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