1)After going through the case just mentioned, identify the many mistakes that were committed by Lucky, particularly from the point of view of pithing one’s idea to fetch finances. Identify specific areas of improvement that can lead him to succeeed in getting finances.

CASE: GO GOLD: HOW AND WHERE TO APPROACH FOR FINANCE?

‘GO Gold, an initiative by Lucky, had been self-funded so far to come to a proof-of-concept stage. Lucky was working out the possibility of raising some angel investment so as to continue further with his efforts in the area of coming up with a Search Engine that was expected to have great opportunity. The emergent need for raising money to take the idea to the next stage was critical, as the proof of concept was far from what the final GO GOLD was supposed to be. Lucky needed more people to work on the idea further and improved infrastructure facilities, so as to successfully come up with a product that could tap the potential market looking for effective search engines.

Lucky had decided, based on interactions with his other friends who had successfully launched their start-up ventures, that it may not be a worthwhile and desirable option to approach bankers or venture capitalists for funds at this stage of their product development. Therefore, he was basically planning to approach angel investors who would understand his technology- intensive venture and were likely to appreciate the prospects of future potential to approach angel investors. Lucky had done his homework prepared a small demo and presentation to pitch on the idea before his prospective angel investors.

In his presentation, the focus was the possibilities, technicalities involved, prospects for success and potential users. Above all, emphasis was laid on the reason as to why natural language- based search could still be an effective tool. He also attempted to work our future financial projections that could show the possibilities of increasing revenue and profit over the years based on some assumptions about advertising as a major source of revenue.

His own assessment of some of the presentations that he had pitched revealed the following shortcomings:

i) Go Gold gives better results for certain keywords and bad results for certain other. However, this was not duly taken care of in the demo presentation. Lucky was not fully prepared to respond to wide – ranging queries that would have result from demo and presentation on the product. He did not realize that the strong points of the demo matter the most and the possibly areas that need further effort to come up with the workable solutions need to be suppressed, especially before prospective financers. His Presentation was more focused on technicalities rather than on the business model as an outcome of technology application.

ii) The Presentation emphasized the prospects and possibilities of GO GOLD with regard to user friendliness and financial projections. However, the business model was completely missing. He realized that it would have been desirable for him to substantiate user experiences and responses to his search engine or to gather responses in writing from some of the prominent users who had the power to influence others.

iii) Above all, his proposal lacked competitive analysis as also strategic thrust. He seemed to be completely in the dark as regards competitors and their competitive advantages as also revenue model were concerned.