Next Step towards Boosting Investment Projects’ Quality: The Upgraded Project Description Form for Entrepreneurs

At the end of the day entrepreneurs and investors want one and the same thing – establishing a stable and beneficial partnership. However, it appears that they tend to focus on their own side of the coin and oversee the demands of the other party.

Two years ago we developed a structured project submission form as a solution to these discrepancies and an instrument to support entrepreneurs in pitching their business ideas. Since then we have been communicating with our customers, gathering feedback and learning. So now we know even better what questions investors ask and what information entrepreneurs should be able to provide in order to not only attract and retain the investor’s interest but at the first place to self-assess whether their ideas make a business sense and are worth going after at all.

Based on this knowledge and driven by the desire to improve the quality of the investment projects on Merar, we are now upgrading our project submission form. We are convinced that the higher the quality of the projects, i.e. the more, relevant, accurate, and comprehensive the information they provide, the greater their chances of finding the right investor.

Here is what has changed for entrepreneurs willing to publish a project on Merar:

• There are two different forms: one for projects about established companies and one for projects about businesses yet to start up.

Entrepreneurs have to select the option that corresponds to their case and fill in the respective form which will open automatically:

• Specifying the type of the investment required is mandatory. Project owners have to select one, two or all of the three categories:

Debt finance is capital in the form of loan or overdraft that has to be paid back within a fixed period with interest. Equity finance is capital in exchange of company shares and agreed dividend payments. Examples of Other investment types include royalty-based investments and franchise agreements.

• There is a new section on company information and financial figures such as sales revenue and ROI.

Entrepreneurs who are yet to start up their business are asked to projected financial figures for the first three years after launch:

Owners of already established businesses are supposed to fill in some basic company information in addition to the financial data for the last three years and estimated figures for the current year:

Existing projects may remain in the same format; however we strongly recommend entrepreneurs to upgrade their descriptions in accordance with the new form.

We believe that these changes will not only make the project description more useful to investors but would also help entrepreneurs assess the feasibility of their own business ideas and present them to third parties on or beyond Merar. 

We hope to see most of you filling in the additional sections and are looking forward for your feedback. If you have any questions, just let us know.

Image courtesy: Pic Basement, Flickr CC.