Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Should I disclose missed milestones in my business plan that I intend on sharing with professional investors?

• posted by: John Weisz on 2016-11-14
• tagged: business-plan, investment
• score: 6

We have decided on pitching to investors to speed our project up. The project has seen serious amounts of research and development on our own, and now has a nice working prototype. However, there are, unfortunately, a few pre-planned milestones that were missed during our past development process.

Should I disclose these missed milestones with potential (professional) investors (for example, in the hope of earning additional credibility)?

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Additional details:

• This is a small company, with no active revenue
• Milestones were introduced to help keep the schedule on progress, as we are limited on budget (and as such, time)
• Missed milestones have always been completed, causing overall delay in the development progress; these milestones were all concerning actual R&D
• We are asking for funding to maintain development, and once relevant, to run ad campaigns

Answer 11541

• posted by: Neil on 2016-11-16
• score: 1

Business plans can change. With regards to milestones being missed it can give two messages 1) poor planning or 2) poor execution/commitment.

Having said that, I don’t know anyone who can predict/plan with 100% accuracy on the time/budget required to create a new product. If you do need to talk about it make sure you can say what you have learned and how you will do it differently next time.

I would focus on

1) the time and energy you have brought into the project

2) The size of the market and potential profitability of product

3) how much time/money it will take to bring to market (use higher end predictions)

4) Why you are the right people for this.

5) Strategy - growth, exit, Roll out of product etc.

Answer 11538

• posted by: fiprojects on 2016-11-15
• score: 0

Always shine a light on the positives… Missed milestones are less important than goals achieved… People die, get sick, resources you hoped for became less available, market conditions change, any number of things can go wrong in the very best plan through no fault of your own. Some of the best pilots divert from a pre-planned route when a storm brews stronger than forecast… They are not failures for deviating. Missed milestones might create delays which potentially could upset those who paid a buck to go along for the ride, but the goal is to reach a safety first, on time second.

shoulda woulda coulda mighta just wonta.

So no… don’t worry to much about missed milestones - don’t hide or lie - you can be conservative with the truth - answer honestly if asked, otherwise just talk about achievements.

best of luck

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