I don't know, but in my experience, sometimes you just have to kill ideas that start out with "It's a mission-critical vertically scalable clicks-and-mortar e-commerce b2b storefront that sells luxury pet socks. The frictionless front-end will synergize the eyeballs in the click stream through holistic partnerships."

What did you most want to hear, the last time you cast your pearls before swine?

I wanted to hear what was good and bad in my work. Given without ego or undue sensitivity or excessive negativity. I wanted the truth mainly, but I wanted it given by people who said "This is the truth as we see it, and you're welcome to use that truth in any way you see fit."

I'm still a mere apprentice in the investing world, but I've had the chance to watch a couple masters at work. When presented with an investment opportunity, these guys didn't pontificate on markets or products, they just asked a few brief but incredibly insightful questions. Within a few minutes, they were able to identify the single two or three key questions that would eventually determine whether or not an investment would be made and if it would be successful.

So, unless you were given these business plans because of some specific expertise you hold in a product or market, I'd just come up with a list of questions you'd ask the business plan's authors. Then I'd trim that list down to the 3-5 questions you'd find most important if you were in their shoes.

If it were me that had given you these business plans, that's what I'd want from you.

I used to enjoy watching Dragon's Den, where people got to combine their 15 minutes of fame with begging for seed money from investors. The best part was, apart from the insightful questions (along the lines of what mullacc wrote) and watching people squirm when they tried to mislead the panel about the potential of their idea, that decisions were made on the spot within 10 minutes or so - if they liked the idea enough, the panel said (individually) "I'll give you $x in return for x% of the action - do you want it?" I almost always agreed with the panel and it was a great chance to practice making those kind of quick judgements and see how others made decisions at the same time.

I guess that doesn't help, does it? The few times that I've pitched any kind of idea, I always wanted honest, plain Engish feedback - I would be furious at someone who supported an idea of mine, knowing it wounldn't succeed.

It's a mission-critical vertically scalable clicks-and-mortar e-commerce b2b storefront that sells luxury pet socks. The frictionless front-end will synergize the eyeballs in the click stream through holistic partnerships.
Oh my God, I understood that instantly. I may have to kill myself.

Oh my God, I understood that instantly. I may have to kill myself.

How do you think I feel for being able to write that down without a second thought?!

paul, you are so kind and honest, I am sure you will do a great job criticising these business plans.

...can I pay you to criticise my funding grant? It's basically a plan for a not-for-profit business.

Like a lot of older people with some business experience, I was sent these plans partly on the basis of my friendship with people thinking of becoming involved with the ventures, and partly, I hope, because I have a reputation for being frank. Honesty is what is wanted, I'm sure, but not the brutal honesty of a VC deal screener.

So, I've sent back a critique of the one less likely already, which was built around a process machinery business. Clearly, it suffered from several of the more common flaws I've seen in similar early plans, including:
1) A structure that seemed to be built around the needs of the principals for employment, rather than of the business for function and profit.
2) A failure of the principals to understand the various likely revenue contributions of the business, and structure operations and investment accordingly.
3) An enthusiasm for synergy that was unwarranted.

As an example, in most industrial machinery businesses, there are revenue streams from sale of equipment, technical service and maintenance, spare parts sales, and possibly tooling. Spare parts and tooling usually carry very high gross profit margins, for a number of historical reasons. Unfortunately, this plan never explored the parts business in any detail, and made assumptions about the willingness of the market to allow the proposed venture to remain a single source of tooling that I've never found to exist in the real world. Moreover, in discussing tooling, the writers of the plan revealed a certain contempt for their market that said more about them, than it did about their putative customers.

mullacc's suggestion about phrasing the critique of the tooling operation as a series of questions was the right way to go. One can indirectly critique through queries, in much less guarded terms than would be needed for a direct discussion. And seanyboy's assertion that hewing to the truth, directly, was generally the best route to take, was the way to raise the spare parts plan deficiency. So, thanks for those simple suggestions, folks.

I'm giving the second document a couple of days rest, and a re-read before responding to it. There is better thinking behind it, but it is almost overthought. One wants to reward diligence, and avoid throttling enthusiasm, but as an example, its "Executive Summary" is 46 pages, with 13 figures, of which 9 have multi-point call outs, and one has a set of transparent overleafs...

And BGG, I'll read anything you care to send, as time permits, but my experience with non-profit operations is limited to those where funding is largely obtained from members and commercial organizations acting as major donors, and event and program sponsors. As I understand it from friends in the business of raising money from philanthropic foundations and government sources of grants, that's a whole different ball game.