TEAM
Can your team deliver results as it grows? For example, as you grow your team, how does it impact the efficiency, quality, and type of delivered results?
Can your team make the right hires? What risks does the organisation face that requires new team members to be better than the founders at addressing/mitigating? How are you planning to grow beyond the circle of founding senior management?
Does the organisation have the ability to execute on their ambitions to deliver value to entrepreneurs? What are the constraints the team may face? Does the team have the relevant skill sets? Will we need to hire external consultants for some periods of the year for their expertise?
PROBLEM AND VISION
Are you solving a big problem for the ecosystem? Is it possible to make a true dent in the problem? Understand your limits as an entrepreneur support system.
Why will your solution win out over the competition in the next 3-5 years? Is there a differentiation now? What differentiation are you working on?
Does someone on the leadership team or program team have entrepreneurial experience?
What are the top 1- 3 short-term outcomes related to your vision that you need to achieve over the next 12 – 18 months?
VALUE PROPOSITION
What is the specific pain point that you’re solving for your customer?
How are you delivering measurable value to help entrepreneurs grow and scale their business? Should have a correlation between what you are delivering. Direct impact on revenue, metrics, team quality.
Is your solution differentiated enough that target customers will choose it over your competition, thereby giving you the pipeline you want?
PRODUCT (PROGRAMS/SERVICES)
What have been the main positive and negative points of feedback from your users so far?
How has your product/programming evolved over time in response to market needs?
What are the gaps on your program team?
Does your product/program have any inherent defensibility?
MARKET
Do you understand the market opportunity as well as the target customer? Are there enough (target) entrepreneurs in the market?
How do you sell into this market? How do entrepreneurs hear about you?
What other stakeholders do you engage with? How do you get buy-in from them?
What is your positioning in this market? How will this help you capture this market? What is your value/positioning?
BUSINESS MODEL
How do you sustain yourself?
Are you able to attract donor funding? Why / Why not?
What partnerships do you currently have in place across your value chain? What are the key ones you need to scale up in the next 1 – 3 years?
GROWTH AND SCALE
What is your expansion plan? Are you thinking across geographies?
Are you able to support entrepreneurs as they grow?
Does your product improve/get easier to use with scale?
Is your customer base growing? (month by month? quarterly?)
What’s the right pace of your organisation?
What is the feedback from customers?