01 — Programme Outcome Map & Business Diagnostic
Programme: Investor Presentation, Meeting & Email Management
1. What you will learn
In this lesson you will learn to write ninety-day outcomes for a raise that depend only on what you control, to budget the founder hours they will consume, and to run a diagnostic across the eight capabilities that decide whether a meeting goes well.
2. The idea explained
The outcome every founder wants to write is to raise a stated amount. It is the worst possible outcome to write, because whether anyone invests is entirely someone else's decision, and an outcome you cannot influence produces either false confidence or despair depending on chance.
What you control is the quality and quantity of your activity: how many properly filtered investors you approach, how good your materials are, how well you handle the objections, and how disciplined your follow-up is. Write outcomes there, and treat any investment that results as a consequence rather than a target.
The second discipline is the hour budget. An outcome of twelve first meetings sounds modest until you multiply by the four hours each one actually costs, and then compare the total with the hours you can take out of the business. This is the calculation that turns an ambitious plan into a realistic one, and it should be done before day one.
The third is the diagnostic. Eight capabilities decide how a raise goes. Clarity of explanation: can you say what the business does in two sentences that a stranger understands? Evidence quality: is there something beyond your opinion that customers want this? Command of your numbers: can you answer any question about your seven metrics without looking? Targeting: is your list filtered on stage, sector, cheque size and activity? Outreach writing: is your email short, specific and readable on a phone? Meeting handling: have you prepared answers to the recurring objections? Follow-up discipline: does every open case have a next action and a date? Document readiness: could you hand over a data room within a week if asked?
Rate each from one to five on evidence. Anything at two or below is a constraint, and the two lowest get your first month, regardless of which you find most interesting.
Be plain about outcomes. A well-run ninety days improves your materials, your answers and your judgement about whether to raise at all. It does not entitle you to an investment, and most attempts end without one.
Apply it
3. How to apply it in your own business
Write three outcomes, all expressed as activity and quality you control, each with a baseline, a target, an owner and a review date.
Multiply each activity outcome by its true hour cost and add the total. Compare it with the hours you are willing to take out of the business, and reduce the targets until the arithmetic fits.
Run the eight-capability diagnostic and give the first month to the two lowest.
Worked example
4. Worked example
Priya writes three outcomes. First, fifty approaches to investors who pass all four filters, with the filter evidence recorded. Second, twelve first meetings held, each with a written preparation note and a written follow-up within one working day. Third, all five recurring objections answered in writing with defensible numbers, and the data room complete.
She then budgets the hours. Fifty approaches at about ten minutes each of personalised writing is five hundred minutes, which is about eight and a third hours. The research to produce fifty qualifying names, at twelve minutes per candidate checked and an expected pass rate of about forty per cent, means checking around one hundred and twenty-five candidates, which is one thousand five hundred minutes, or twenty-five hours.
Twelve first meetings at four hours each, covering preparation, the meeting and the follow-up, is forty-eight hours.
The objection answers and the data room she estimates at twelve hours together.
Her total is eight and a third plus twenty-five plus forty-eight plus twelve, which is about ninety-three hours across ninety days, or a little over seven hours a week.
Her stop rule from the earlier lesson allowed one hundred and twenty hours, so the plan fits with about twenty-seven hours of margin, which she deliberately leaves unallocated because second meetings and document requests will consume it.
Had the plan come to one hundred and eighty hours, she would have had two honest choices: reduce the number of meetings, or reduce what the business does for a quarter. What she would not have been able to do is both run the business and hold thirty meetings, and knowing that on day one rather than day fifty is the entire value of the calculation.
Her diagnostic scores command of numbers at four, clarity at three, targeting at two, outreach writing at three, meeting handling at two, follow-up at two, evidence quality at three, and document readiness at two. Four capabilities sit at two. She gives the first month to targeting and meeting handling, because targeting determines whether any of the other work reaches the right people, and meeting handling is where her own funnel data shows she is losing cases.
5. Common mistakes and how to fix them
The first mistake is writing an outcome that requires an investor to say yes. Fix it by expressing outcomes as activity and quality you control.
The second is counting meetings without costing them. Fix it by multiplying by four hours and comparing the total with the hours you can spare.
The third is allocating every available hour. Fix it by leaving a margin, because second meetings and document requests arrive unplanned.
The fourth is choosing the first month's work by interest. Fix it by letting the diagnostic and your own funnel data decide.
Key takeaways
6. Board summary
Never write an outcome that depends on an investor saying yes; write outcomes for the activity and quality you control. A first meeting costs about four hours in preparation, the meeting and the follow-up, so twelve meetings is roughly forty-eight hours. Budget the total hours against what you can take out of the business, and reduce targets until the arithmetic fits. Leave a deliberate margin of unallocated hours, because second meetings and document requests arrive unplanned. Eight capabilities decide a raise, and the two lowest get the first month regardless of which is most interesting.
Check your understanding
7. Practice and self-check
Question one: Why is raising a stated amount a poor outcome to write? Answer: because it depends entirely on someone else's decision, which you cannot influence.
Question two: At four hours each, what do fifteen first meetings cost? Answer: sixty hours.
Question three: At twelve minutes per candidate with a forty per cent pass rate, how many candidates must be checked to find forty qualifying names? Answer: one hundred candidates, taking one thousand two hundred minutes, which is twenty hours.
Question four: At ten minutes each, what does personalising forty approaches cost? Answer: four hundred minutes, which is about six and two-thirds hours.
Question five: Adding twenty-five hours of research, sixty hours of meetings and twelve hours of documents to that, what is the total? Answer: about one hundred and four hours across the quarter.
Question six: What are the two honest choices if the plan exceeds your hour limit? Answer: reduce the number of meetings, or deliberately reduce what the business does for the quarter.
Question seven: Why leave hours unallocated? Answer: because second meetings and document requests arrive unplanned and will consume them.
Question eight: Name any four of the eight capabilities. Answer: any four of clarity of explanation, evidence quality, command of numbers, targeting, outreach writing, meeting handling, follow-up discipline, and document readiness.