About Us
Developing an effective strategy and investor presentation isn’t simply a matter of reading a book, or following a fill-in-the-blanks “recipe.” It calls on four strengths that, in our experience, are not often found in great abundance in any one person:
Analytical Ability
To assess what is really going on in the marketplace, even in a deceptively-complicated arena.
Marketing Intuition
To see a path through all these complexities, then mapping it out in a winning strategy and plan.
Credibility and Confidence
To get this strategy and plan clearly and compellingly in words and financials that make sense.
Passion and Conviction
Like you, perhaps, we do a lot of things badly. (Ice skating and integral calculus and painting pictures come immediately to mind.) But the four business-planning tasks listed above are things we do VERY well in a double-team project with clients.
OUR “10,000 HOURS” OF BUSINESS-PLANNING EXPERIENCE
Since founder Doug Hedlund earned an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business, he has developed some 480 business and marketing and promotional plans–in all kinds of product and service categories. Some were done for well-established companies. Others were done for new companies, new products, and new services. More than a few of these highly-professional business plans have helped clients raise the money they needed to grow into spectacularly profitable companies. For example, these strategies and plans have helped build dozens of Fortune-500 clients that include Kraft/General Foods, Shell Oil, Gallo Wine, Avon Products, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
- Six plans were done for financial institutions. One of them grew from zero to $600 million in assets in four years. Another plan helped an audio-video retailer achieve the second-highest per-store sales volume of anyone in their industry in the United States.
- Another plan helped a toy manufacturer go from zero to several hundred thousand dollars in sales in a three-month market introduction. Another helped a "green" hedge fund get off the ground, and successfully weather the global financial meltdown. Another helped our client raise a half-million dollars in capital in her very first investor-pitch.
- Our plans have helped a mom-and-kids exercise franchise, a marble-and-granite importer, a commercial real estate firm, a Geneva-based fixed-income investment firm, an INC 1,000 energy products company, a pet shop, an ice-cream “scoop-shop”, an IT consulting company, a “quick-clean” products manufacturer, and hundreds of other businesses.
- Every plan we’ve developed taught us something new—what works, what doesn’t work, and what “rabbit-holes” to look out for. Wouldn’t it help your chances for success, and reduce your risk of failure, if all this big-league experience was brought to bear on your strategy and plan and investor-pitch? (We are absolutely certain it would.)
HOW DOUG HEDLUND LEARNED HIS STRATEGY-AND-PLANNING TRADE
- CEO of a new-product, new-service, new-business consulting firm for more than 15 years.
- MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business, New York, New York.
- BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.
- Military officer training as a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado.
- Many business-building strategies were learned during my seven years of working with blue-chip clients at Ogilvy/NY.
- Regular guest speaker at conferences and seminars.
- Taught strategy development and business planning for 3 years to entrepreneurs at Santa Monica College extension division.
- Author, “How to Tell If Your Idea Will Sell" (Publishing March, 2025)
Here’s some other information about managing director Doug Hedlund to help you make your all-important planning decision. The best person to develop a business strategy, business plan, and investor pitch Is You. No one knows your business better. No one cares more about it, either.
Our Conviction:
“A CEO’s Guide to Investor Pitches That Raise Capital”