Facing a SWOT analysis

January 23, 2009 in recommendations
Tags: business plans, Chimera

Chimera asked me to prepare a SWOT analysis for their start-up. I’ve got the result here; but you’ll notice some of the bullets have been whited out. Their business plan is proprietary, so I’ve judged that the contents of those bullets are potentially too sensitive for public consumption. But what’s really good (and not so good) about Chimera is not what I’m here to talk about. It’s what the SWOT analysis is and what you do with it.

Part of Chimera's SWOT analysis; the less sensitive part...

You’ll note from the layout (and there are a great many similar analyses all over the Internet, if you need to see what others make them look like) that SWOT stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.”

Strengths and weaknesses are considered to be “internal,” and are based on your team and your product; Opportunities and threats are “external,” and are based on what others can do for you – and to you. LOL

Strengths and opportunities are, of course, “helpful”; weaknesses and threats “harmful.” The structure of one of these things is straightforward. It probably should appear in your business plan, because it will show readers at a glance what you consider to be the major forces at work on your company, and therefore the degree to which you’ve done your homework.

Funny thing is, I’d never done one of these up before. Not for anyone I’ve worked with. And nobody ever seemed to mind. Chacun a son gout, I guess.

And you’ll also note that the overwhelming majority of bullets on this analysis are on the “helpful” side. You go, Chimera!