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Chesley M. Chen I help CEOs launch start-ups and keep their Zen.

Boston, MA

I have over 30 years experience building start-ups and new ventures in digital health, life sciences, financial services, and a wide array of other industries. I provide concrete advice and hands-on support for smart, busy start-up CEOs. My sweet spot is helping pre-Series A CEOs build financial models, strategize on fundraising, shape their strategy and go-to-market plans, and build their teams...all this while keeping their Zen. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesley-chen-85627/

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Chesley M. Chen

Boston, MA

I have over 30 years experience building start-ups and new ventures in digital health, life sciences, financial services, and a wide array of other industries. I provide concrete advice and hands-on support for smart, busy start-up CEOs. My sweet spot is helping pre-Series A CEOs build financial models, strategize on fundraising, shape their strategy and go-to-market plans, and build their teams...all this while keeping their Zen. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesley-chen-85627/

$2.92/min

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Call me to talk about

Financial Modeling

I can build a killer Excel spreadsheet model for your killer business plan.

Business Plans and Pitches

I will help you think through and develop a solid sound business plan and investor pitch

Business Development

Business development is one of the harder things for start-up CEOs to learn. I can give you concrete help, coach you, and build your confidence.

CEO Business Partner

I have over 30 years experience building businesses. I can partner with you to help you build your business to give you extra bandwidth, on-the-job-training, and mentoring.

More Than a CEO Coach

I am more than just a CEO or Executive Coach. As an experienced CEO, I will actually help you get stuff done. Mentoring and coaching will be the by-product of working together on real, tangible decisions and projects.

Answers 14
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Answers

Chesley M. Chen answered

When sending out a teaser for seed money, if we manage the process ourselves instead of using an investment banker, will we be taken seriously?

Hi,
Good question. I agree with several others that you should not use an investment banker to raise seed money.

Have you done any market/customer validation of your software. This is really important before you start raising money from outside investors. Investors will ask.

I am working with other start-ups (including my own) on how to raise money without bringing in outside investors. The best case scenario is talk potential customers to do a proof-of-concept, feasibility project.

I am happy to talk through the various options with you if you set-up a call.

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Funding

Raising Venture Capital

angel investing

Chesley M. Chen answered

Should a startup think of SWOT Analysis a few months into business?

I'm an experienced CEO, entrepreneur, strategist, and operator having grown and turned around businesses in a range of industries (digital health, financial services, telecom, aerospace) and in companies of all sizes from brand new start-ups to much larger firms like Goldman Sachs.

SWOT Analysis works for some people. Never for me. I find it to be a bit too academic and less action-oriented for my tastes, especially in start-ups where you have to think and move fast.

I've used other frameworks but more importantly, ways to think about thorny business problems that makes sense. I'd love to learn more about what you are facing, and I can give you some pointers. Please set-up a call if you'd like.

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SWOT analysis

Chesley M. Chen answered

Where can I hire expert companies who provide Elevator Pitch (Sales Presentation) Services?

Hi,
I think I can help you. I'm am an experienced CEO, entrepreneur, strategist, and business developer. I've done many pitches for my own start-ups and helped other entrepreneurs create their own. I've pitched in numerous business plan contests (and won a few!), pitched multimillion dollar projects, and everything in between.

I think I can help you over 2 quick calls. During the 1st call, I can listen to what you have and give you some pointers. That'll give you enough to work on your pitch for a day or two. Then we can have a 2nd call for you to rehearse your pitch and I'll give you some more pointers for fine tuning.

This approach has worked for others. If you like it, just set-up a call and we'll take it from there.

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Speech Writing

Pitch Development

Elevator Pitch

Chesley M. Chen answered

Is 6% monthly customer churn acceptable for a $5M ARR SaaS business? What effect on valuation does a high churn have?

Good question. 6% churn per month on $5M is $300,000. Seems like a lot of money to me without even knowing your cost of customer acquisition. It's like trying to fill a leaking bucket. A little uptick in churn rate will have a HUGE NEGATIVE impact on your valuation: you reduce your LTV and ARPA while you have to increase your total sales and marketing costs just to stay even.

I've done built a lot of financial models and analyzed many recurring revenue businesses ranging from SaaS, B2C, B2B, telephone companies, mutual funds, retirement plans, Netflix, LinkedIn, and cable TV among others.

Set up a call with me and I can walk you through how churn rates, valuation, and other variables tie together in a financial model.

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SaaS - Enterprise & SMB B2B

SaaS

Customer Retention

Chesley M. Chen answered

What are the 3 most important growth indicator/KPIs for a revenue-sharing B2B SaaS company?

Hi!
If I can improvise, I'd like to suggest 4 categories within which you can nest KPIs depending on your business model and strategy objectives. These are basic balance scorecard dimensions.

1. Customer (revenue, retention, satisfaction)
2. Service Delivery (quality, timeliness, cost/efficiency)
3. People and Innovation (employee engagement and satisfaction, turnover, innovation)
4. Financials (P&L, cashflow, valuation or balance sheet strength)

I've implemented KPIs and balanced scorecards in very large companies (e.g., Goldman Sachs), very small start-ups and everything in between. At Goldman, my reports ended up on Co-CEOs Paulson's and Corzine's desks every month. They went on to become the US Secretary of Treasury and the US Senator from NJ. I'm sure my reports has a lot to do with it! :-)

I'd love to share with you what I've learned. Set-up a call and I can give some more specific ideas based on our discussion.

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Finance

Chesley M. Chen answered

I am writing a book on artificial intelligence, anyone open to being interviewed about your experiences for the book?

Sure, you can interview me. I am starting up a biotech company using AI to help cancer patients. I'll share what I know from a CEO and a rocket scientist's perspective. I can put AI in the broader context of man-machine systems since the dark ages (namely when there was black and white TV and only 7 channels in New York!) I can guarantee you that we'll have a fun interview!

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Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Chesley M. Chen answered

When should I validate my startup idea with customers to ensure there is a market or demand for the product before launching it?

Hi - I see a lot of great responses.

I've started a lot of businesses, currently CEO of a biotech/AI company. My quick answer that is you should do market and customer validation all the time even when your start-up is only a glimmer in your eye. Market feedback is like gold! It can help guide you and help you avoid going down rat holes. The discipline is to listen, learn, act or decide not to act.

As you start committing more time, money, and resources into your venture, market and customer validation becomes all the more important. As your venture develops so will your offering so you can go from a concept to something more tangible for customer to react to.

Set-up a call and we can get more specific if I know a bit more about what you are doing.

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Early-stage Startups

Ideas Development

Chesley M. Chen answered

How or where can I go to find out which companies have annual company retreats for staff and how much they spend for it?

I am assuming that you are in the corporate retreat management business?

If yes, I would start within your own geography since you'll probably have to do face-to-face selling and onsite delivery. I would target companies with 500+ employees. Within those companies, try to get to HR and any internal event planners. Companies with a large, active sales force is also a good target. Even is business is down, sales meetings are the last thing to go.

Set-up a call and I can get into more specifics once I learn more about what your company offers.

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Email List Building

Event Management

Company Culture

Chesley M. Chen answered

How can I find a co-founder on a very limited budget?

Hi-
Good question, maybe the most important one. Some quick advice...
No matter what skills/roles you want a co-founder to fill, don't commit to anyone until you've had a chance to work together. if you have a former colleague in mind, that's a leg up but still proceed carefully. Working together on a start-up is like nothing else.
Look for someone who can get the passion you have, maybe even more.
Look for someone who can afford to get paid very little for awhile. You don't want a co-founder who has one eye on the door if day-to-day survival cash is an issue. Nothing wrong with that but that's just a fact of life.

Set-up a call and we can dig a little deeper.

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Investments

Start-ups

Entrepreneurship

Chesley M. Chen answered

How to attract more corporate clients if you are a small software development company but have a proven track record?

That's great news about your success so far. I've done enterprise business development for enterprise technology, workflow reengineering, and strategy projects. I've also been on the buying side (part of a $110 million IT budget for a name brand Wall Street firm.)

Given that you have 8 people, I will assume you have to be very focused with your business development time and money. My quick reaction (unencumbered with too much information) is that you should focus on getting warm introductions, direct conversations, and face-to-face meetings. This will take some strategic networking. Sources of network include your team's own relationships, referrals from your happy clients, and any meetings of similar client companies. One piece of marketing collateral worth producing is a one-page case study, highlighting your project, preferably using your client's name. (If you can't get permission, just describe them in general terms.) You can use the piece to focus your story and share with prospects.

That's all I can think of without more context. Set up a call, and I can help you think through business development strategies from the sell side and the buy side.

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New Business Development

New Client Acquisitions

Software Development

Chesley M. Chen answered

When building a SaaS financial forecast at the pre-seed stage, what's the best methodolgy to do so?

Hi - Just checking to see if you got what you needed.

I'm an experienced CEO. I build financial models for all sorts of businesses, including recurring revenue and/or project based businesses like SaaS. Your three points above hit some but not all parts of a solid financial model. Other parts would include cost of delivery, support, general admin, etc. And don't forget to tie all that together with cashflow analysis and valuation. Since you're pre-seed stage, your Seed investors will want to run the numbers. Best to start with what you think not what they can make up for you.

If you still need help, set-up a call and I'll be able to give you more specifics based on our discussion.

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SaaS

Financial Modeling

Seed Capital

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Member since July 2019