Business Plan Consultants in Boston
Cayenne Consulting is an international business plan consulting firm. Our representatives in the Boston area serve entrepreneurs throughout the region, including Cambridge, Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, Brockton, Quincy, New Bedford, Fall River, Lynn, Wellesley, Newton, Somerville, Lawrence, Framingham, Waltham, Manchester, NH, Concord, NH, Portland, ME, and Providence, RI.
Our professional business plan consultants work with entrepreneurs in the following areas:
- Strategy development
- Market research and analysis
- Competitor research and analysis
- Business plan development
- Financial analysis
- Financial forecast development
- Investor presentation (PowerPoint) preparation
- General coaching and advisory services
- Capital formation strategy
Cayenne's Boston Business Plan Team
Devin Berger, MBA - Principal Consultant
Boston, MA
Devin has over 18 years of experience in marketing and senior management of emerging growth companies, startups, and global consumer products companies, and has advised companies in numerous industries including high tech, biotech, internet/social networking, telecommunications, footwear/apparel, media & entertainment, and consumer products and services.
Earlier, she was the President of Apollo Eye Gear (performance sunglasses endorsed by Ken Griffey Jr.), CEO of Le Coq Sportif in Paris, France (athletic footwear and apparel), and President of a startup apparel company. She was also the VP of Marketing and Sales for a telecommunications company that provided wireless phone services for low income families in Tanzania, Africa. Previously, she was the Director of International Marketing for Converse, where she managed the $200 million basketball category and doubled the sales and profits of the worldwide business. Earlier, Devin was the Director of Marketing and Communications for a billion-dollar commercial real estate development project and a Senior Tax Policy Consultant for Price Waterhouse.
Devin earned her MBA from Harvard University and her BA in Economics from George Washington University.
David Kaplan, JD - Principal Consultant
Boston, MA
David has written investment grade business plans, consulted in strategic planning and facilitated management strategy meetings for operating companies since 1994. He has advised scores of scientists, researchers, inventors and business innovators in turning nascent ideas into concrete, executable business plans. Client engagements have included biotechnology and early stage drug development, consumer products and services, software, healthcare, medical devices, Internet, high tech, fish farming, automotive products and services, elder care, publishing and others.
Earlier, David founded several successful startups. His first was DSK Cars in Marblehead Mass, where he manufactured sports/racing cars of his own design by hand from raw materials. He also founded PoleStar LLC, a consultancy to entrepreneurs; Your Auto Expert, an alternative Internet based car retailer and; Purgatory Cove Press, the publisher of four fishing guide books he wrote about Middlesex County Massachusetts. David served as an affiliate at the Boston University Healthcare Entrepreneurship Program and taught Entrepreneurial Management at B.U.
David consulted to the world-wide auto industry at Temple, Barker and Sloan; served as General Counsel and Director of Marketing at Callaway Engineering; and litigated on behalf of Native Americans in state and federal courts.
David earned a Phi Beta Kappa and BA Magna cum Laude at Amherst College and a JD with honors from Harvard Law School.
Sarah Thompson, MBA - Principal Consultant
Amherst, MA
Sarah has over fifteen years of experience in financial modeling, corporate finance, operations and human resource management of small and medium sized businesses. She has worked in and with a variety of industries including food and beverage, consumer goods, wholesale, manufacturing of industrial products, electronics contract manufacturing, medical devices, family entertainment, and construction trades. She has first-hand experience having owned, financed and managed her own small business.
Prior to starting her business consulting company, Thompson Business Solutions, Sarah served as a Corporate Controller for Superior Cake, an equity-owned, rapidly growing industrial bakery. Prior to that she worked for Accellent, an equity-owned medical device manufacturer, where she managed the transition of the Cost Accounting functions for three manufacturing divisions to a Corporate Shared Services model. She has also worked as a Corporate Controller for a craft design and wholesale company and for an industrial composite manufacturer. Sarah also served as Business Unit Manager for New Products at Flextronics, NH, where she managed a cross functional team and completed multiple projects for market launches of customers.
Sarah has knowledge and experience in multiple aspects of business and can help your company get started on the right foot. Sarah has specific expertise in financial forecasting and planning, banking relationships, asset-based lending, international business which includes import/export and outsourcing, production planning, inventory management, ERP system implementation, and small business software programs.
Sarah earned her MBA from the University of Massachusetts and her BA in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of New Hampshire.
Norton Greenfeld, Ph.D. - Senior Advisor
Boston, MA
Norton brings decades of experience in the information technology industry as an entrepreneur, as well as in the fields of product development, strategic market research, research and development, and management consulting. Norton has advised numerous startups as co-founder of a virtual incubator, where he assisted entrepreneurs in refining concepts and creating investment materials, evaluated deal flow, and provided technology perspective, including patent applications. He has also advised dozens of industry leaders including 3M, Amdahl, BankBoston, Cigna, DEC, Great Plains Software, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NCR, Novell, NTT, Open Software Foundation, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys, Xerox, and Ziff-Davis.
He has served as an industry analyst and columnist, contributing to PC Week, Computerworld, and Unix Review. Norton also holds several patents, and teaches management and entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, MA.
Norton earned his Ph.D. and MS in Engineering Science (Computer Science), and a BS in Mathematics, all from the California Institute of Technology.
Charles Krakoff, MBA - Senior Advisor
Boston, MA
Charles brings over 20 years of experience in financial and strategic consulting, private equity, investment banking, privatization, market research and investment and trade strategy. His industry expertise includes internet/e-commerce, media, telecommunications, agribusiness, security services, industrial parks and energy. He has been an executive in and fund-raiser for several start-up companies, and has worked with over 20 other established and start-up businesses to develop business and revenue models, prepare business plans and investment memorandums, conduct valuations, carry out due diligence, and raise debt and equity finance.
Much of his career has focused on emerging markets in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Before joining Cayenne Consulting he worked for a $150-million Africa-focused private equity fund, managed a financial consulting and advisory unit for Standard Corporate & Merchant Bank in Johannesburg, and worked for six years as a senior associate with Abt Associates, a leading U.S. research and consulting firm. He has also worked for the World Bank as an advisor to national governments on business and investment climate issues, and has advised numerous U.S., European and South African corporations on cross-border investments and market entry and expansion strategies.
Charles earned his MBA in finance and international business from Columbia University and his BA in Anthropology from Reed College. He is fluent in French.
Paul Sereiko, MBA - Senior Advisor
Boston, MA
Paul has over 25 years of experience in technology, marketing, business development, franchising and business planning across companies ranging in size from startups to global multi-nationals. He has personally raised nearly $20M for ventures that he has either founded or operated as the CEO, and has been associated with an additional $30M in funding for other enterprises including one NASDAQ public offering.
Paul has developed, launched, and marketed over 20 technology products in his including the world's first notebook computer, the NEC UltraLite. Over the last decade he has become an industry expert in the emerging standardized wireless sensor networking market … the so called Internet of things. Within this sector Paul has helped co-found one not-for-profit development consortium, and assumed leadership roles in organizations creating global standards for sensor networking.
Recently Paul completed an intense fellowship program in alternative energy and green technologies. His capstone project in this program was entitled: "Assessing Federal and State Financial Incentive Programs to Improve Solar Power Investment."
Paul graduated from the University of Illinois' Computer Engineering program and received his MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg school with concentrations in marketing and investment finance.
In addition to our Boston-area business planning team, we have many other business plan consultants distributed worldwide. Depending on your specific circumstances, one of our other team members may be a better fit for your needs. We will do our best to ensure that the consultant responsible for managing your engagement is the person on our team who is best qualified to serve you.
Cayenne Consulting's Advantages
Most so-called "business plan consultants" simply take what you say and put it on paper. We go much deeper and help you develop the most viable strategy for success, which we then communicate in a compelling business plan. As a result, nearly all of our clients are able to secure meetings with investors, and over two-thirds have succeeded in raising capital or selling their companies. We challenge you to find another consulting firm that can make this claim. A business plan developed by Cayenne Consulting could make the difference between your success and failure.
- Save Time: Save literally hundreds of hours... valuable time you can devote to your products, customers, and company.
- Save Money: We are not cheap, but about half of our clients came to us after a business plan prepared by a less qualified consultant did not work out. Why not get it right the first time and save money?
- Work with Experts: Our business plan consultants are second to none. We are experienced entrepreneurs and understand what you are going through. We have deep and broad experience in creating and executing upon business models of all kinds. We have a keen sense of what works in the marketplace and what doesn't. Many of us have MBAs or PhDs from schools like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Wharton, CalTech, Cornell, Columbia, and Chicago. We also have experts in market research, FDA/regulatory issues, financial modeling, and other fields.
- One Consultant: Some firms assign a team of consultants to your business. That means you're paying to get multiple individuals up to speed. This approach is costly, and makes it difficult to ensure that all materials have the same "voice" and consistency. Our approach avoids these problems.
- Get it Right the First Time: Learn about the pros and cons of various approaches to developing business plans.
- No Salespeople: We don't have a slick sales professional "sell" you and then hand you off to a junior consultant you know nothing about. From Day 1, you will deal directly with the senior consultant who will actually work with you. That way, you know exactly what you're getting.
- Ongoing Support: We don't stop when the business plan is done. We have a talented team ready to help you implement it as well, either on a retained basis as interim members of your founding team or on a project basis, as needed.
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