Business Plan Consultants in the Chicago Area

Cayenne Consulting is an international business plan consulting firm. Our business plan consultant in the Chicago area serves entrepreneurs throughout the region, including Evanston, IL, Milwaukee, WI, Madison, WI, Rockford, IL, Gary, IN, Davenport, IN, Champaign, IL, Springfield, IL, Indianapolis, IN, Fort Wayne, IN, Bloomington, IN, St. Louis, MO, Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, and Dayton, OH.

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 Chicago Business Plan Team

Fred Cutler, PhD, MBA - Principal Consultant

San Diego, CA | Chicago, IL | Hilton Head, SC

Fred is an experienced hardware and software business strategy, marketing and operations executive with over 20 years of top management experience. He has leveraged strategic management experience in large technology companies into business and financial success in venture capital backed high technology startup companies.

His high technology background was begun as a key management consultant for Booz Allen and Hamilton and then executive positions at Compaq Computer/HP and Oracle Corporation. As a serial start-up entrepreneur, Fred was Vice President of Marketing for Scopus Technology which went public and then was eventually acquired by Oracle Corporation. He was founder and co-CEO of Digital Style Corporation, which was acquired by Netscape/AOL/Time Warner. After serving as Executive Director of the UCSD CONNECT program, Fred went on as CEO of Island Data Corporation and facilitated a significant capital investment by two major East Coast venture capital firms. He has done extensive consulting work in the area of mobile computing/apps within the social networking space.

Fred has served on numerous Board of Directors of venture backed companies where he facilitated additional rounds of financing.

Fred obtained a PhD degree in Marketing Research and Business Strategy from the University of Southern California.

Tim O'Connor, MBA - Principal Consultant

Chicago, IL

Tim O'Connor is a tremendous asset to our Consumer Products practice area and brings the innovation and passion of a proven entrepreneur plus the enormous volume of results from his classic brand marketing experiences on some of the world’s best known brands including Betty Crocker®, Tropicana® Juice, Coors®, Star Wars® and many more.

With more than twenty years of experience in traditional consumer marketing, Tim is a hands-on leader in product development, strategic planning, sales management and operations issues. As an executive leader, Tim has built a reputation as a marketing & sales driven executive in corporate turnarounds and brings a level of analysis and urgency to strategic decisions facing large and small organizations. Tim has developed countless strategic plans and presentations in such areas as marketing strategy, business model innovation, consumer research, channel management, new product development, brand renewal and product launches to name a few.

Tim is also the Founder of Brightspot Brands, the company he created to focus on the emerging functional candy segment. His company created the world's first healthy candy brand known as gimme®. The brand featured great tasting, premium chocolate candy packed with nutrition like real dairy calcium, Omega3 from flaxseed and probiotics. The business was sold to a strategic investor in 2010.

Tim earned his undergraduate degree in Economics at the University of Minnesota and earned his MBA from the JL Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University with emphasis in Finance and Marketing.

In addition to our Chicago-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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