I just wanted to say that you hit it on the head with your description of how Masterplans works. At the end of the day it was my choice and decision to go with them for the creation of a business plan but I really thought I would have received more for my money and much better customer service. I thought the customer is always right? Lol That's definitely not a phrase that they take to heart.
First, the "experienced" business plan writer assigned to my plan supposedly had done "many" business plans for the sector that I was entering (social networking). I was happy about that and thought I made the right choice with Masterplans. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with my rep for the initial call where I explained my business and answered all the questions she had. When I hung up I had a positive feeling that the first draft would be a good one. Unfortunately, the first draft was poorly structured and written. First, the grammar was God-awful. My rep told me that at the end of the revisions that the grammer would be fixed. I found this to be silly, as reading over the draft was so frustrating with all of the grammatical mistakes. At least make an effort with grammar on the first draft!
As I was going over the first draft I really couldn't believe how poorly structured and written it was. It hardly conveyed my ideas at all. Not to mention the market data that my rep. Collected on my target demographic wasn't even for my target demographic!!! It was much more generalized statistics and information. I brought this up to her and her answer was: "Don't worry.investors will understand and get the idea..." Is she kidding me? What investor is going to take a second look at a plan that has market data for a group other than your targeted niche.in addition, while I was on the phone with her I mentioned a recent trend in social networks and advertising and she said: "Wow... I didn't know that". And this is supposed to be a person that has done many social network business plans? I remember getting off the phone and thinking "What did I get myself into".
However, since I had already paid in full, I wanted to try and make the best of it. I ripped the first draft apart for a good two days straight, section by section. I made a ton of comments that I wanted answered when I got the second draft. When the second draft came I was very surprised to see merely a "cut-and-paste" job with all of the edits and new information I gave to her. Not to mentioned that MANY of my questions and comments weren't even answered. I repeatedly asked if they could find more up-to-date statistics and that was never answered. At this point it was becoming almost a joke. The 21-day revision period was almost over. That's where they get you. They do such a poor job on the plans that you're going to have to put in a ton of work yourself to even make an attempt to save your plan. I knew I couldn't get the whole plan done in 21-days. To gain additional revisions I would have had to pay more. When I got the 2nd draft back I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to two seperate business strategists, one of whom works for an investment capital firm. Both of them said that there was so much wrong with the draft. The financial charts weren't accurate and some of the figures were just plain wrong.
At this point I knew that I had thrown almost $4k down the drain and it was going to be a total loss. What I received from them was in reality a poor template. Even though I pretty much knew that I wouldn't get a dime back from them, I decided to e-mail the CEO, who I initially contacted from the beginning when I showed interest in using Masterplans. I sent him an e-mail explaining my situation. He promptly responded and said that he takes complaints like these very seriously and would look into it. I heard back from him and (surprise, surprise) he said he spoke to my rep and she thought everything was going according to plan. I broke down exactly what I thought the problems were. He answered a few of them but not all of them. I also never got answers from him on the two statements my rep made to me regarding "broad market statistics" being fine for potential investor's and her having no knowledge of advertising trends in social networking. Not to mention no one ever answered me as to why many of the comments and questions I made on the first draft were never answered. Heck... I didn't ask for any money back but they could have had the courtesy to at least answer these questions. I e-mailed the CEO back and told him that I didn't want to deal with Masterplans anymore. Again, I would have thought he would have at least sent me one last e-mail apologizing for my bad experience with his company but I didn't even get that.
Like I said at the beginning, at the end of the day I should have done more research on Masterplans. You live and learn, though. It's a tough and expensive lesson for start-ups and seed companies like myself but I guess it's part of life. I have no one to blame but myself. I'm sure Masterplans has worked well for many people but I can only go by my experience. I have both a bachelor's and master's degree and I find it hard to believe that some of the people who worked on my plan had the same level of education. It is what it is, though. I don't wish ill of them but I cannot with a clear conscious recommend Masterplans. Very unprofessional.
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