Make a List, Check it Twice Can you check off all the items on our list? If not, fine-tune your business skills with these insider tips from entrepreneurial guru Guy Kawasaki.

Guy Kawasaki is the legendary founder of Garage Technology Ventures, a VC firm in Silicon Valley, and the former chief evangelist of Apple Computer. He has founded two software companies and has helped more than 100 companies raise venture capital.

His current best-selling book, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything , reflects his experience as an evangelist, entrepreneur, investment banker and venture capitalist. Given his expertise, we asked Kawasaki to provide you with the ultimate startup checklist.

This list is for entrepreneurs who want to avoid getting bogged down in theory and unnecessary details. My assumption is that your goal is to change the world--not study it. If your attitude is "Cut the crap and just tell me what I need to do," then this checklist is for you.

The Art of Starting

• Do you make meaning? Great companies change the world by fighting the status quo, inertia and ignorance. They make people's lives better, fix the bad and perpetuate the good. Mediocre and unsuccessful companies start out only to make money. Here's the acid test: If your company never existed, would it matter to the world?

• Do you have a company mantra? Forget a mission statement. Think mantra--three words, tops. What three words capture the essence of what you do and why you exist? Great example: Mary Kay's mantra is "Enriching women's lives."

• Are you typing or prototyping? You're spending too much time with Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Prototype and prospect instead. Don't have the funds to do this? There's no magical solution for this Catch-22, but the lack of funds never prevents a true entrepreneur from starting.

• Have you defined a business model that is credible, simple and specific? This is a question that the entire high-tech sector skipped during the dotcom days. The salient questions are: Who's got your money in his or her pocket? And how will you get it?

The Art of Positioning

• Can you describe your product or service without using acronyms or jargon? If it takes five years of industry experience to begin to understand what you do, you've got a problem. Your parents should be able to explain your product or service. Your grandparents should be able to use it.

• Are you occupying the high ground? Focus on what you can do for your customers, not on what your competition can't. Nobody buys anything to help a company kill its competition, so resist the temptation to trash other companies.

• Are you seizing a niche for your product or service? The ultimate business position is to provide a unique product or service that customers really need. This is called filling a niche. You can be unique in terms of features, service, pricing or location, but don't try to be all things to all people.

• Does your positioning pass the "opposite test"? You claim your product is fast, secure and easy to use. Does the competition say its product is slow, dangerous and hard to use? If not, your positioning will only work in a vacuum--and a vacuum, no pun intended, sucks.

Pitching, Business Plans, Recruiting & Raising Money

The Art of Pitching

• Can you explain whatyour product or service does in 60 seconds? Buildings aregetting taller, but elevators are getting faster. Most investorshave a short attention span for elevator pitches, so the longer ittakes to explain, the less likely your pitch will succeed.

• Are you answeringthe little man? Imagine there's a little man sitting onyour shoulder. Every time you say something in a pitch, he asks,"So what?" For example: You spew out a line about your"open-source, client-server, Java-based technology." Youthink you've shocked and awed, but your audience is wondering,"So what?"

• Have you practicedso many times that you're not embarrassed to watch a video ofyourself? You need to give a pitch approximately 25 times toget good at it. Don't think you'll "rise to theoccasion" when you're in front of investors, because youwon't.

• When you'remaking a pitch, have you distilled your presentation to just 10slides? Trust me: Your curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting,patent-pending way to sell dog food online doesn't merit 50slides. The crucial topics are the problem you're solving, yoursolution, the business model, the underlying magic, marketing andsales, the competition, the management team, projections and keymetrics, and current status.

• Is the smallest fontyou use 30 points? Divide the age of the oldest person inthe audience by two to get the optimal font size. The numberyou'll come up with is approximately 30 points. Can't fiteverything on the slides in 30-point font? Then you're usingtoo much text.

The Art of Writing aBusiness Plan

• If you threw awaypage three and beyond of your business plan, would it still attractinvestors? The executive summary, which is the first twopages of your business plan, is the most important part of thedocument. If you do this well, investors will read the rest. If youdon't, then nothing in the next 18 pages will pull themin.

• Is your businessplan longer than 20 pages? The optimal length of a businessplan is 20 pages. You're mistaken if you think investors carethat your 50-page financial model shows you'll spend $65.25 onpencils in the fifth month of the fourth year.

• Do you provide keymetrics as well as numbers? Let's face it: You pickedrevenue numbers out of the air. The key metrics of yourbusiness--for example, the number of customers, installations andlocations--are just as important to investors. Hint: If youindicate that you're going to close 50 percent of the Fortune500 companies as your customers in the first year, you'rehallucinating.

• Did you build yourfinancial projections from the bottom up or the top down?Top-down projections are easy because 1 percent of a huge market isalways an exciting number. But you're building a business fromthe bottom up, so forecast that way: How many sales reps will youhave? How many sales calls can they make? What percentage will besuccessful?

The Art of Recruiting

• Are the peopleyou're hiring infected with a love of your product orservice? I believe this is at least as important as acandidate's educational background and work experience. Heck,my work experience was counting diamonds for a jewelry manufacturerwhen I went to work for Apple Computer as its software evangelist.But I did love Macintosh.

• Have you crossed thepsychological barrier of hiring people who are better thanyourself? A players hire A+ players. By contrast, B playershire C players. C players hire D players. Pretty soon, you'resurrounded by Z players, and this is called "The BozoExplosion." If candidates can't do their prospective jobsbetter than you can, don't hire them.

• Does the candidatepass the "shopping-center test"? If you happenedto see a job candidate at a shopping center, would you rush overand say hello? Or would you jump in your car and go to anothershopping center to avoid him or her? In a startup, you're goingto be working many long hours with employees, so you'd betterenjoy their company.

The Art of Raising Capital

• Are you building areal business? Call me a romantic, but businesses that fillneeds get funded. Those that don't, don't. This goes backto the first question on this checklist: Are you making meaning?Because if all you're trying to do is make money, you'llprobably fail to raise money, make money and make meaning.

• Have you beenintroduced to the source of capital? The process of raisingcapital isn't a level playing field. You need to tilt the fieldin your direction--first of all, by getting an introduction to thefirm by a trusted source. This is where your lawyer, accountant andvendors can earn their keep. No investor ever funds a plan with acover letter that begins with "Dear Sir."

• Is your acttogether? In times of irrational exuberance, investors lookfor reasons to do a deal. In times of irrational depression,investors look for reasons not to do a deal. This is a depressedtime, so clean up your act. For example, if your employer thinks itowns the technology you invented in your garage, resolve this issuebefore looking for money.

• Can you demonstraterevenue? These days, investors will tell you they'relooking for proven teams, proven technology or proven markets.There's one factor, however, that cuts through the hype, andthat's good, old-fashioned revenue. A company that hassignificant revenue is always interesting, so focus on finishingyour product, and start selling. Maybe you won't have to raisecapital.

• Do you acknowledgeyour competition? "We have no competition" meansyou're either serving an unattractive market or you'reclueless--and neither is conducive to raising money. A complete andinsightful analysis of your competition builds credibility. Thebest way to present a competitive analysis is with a three-columnchart listing your competitor's name, what you can do that itcan't, and what it can do that you can't.

Partnering, Branding & Rainmaking

The Art of Partnering

• How will thepartnership affect your spreadsheet? As a rule of thumb, ifa partnership doesn't enable you to increase sales or decreasecosts, you shouldn't do it.

• Is your partnershipa win-win deal? Are both parties truly going to benefit, ordid you pull a fast one? Because if you did, rest assured that thepartnership won't last.

• Is there an"out" clause in the deal? At the beginning of apartnership, you hope that it will last forever. Forever is a longtime, and if the terms of the partnership are too ironclad,claustrophobia will develop. Include an easily exercisable outclause to prevent this condition. It will help everyone relax andfocus on making the partnership work.

The Art of Branding

• Have you created acontagious product or service? The foundation of all greatbrands is a great reality. Think cool, effective, distinctive,disruptive, emotive, deep, indulgent and supported. This is a longlist, but the point is that branding is easy when you sellsomething great. Branding is hard when you sell crap.

• Can a mere mortalget your product up and running right out of the box? Thebest and cheapest form of branding is word-of-mouth. To achievethis, customers must be able to use your product or service withoutreading a manual--much less having a Ph.D. in applied physics.Think of setting the clock on a VCR, and make sure what you sell iseasier to do.

• Are you taking careof your evangelists? Customers who spread the word for youare called evangelists. Their compensation is the satisfaction ofmaking the world a better place. Embrace evangelists with insideinformation, gifts and seminars because they will carry the battleforward for you.

• Can your employees"talk the walk"? Let's assume you have ameaningful product or service, and that you are "walking thetalk." Don't assume your employees can talk the walk.Ensure that they can tell your story as well as you can, because abrand is built one conversation at a time.

The Art of Rainmaking

• Are you"letting a hundred flowers blossom"? This isstolen from Mao Zedong, but it's not clear that he walked theideology. Startups often see that people who were unintendedcustomers use their products and services in unintended ways.Embrace this--don't freak out. These flowers are lighthousesthat illuminate the markets where you can achieve success. Flowwith the go.

• Are you going afteragnostics instead of atheists? Selling to big, well-knownfirms supposedly yields eye-opening numbers and credibility.However, big companies seldom believe in the products and servicesof startups. Spend some time on atheists, but focus on believersand agnostics instead.

• Are you sucking downand sucking across? To make sales, most entrepreneurs suckup to people with impressive titles like CEO, CIO, vice presidentand director. Unfortunately, the higher you go in mostorganizations, the thinner the air, and therefore the harder it isto support intelligent life. Focus instead on the people who do thereal work: secretaries, administrative aides, customer servicepeople and technical support people. Suck down and suck across, andyou'll reach the real decision-makers--and differentiateyourself from the clueless companies that only suck up.

• Have you enabledpeople to test drive your product or service? Instead ofbludgeoning people into becoming your customers, enable them totest drive your product or service with demo versions orsamples--whatever it takes for them to try before they buy.

• Have you provided asafe, easy first step? Or are you trying to forceprospective customers to do something risky to try your product orservice? Provide a slippery adoption curve so you can suck peoplein. Don't force them to throw out everything they've donein the past or change a lot of infrastructure if you want them toconvert.

For even more information about the various "arts" ofentrepreneurship, refer to my book The Art of the Start. At the very least,tear out this article, discuss it with your co-founders anddetermine how you're doing, because doing--not wanting to do,learning to do or planning to do--is the essence ofentrepreneurship.