Thank you for your interest in having us review your ideas and business plan. Before you proceed, please read the guideline before contacting us.

The following business plan fundamentals serve as important criteria for our decision on what we choose to consider for investment.

1. Founding Team
   The management team should consist of the key individuals that can execute and achieve the critical milestones, whether that be growing the company, or securing the next stage of funding. It should ideally have a CEO that can lead the team even if the individual is not the long term CEO. In any case, the team should be committed to building a company, passionate, accomplished, work well together, and be well referenced.

2. Market
   The opportunity to build a company really starts with the attractiveness of the market opportunity. The size and growth rate are the most important metrics but there are other factors that are also important. The industry structure, barriers to entry, customer switching costs, competitive landscape, behavior of incumbents, etc. all play into the attractiveness of the market. Small markets can provide opportunity with niche business but seldom deliver the opportunity to build big companies. While we do and will consider niche business models providing revenue streams of $5M to $20M, we prefer companies that can deliver revenues of $30M to $75M within a four to five year period.

3. Product/Service
   The product or service offered should be disruptive and unique and solve a customer problem or meet a need. The value propositions should be clear and the product should not require significant behavioral change on the part of the customer.

4. Business Model
   The business model is the means by which you can develop profitable business in a repeatable manner. While some investors will have an appetite for businesses that require large amounts of capital, X-Bar Ventures does not. We prefer businesses and business models that are not capital intensive. We prefer businesses with high and sustainable gross margins. The combination of these two factors with a high growth market supports a high, internally sustainable growth rate.

5. Competition
   The management team should appreciate the competitive landscape and understand both its present and future direct and indirect competitors. They should also have a grasp on the sustainable competitive advantage that it can build through various means.

6. Exit Strategy
   We are primarily interested in teams that wish to build a company that can independently thrive and have an exit scenario. We realize that most successful investor exits will be the result of an M&A activity, but we favor the management team that has the company building mindset versus the “build-it” to flip. If you have the building mindset, the exit scenario always presents itself.

In addition to the above, we also generally prefer start-up companies that are:

1. Located in Utah or Idaho. (However, we have considered select plans outside these states, and will continue to do so as long as the opportunity fits the majority of our other criteria.)
2. Early stage but usually beyond seed stage. The company usually has a developed product that is either in alpha, beta.
3. Venture financeable. Our requirements do not differ significantly from venture capital firms in that we are looking for sizeable and growing markets, well defined problem-solutions, defensible technology, disruptive solutions, well defined product-market plans, and strong teams that have the demonstrated ability to execute. We are looking to support the growth of companies that could require classic venture financing. It is for this reason that we build strong relationships with local venture capital firms.

If you meet our criteria, we encourage you to submit a plan for our investment consideration. This is accomplished by going to the Contact Us and submitting an Executive Summary via email. A poor quality submission at this point will almost always lead to a disappointing response. Our pre-screen group evaluates submissions at the end of each month and we will respond to every submission at the end of the month.