Venture Planner is an AI-driven business planning platform co-founded by husband-and-wife team, Alex Clansey and Nicola McKenzie.
Part of the Dunham McCarthy Group, Venture Planner automates tasks like market research, financial forecasting and document generation, allowing startups and entrepreneurs to create comprehensive, data-driven business plans with ease. Since its launch in December 2023, the platform has rapidly grown to serve more than 50,000 users in 22 countries.
It all began when Nicola sought mortgage advice from Alex—then a mortgage advisor—and the pair hit upon the idea of offering complementary services to clients. They moved on to devise novel concepts in will-writing, finance, and insurance, eventually forging a flourishing business empire that now comprises six highly successful ventures. Venture Planner stands as their latest innovation, grounded in Alex and Nicola’s shared drive to push boundaries and create solutions that benefit both customers and the wider business community.
What was the inspiration behind your business?
Traditional methods of drafting business plans are time-consuming and run the risk of potential human error. While on a trip to New York to escape the busy day-to-day focus on business activities and brainstorm some fresh ideas, we identified an opportunity to use artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the creation of business plans.
Venture Planner makes use of AI to gather all the data needed to put together a comprehensive plan quickly and efficiently, eradicating the need for cumbersome manual data entry systems. In analysing hundreds of data points, our software gains a deep understanding of a business idea and offers realistic financial projections to support it.
How has Venture Planner evolved since then?
Since our initial launch in December 2023, the platform has been adopted in 22 countries. We now have over 50,000 active users from 74 different industries using the solution. We also have a wide range of customers making use of the technology, including ambitious entrepreneurs, dynamic startups and seasoned financial consultants.
Who do you admire?
We don’t have external mentors that we look up to; our greatest source of inspiration and guidance has always been found in each other. We’ve learnt a great deal from our individual expertise and perspectives, and we share the fact that we’re both incredibly driven individuals who want to work towards an end goal. We do however make sure that we take time to share knowledge or advice with others, whether that’s internally or externally.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? And why?
Looking back, we realise we weren’t thorough enough with our hiring process and background checks for new employees, especially in the early days of our business. We’ve had a few bad apples over the years that could have been avoided with more rigorous screening. Now, we have a much more comprehensive hiring and vetting process in place, but it would have been far better if we’d learned this lesson 15 years ago. Those early mistakes in hiring not only caused some headaches but also taught us the hard way how crucial it is to really know who you’re bringing into your team. If we could do it all over, we’d definitely invest more time and resources into perfecting our recruitment and employee screening processes right from the start.
What defines your way of doing business?
Because we run Venture Planner and our other businesses as an equal partnership, we make sure that there is a clear division of labour according to our contrasting skill sets. If there are two people trying to do exactly the same thing all of the time, different opinions and approaches can stall any progress. With Venture Planner for example, one of us is involved in the development of the platform and the other handles the marketing function. We divide our responsibilities based on what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, as it’s the most efficient way of getting things done.
What advice would you give someone just starting out?
When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to get caught up in the everyday tasks of running a business. Our advice is to make time for strategic thinking, even when it feels like there’s no time to spare. This could be as simple as setting aside a dedicated hour each week to step back and think creatively about your business.
One option, if it’s possible for you, is to take what we call an “innovacation”—a short break away from your usual environment to recharge and brainstorm. It doesn’t have to be a full holiday or anything expensive. Even a change of scenery—like working from a new space for a few hours—can help spark fresh ideas. If that’s not realistic, finding smaller ways to give yourself mental space is just as important. And once you’ve got a solid idea, building it into a well-thought-out business plan is essential, and that’s where tools like Venture Planner can help.