DRAFT Startup pathways

Takeaways¶

1. Business plan. Develop a clear business plan with a vision, achievable objectives, scalable expansion, and brief, but accurate, finance plan.

2. Networking. Network across professional in the field to see their approaches, how they’ve solved problems, and develop and possible partnerships.

3. Compliance. Start and CEQA/NEPA compliance early and budget properly for the documents and permits you need to get that first spade in the ground.

4. Feedstock agreements. Make sure to secure long-term feedstock agreements from the landowner where your wood is sourced. It can be exceptionally difficult to arrange terms longer than three years with public agencies, so the earlier you start, the better. For more detail on this topic and potential solutions, see Russell (2025).

5. Funding. This is the big one, and the most challenging. However, if you organize your plans, your pitch deck, and your business idea is good and fills a key need, the funding will come. Don’t confuse funding and finance, they’re two very different things, but you need to do both. There are many options for collaborative finance in the forestry and water worlds Russell & Odefey, 2024.

Introduction¶

Describe the key differences in program design vs. feasibility and viable project design (Regine email)

Challenges¶

We often go straight to funding when it comes to challenges and one of the biggest challenges can be unreasonable requests for RFPs from funding agencies (Figure 1). Yes, you do have something that is going to change the world. So why isn’t everyone funding it? Maybe you don’t have a theory of change!

Other challenges include the following:

1. Lean funding & finance opportunities. Many grant opportunities are geared towards nonprofits. CAL FIRE’s Business and Workforce Development Grants and USFS’s Wood Innovations Grants are some of the few that offer busineses the opportunity to apply for public funds.

2. Lack of infrastructure.

3. Inability to facilitate long-term feedstock agreements. Swezy (2025) mentions that once the sawlog supply normalized following the Dixie Fire, that although the regional Forest Service leadership is trying to align with the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Action Plan for treatment targets, these objectives do not often match the local district ranger capacity to secure feedstock contracts nor the funding for the work resulting in inconsistent log supplies and financial instability for wood processing facilities.

4. Lack of resources bespoke to wood products businesses.

5. Sparse networking and partner opportunities.

6. Leadership to run wood processing facilities. Although experienced labor to run mills may be available, as has been the case for Tahoe Forest Products and J&C Lumber finding skilled leadership for supervisory positions to support operations and grow startups may be difficult Swezy, 2025.

Simple solutions¶

There are some solutions that seem obvious and are simple, but many businesses don’t take them seriously. The first example is writing a clear, compelling, and readable business plan. Don’t use ChatGPT to write this. This isn’t a joke, FBA has reviewed some business plans that were probably written by ChatGPT. For immediate impact, these could include:

1. Theory of change

2. Business plan.

3. Measuring success plan.

Advanced solutions¶

After simple solutions, there are solutions that will be more difficult to attain or implement, but are worth the effort. These could include things like an equitable staffing structure, ramping up finance rounds beyond startup stage, and realistically costing out how your business is going to scale.

1. Staffing

2. Finance 202

3. Scaling

Project pathway¶

discuss the development pathway/stages/steps, the types of expertise that are needed to support a project achieving these steps, common pitfalls or hurdles, example projects/case studies, grant funding opportunities to support project development, free TA resources, etc. I don’t think we should dive into pitch decks and success monitoring because these are associated with late stage development.

I. Back-of-the-envelope¶

Spitballing stage for the initial ideas that precedes the pre-concept.

II. Pre-concept¶

• Establishing a vision and project concept, goals and objectives

• Identification of technology options and preferred option

• Site and infrastructure evaluation

• Feedstock volume and pricing assessment

• Identification of the permitting pathway

• High level financial analysis (capex, opex, potential sources of capital, market demand/pricing, sensitivities)

• Partner mapping/initial engagement

• Establishing a preliminary project schedule

III. Feasiblity¶

Cite Featherman (2025) here? See bib for url link to study

• Securing site control

• Preliminary engineering and design for the preferred tech, and a third party review of it

• Detailed financial analysis

• Establishing the appropriate business structure

• Further feedstock and market analyses, if needed

• Securing feedstock supply letters of intent/contracts

• Securing offtake letters of intent/contracts

• Identification and initial pursuit of capital stack

• Refine and maintain the Gantt

• Partner/stakeholder engagement

IV. Consolidation? (Late Stage)¶

• Final engineering/design

• Construction and operating permits

• Complete lender/investor requirements and financial close

• Establish construction schedule and plan

• Procure long-lead equipment

• Pitch deck

V. Implementation Up & running¶

VI. Stock taking¶

Resources¶

From the Biomass newsletter sent from Martin on Nov 25, 2025:

Wood Products Campus Siting and Financial Risk Analysis. As part of the South Central Sierra feedstock aggregation pilot project (https://californiaforestproducts.org/fapps/) sponsored by the California Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI), Wildephor Consulting Services has published a siting and financial risk analysis report (https://californiaforestproducts.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SCS_SitingandFinancialRiskAnalysis_20250831.pdf) and presented (https://californiaforestproducts.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SCS_SitingandFinancialRiskAnalysis_slidedeck_20250825.pdf) the results of their work at the LCI cohort meeting held on August 25th. The study included three elements: 1) a biomass feedstock supply analysis; 2) a biomass feedstock storage model; and 3) a biomass project financial risk analysis. The feedstock supply analysis incorporates advanced geospatial modeling to evaluate the viability of three candidate wood products campus sites based on their economically available feedstock supplies from forest residues and orchard removals. The feedstock storage model offers an approach to estimating the size requirement and capital cost of building a covered feedstock storage facility for a wood products campus. Finally, the project financial risk analysis presents a new, more rigorous method of accounting for uncertainties in the estimated capital and operating costs of a proposed wood products business, including the development of a financial sensitivity analysis approach to allow project owners and investors to proactively de-risk biomass utilization projects. The proprietary methodology, termed a Biomass Utilization Financial Feasibility and Sensitivity (BUFFSTM) analysis, represents a step change in the analytical toolkit available to prospective developers of biomass utilization projects in California and beyond.

LCI feedstock pilots: https://californiaforestproducts.org/fapps/