A lot of people have these beautiful Game Show ideas that can turn them from penniless into millionaires overnight. But there is always something getting them so stuck they cannot move past the big idea in their head.
This post is intended to rail you to accomplish that dream.

Hi Everyone,

My name is Johnson, I am a young business consultant with an array of different industry experience.

Recently, a client (later became a very go friend of mine) came to me asking for my help on a project proposal (a TV game show initiative). I was excited and decided to help him because it sounded like an easy and fun work. I had the impression that he as all the idea figured out and i just need to get the information and draft a proposal. I was wrong, my friend (client) only had a glimpse of what he wanted to achieve and my role was to help him:

1. Understand his piece of idea (which is just like a milk cup of rice in a big sack of rice) and paint the big picture.
2. Develop an operations framework
3. Draft an actual budget… to say the least
4. Before interpreting them in a proposal.

I never knew this was what I was going to get myself into before agreeing to help him free of charge.

I took up the challenge wholeheartedly and got to work. Started with researching, I never wanted to re-invent the wheels so I was precisely looking for templates and plans that have been created by professionals in the field. To my surprise, I could not found any that fits what I was looking for, even down to Nairaland Sef.

At that point I had no choice but to roll up my sleeves take my digger and get to work. After 3 days in the wilderness of innovation I was done. A first of its kind indigenous TV game show that meets international standards.

I gave it to my client (friend) who was really amazed and thankful for a job well done. He went ahead to do a presentation to investors. on the spot, he go positive feed backs and funding to roll out a pilot.

I had to start by telling my experience so you can know what drove the will to post this thread.

During the process of researching and talking to my friend, I realized that some people here in Nigeria must have the same problem like my friend. So I saw the need to help actualize their dream in reality through the information I am about to share.

HERE WE GO >>>>>

Now I am going to be simple and brief as to what you need to move from the dream to creating a convincing proposal I have classed the process in 2 stages
1. Ideation
2. Proposal

Ideation Stage:

This is the stage where everything looks like a billion dollars in your head and you can’t wait to spend it. ----Hold On, Take a breather,-------- there are some questions you need to ask yourself about the billion dollars.

I. What is source/reason of this billion dollars?
II. How are you going to turn this billion dollars into real cash?
III. Who are the beneficiaries when you turn this billion into cash?

i. What is source/reason of this billion dollars: You don’t just sleep and dream of an idea all for you to wake up and shout I don hammer. Shey na 2 sure or 3 direct ni?
You need to understand the reason for this idea, the purpose more importantly. For example your reason can be ranged from eradication of poverty to making people laugh away their sorrow.

ii. How are you going to turn this billion dollars into real cash: This is where most people get stuck. Everything in Life has a process of operation and movement. You need to critically think of the step by step process of how to breathe life into your idea.
Don’t say you are just going to start from somewhere jare. My friend, somewhere in this context might just be anywhere and anywhere can be nowhere.

iii. Who are the beneficiaries when you turn this billion into cash: Yes i know you are the number 1 beneficiary but think like this- If Bill Gates created the Microsoft OS for himself alone, The world will never know of the existence of his innovation and he might never be as rich as he his today.
You need to identify the beneficiaries of your idea or should I say the stakeholders of your idea and understand their relationship to the idea.

The Proposal:

Once you get it right with the hint I shared in the ideation stage drafting a proposal shouldn’t be a problem at all. All you need is do some research and follow the simple outline I am going to share below.

(The outlines are just key pointers on how a simple but standard TVGS proposal should look like. You can add or substitute from the list, it’s your choice)

Executive Summary: Before deciding buying a book or a music cd, you would want to know what it’s all about right? The same perception applies to proposals. But unlike a book summary, You should keep your proposal summary short, concise and simple. What I do is make them in bullet points in a logical order.

The context: I like to create an origin for the initiatives i develop, it gives the initiative an identity. The context can be a problem statement or Facts that leads to the birth of your initiative.

The Purpose of the concept: Like I said in the above header ‘identity’ the purpose of your concept helps the audience to understand the project identity better. I also mentioned in the ideation stage-what is the reason for your initiative- if you get that right, knowing the purpose of your concept should be a piece of cake.

The Initiative: This is where you introduce your idea proper. The name, the logo and explanations.

The initiative summary: Like the executive summary, give a brief on how the program will run, the time duration, projections, etc.

How it works: This is where things get interesting. You can have a beautiful name and logo but a quaky operations framework. You need to break down the process of how the program will work in a step by step phase, from the target audience to registration to the challenge phases to the game day itself down to the prizes to be won.

The initiative features: What are the unique features that make your game show stand out from the rest? Or makes your game show more challenging?

The initiative rules: what are the rules of the game?

The key terms used and their meaning: Like -who wants to be a millionaire- you can recall terms like hot seat, lifeline.. These are unique terms used in identifying some of the game components. Do you have any for your game show? List and define them.

Financials: Another very interesting section of the proposal. For those who don’t have a background in finance or prior experience drafting a budget of this kind, I advice you meet people who are experts in this field but first you will need to identify the necessary components that is needed to run this program. E.g venue and décor, video coverage and lighting, human capital and administration, marketing, etc
Secondly, you then meet experts in these fields to give you clarity and actual cost price.

Please it is not advisable to give projection in your budget plan, investors will feel insecure as regards funding.

Investment opportunities: After showing the investors all the millions you want to collect from them, you need to give them some really good reasons to willingly give you what you are asking for. One good reason is to tell them what they stand to gain if they fund the program.

Investors likes the -what’s in it for me- talk.

If you can follow the above guidelines accordingly, your chances of creating a -not so good-proposal is very very low.
Remember: this is not all there is to know about creating a TVGS proposal you can add or substitute the headers. For example you can add some analysis models.

And finally don’t forget your confidentiality and Thank you pages.

I hope you have learnt something useful.

You can reach me via email (gjcastleremix2000@gmail.com) for more inquiries or post your questions here on this thread and I will respond as soon as I can.

Thank you.

If you don't want to go through the stress of cracking your brain so hard, You can reach out to me and i will gladly help you.

I just got a mail of from a nairalander asking if this process and outline is good enough to attract international investors.

The answer is yes. but i sensed some interpretation in his message. The information i shared is just a structure,process of thought, guidelines on how you can achieve your goal. it is not the goal itself.

There are other some tiny things i didn't mention earlier in this thread because i felt it is not necessary but i will now to help some set of people understand better.

* Aside the step by step guidelines i mentioned in this thread, It is important
-you know how to wield words very well, i mean a proper use of English or what ever language you prefer: The appropriate use of simple words is very effective than the 15-26 letters jargon you feel will keep your investors nodding. bros it will turn them off abeg..

-Understand the basics of story telling: This is very key If you want to retain the attention and curiosity of the investor through out your presentation. Story telling is a silent hypnotic rhythm that seduces the investor's mind,attract his curiosity and coveys his attention to what ever destination you deem fit.

- You know how to use info-graph: This helps to simplify your explanation, beautify your presentation and Shorten the 5 million words in your slides.


If you have all these skills set and you merge it with the information i had given, NO investor around the world would find your presentation boring.

I would like to give you a call man.