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Business Plan Writing - The Basics

Guest post by: Jason Kay

Article Overview: A business plan is a crucial piece of documentation that will give your clients and potential investors a clear indication of what you are planning to achieve with your business, and how you intend to reach this level of success. In the event that some aspects of your business are unknown due to your current start up status, it is important to ensure that only clear and confident aspects of your business plan are included in your write up. However, when it comes to writing your first business plan, the most important thing to remember is to stick to the ‘basics'.

Business Plan Writing - The Basics

A business plan is a crucial piece of documentation that will give your clients and potential investors a clear indication of what you are planning to achieve with your business, and how you intend to reach this level of success. In the event that some aspects of your business are unknown due to your current start up status, it is important to ensure that only clear and confident aspects of your business plan are included in your write up. However, when it comes to writing your first business plan, the most important thing to remember is to stick to the ‘basics'. Basics for Getting Started:

The main purpose of a business plan is to clearly and concisely display your vision for your business. The clearer your initial plan, the easier it will be to convey your vision to the reader. You should then provide an overview of the resources you have assembled in order to help you in achieving this goal. The fundamentals of your business plan should also include details regarding your experience and skills and how these will help you in making your business plan work. It is also extremely advantageous to link in your resume and/or portfolio to reconfirm the details included in your initial plan.

Mentioning the Economic Prospects:

It is always beneficial to state any short term goals you have for your business clearly. By doing this, you will be able to eliminate the need for any high cash requirements etc. which is vital as you must be clear in judgments of economic requirements and prospects. This way, your plan will be less likely to be written off as an over-confident endeavor. Being positive is one thing, but being prepared for every potential outcome with a contingency plan is another. The latter is valued highly when proposing a business plan. The level of confidence and trust in you and your business plan will increase when you are able to effectively present yourself to be well prepared, knowledgeable in your plan and niche market and other aspects of your prospective business.

Why Will Your Proposed Business Work?

This is a question which you will need to be able to answer clearly and concisely to any investor and so forth who reads your business plan. In order to do this effectively, you will need to possess a clear understanding of your targeted market and be able to confirm any facts you include within your plan with research materials, etc. You must also be able to display how capable your management skills are, as well as how you plan to organize the overall managerial side of your business in terms of employees you plan to hire and how you will identify the ideal candidates.

Before you submit your final business plan, it is extremely advantageous to have your business plan reviewed. It is much easier to identify weak areas of your plan or missed sections if you have this read through by your peers or others who are involved in business. Above all, it is important that you are realistic in writing your business plan. Whether you are just starting your first business or already have an established business under your wing, realism is what will be expected by any investor when they come to read your business plan. By following the above guidelines, not only will your business plan be clear, concise and thorough, but will also be the right first step to starting up your business.

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Article Tags: business plan, writing a business plan



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Business Innovation - Hi Simon If you can finish off the Business Plan and think about your strategic direction or how you are going to use your product to convince people it's a great idea, it will set the foundation for your programming project. You see, when you are looking for funding you will need a Business Plan and Strategic Plan that will convince companies to invest into your new idea. Has anyone achieved this idea before using another industry besides health and fitness that you know of? You should also design some mockups as a "preview" for your programming project. This will also help reduce your programming costs as everyone will know exactly what you want if you have detailed mockups already completed including any functionality you require. Starting mockups for websites and software applications on paper is the best way if you're not a guru in graphic editing software.
Re: NEW VIDEO - How to improve your business plan - Ask Evan - Thanks Evan, great intro into how the VC's see business plan. I will take a look, but hope that this video as number 1 in a series. It is unfortunate that these types of errors, the most basic of errors as you point out here are common to too many business plans, having reviewed a few hundred myself from both a development and funding perspective. As a mentor and workshop facilitator for Business Plan development for a number of start-up IT and multimedia companies, your presentation help support and show how the VC's see and evaluate a plan Shameful, that too many don't take the time to learn how to properly prepare, present and defend their plans. Over the years, I have enjoyed Business Plan competitions, and help re-work some of the winning proposals
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2007 Goals - 1. Web site complete, fully operational 2. Revenue stream from both individual and corporate 3. Business Plan complete 4. Full marketing strategy complete and implemented


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