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Business Plan Template for a Startup Business

Are you looking for a business plan template for a startup business?

Are you looking for a business plan template for a startup business? Well, Growthink is the right place to start! Writing a business plan for a startup business can be a daunting task, but it is an integral part of any successful entrepreneurial venture. A typical business plan runs 15 to 20 pages, but there's room for wide variation from that norm. What follows is a powerful business plan template outline for a startup business.

 

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Elements of a Business Plan

Simply stated, a business plan conveys your business goals, the strategies you'll use to meet them, potential problems that may confront your business and ways to solve them, the organizational structure of your business (including titles and responsibilities), and finally, the amount of capital required to finance your venture and keep it going until it breaks even. A typical business plan runs 15 to 20 pages, but there's room for wide variation from that norm. 

There are three primary parts to a business plan:

  • The first is the business concept, where you discuss the industry, your business structure, your particular product or service, and how you plan to make your business a success.
  • The second is the marketplace section, in which you describe and analyze potential customers: who and where they are, what makes them buy and so on. Here, you also describe the competition and how you'll position yourself to beat it.
  • Finally, the financial section contains your income and cash flow statement, balance sheet and other financial ratios, such as break-even analyses. This part may require help from your accountant and a good spreadsheet software program.

Breaking these three major sections down even further, a business plan consists of seven key components:

  1. Executive summary
  2. Business description
  3. Market strategies
  4. Competitive analysis
  5. Design and development plan
  6. Operations and management plan
  7. Financial factors

Executive Summary for a Business Plan

Within the overall outline of the business plan, the executive summary will follow the title page. The summary should tell the reader what you want. Clearly state what you're asking for in the summary. This statement should be kept short and businesslike, probably no more than half a page. Within that space, you'll need to provide a synopsis of your entire business plan. 

Startup Business Description

The business description usually begins with a short description of the industry including the present outlook as well as future possibilities. You should also provide information on all the various markets within the industry, including any new products or developments that will benefit or adversely affect your business. 

The first thing you need to concentrate on is its structure. By structure, we mean the type of operation, i.e. wholesale, retail, food service, manufacturing or service-oriented. In addition, legal form should be reiterated once again. Detail whether the business is a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation, who its principals are, and what they will bring to the business. You should also mention who you will sell to, how the product will be distributed, and the business's support systems. Support may come in the form of advertising, promotions and customer service.¬¬

Once you've described the business, you need to describe the products or services you intend to market. The product description statement should be complete enough to give the reader a clear idea of your intentions. You may want to emphasize any unique features or variations from concepts that can typically be found in the industry.

The business description can be a few paragraphs in length to a few pages, depending on the complexity of your plan. If your plan isn't too complicated, keep your business description short, describing the industry in one paragraph, the product in another, and the business and its success factors in three or four paragraphs that will end the statement.

Market Strategies for a Business Plan

Market strategies are the result of a meticulous market analysis. A market analysis forces the entrepreneur to become familiar with all aspects of the market so that the target market can be defined and the company can be positioned in order to garner its share of sales. It enables the entrepreneur to establish pricing, distribution and promotional strategies that will allow the company to become profitable within a competitive environment and provides an indication of the growth potential within the industry.

  1. Define Your Market - Begin your market analysis by defining the market in terms of size, structure, growth prospects, trends and sales potential. 
  2.  Project Market Share- Arriving at a projection of the market share for a business plan is very much a subjective estimate based on not only an analysis of the market but on highly targeted and competitive distribution, pricing and promotional strategies. In order to project market share over the time frame of the business plan, you will need to consider two factors:
    • Industry growth, which will increase the total number of users. 
    • Conversion of users from the total feasible market. 
  3. Positioning- When discussing market strategy, it's inevitable that positioning will be brought up. A positioning statement should point out exactly how you want your product perceived by both customers and the competition. To successfully position your company, you need to consider strategic questions such as:
    1. How are your competitors positioning themselves?
    2. What specific attributes does your product have that your competitors' don't?
    3. What customer needs does your product fulfill?
  4. Pricing - How you price your product is important because it will have a direct effect on the success of your business. 
  5. Distribution- Distribution includes the entire process of moving the product from the factory to the end user. The type of distribution network you choose will depend upon the industry and the size of the market. 
  6. Promotion Plan - The promotion strategy in its most basic form is the controlled distribution of communication designed to sell your product or service. 
  7. Sales Potential- Once the market has been researched and analyzed, conclusions need to be developed that will supply a quantitative outlook concerning the potential of the business. The first financial projection within the business plan must be formed utilizing the information drawn from defining the market, positioning the product, pricing, distribution, and strategies for sales. 

Startup Competitive Analysis for your Business Plan

The competitive analysis is a statement of the business strategy and how it relates to the competition. The purpose of the competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within your market, strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage, the barriers that can be developed in order to prevent competition from entering your market, and any weaknesses that can be exploited within the product development cycle.

The first step in a competitor analysis is to identify the current and potential competition. Once you've identified and grouped your competitors, you can start to analyze their strategies and identify the areas where they're most vulnerable through an examination of your competitors' weaknesses and strengths. Using this analysis, you will need to create a marketing strategy that will generate an asset or skill competitors don't have, which will provide you with a distinct and enduring competitive advantage

Design and Development Plan for your Startup Business

The purpose of the design and development plan section is to provide investors with a description of the product's design, chart its development within the context of production, marketing and the company itself, and create a development budget that will enable the company to reach its goals.

There are generally three areas you'll cover in the development plan section:

  • Product development
  • Market development
  • Organizational development

Things to Include:

  1. Goals For Product Development- Goals for product development should center on the technical as well as the marketing aspects of the product so that you have a focused outline from which the development team can work.
  2. Procedures - Procedures need to be developed for product development, market development, and organization development. 
  3. Scheduling and Costs- Scheduling includes all of the key work elements as well as the stages the product must pass through before customer delivery. 
  4. Development Budget - When forming your development budget, you need to take into account all the expenses required to design the product and to take it from prototype to production.
  5. Personnel- You will need an idea of the positions necessary for your company to succeed as well as a plan to integrate personnel into the development process. 
  6. Assessing Risks - Finally, the risks involved in developing the product should be assessed and a plan developed to address each one. 

Operations and Management Plan for your Startup Business

The operations and management plan is designed to describe just how the business functions on a continuing basis. The operations plan will highlight the logistics of the organization such as the various responsibilities of the management team, the tasks assigned to each division within the company, and capital and expense requirements related to the operations of the business. 

There are two areas that need to be accounted for when planning the operations of your company. The first area is the organizational structure of the company, and the second is the expense and capital requirements associated with its operation.

  1. Organizational Structure - The organizational structure of the company is an essential element within a business plan because it provides a basis from which to project operating expenses. 

Four stages for developing your organizational structure:

  1. Establish a list of the tasks using the broadest of classifications possible.
  2. Organize these tasks into departments that produce an efficient line of communications between staff and management.
  3. Determine the type of personnel required to perform each task.
  4. Establish the function of each task and how it will relate to the generation of revenue within the company.

Expenses and Capital Requirements

  • Calculate Overhead Expenses - Once the organization's operations have been planned, the expenses associated with the operation of the business need to be developed. These are usually referred to as overhead expenses (all non-labor expenses required to operate the business). 
  • Develop a Capital Requirements Table - Table that depicts the amount of money necessary to purchase the equipment you'll use to establish and continue operations. 
  • Create a Cost of Goods Table - Table used only for businesses where the product is placed into inventory. It is an integral part of portraying the flow of inventory through your operations, the placement of assets within the company, and the rate at which your inventory turns.

Financial Statements for your Business Plan

Financial data is always at the back of the business plan, but that doesn't mean it's any less important than up-front material such as the business concept and the management team. Financial statements to include:

  • Income Statement
  • Cash Flow Statement
  • The Balance Sheet

We hope you've found business plan for a startup business helpful. Please explore the Growthink website for exciting opportunities to finance your new startup and ways to get involved in our growing community. Good luck!

 

Source: The Small Business Encyclopedia, Business Plans Made Easy, Start Your Own business and Entrepreneur magazine. 

Accessed April 6, 2012 @ http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessplan/index.html