Writing a Business Plan

The first step of starting a business or company of your own is to write a business plan. Business plans for a business is what classes are in a object oriented programming. In other words they are what a building plan is to an engineer who is heading a team to construct a building. In short a business plan is the back bone to a entrepreneur in his entrepreneurial journey.


First stage planning:

At first an entrepreneur needs to create a blue print of the project he wishes to work on. Blue print consists of the rough plan. It could be pieces of the dream that you had about your business idea or the vision that you saw. This is paramount as without a plan you cannot start your work. Do not worry about the business plan not turning up well. Your first step of writing a business plan will be draft copy, the final plan can be easily derived from this rough draft. So once you have jolted down your entire dream or vision onto the notepad, you have to now give it a shape. 


Points to be remembered while writing a business plan:


To finalize a business plan, we need a very important tool called Microsoft Presentation or Open Office Presentation. You can choose anyone of this according to your desire. You have a rough business plan and a presentation open. Now you have to design a beautiful and informative business plan. Your business plan presentation should not be more than 10 to 20 slides. It should contain all the details mentioned below in not so detailed and not so brief manner.


Designing your Business Plan presentation:

         Company Purpose

• Define the company/business in a single declarative sentence. - This slide should highlight that why your founding this company. What is the purpose of it? How will it capture the market? Is your company targeting some niche market? How is your company different from others? If you could just find an answer to these questions, then you will have an impressive first slide. Remember to put these answers or points as bullet points. Do not have them as a paragraph. 

Problem

• Describe the pain of the customer (or the customer’s customer). - In the next step you need to describe why your customers or why the market needs you. How you will be able to get customers. What will you offer to your customers. How you will win over your competitors in acquiring your customers. What is the current trend or the current problem that the customer is facing. How do you intend to address this issue. 

• Outline how the customer addresses the issue today. - This can be elaborated as, does the customer need your services? What is the present state of the customer? How is he addressing this issue without your service. Is his current situation manageable for him? Does he really need your service or is it possible for him to manage without your service. 

Solution

• Demonstrate your company’s value proposition to make the customer’s life better. - This is similar to the content of the previous slide. Take a survey among your target audience on their present problem and their condition and also a survey of their views and suggestion after introducing your product or service to them. This will give you and your investors a real time idea on how your company might fare in the market. 

Competition

• List competitors - A lot of entrepreneurs become over confident when they come to this point. They become a bit over confident in their desire to start a company and hence become ignorant about their competitors. Every business, no matter how advanced or innovative they are, has competitors. Your business plan is not complete unless and until you do not study your competitors and collect information about them. You need to find out who your competitors are and carefully study them. 

• List competitive advantages -  Identifying your competitors and studying about them, will enable you to understand the present market scenario properly. This was you can easily find out how what is your competitive advantage over them. How can you attract customers towards you. How to position your advertisement campaigns etc. In short you should be well prepared on how to face your competitors and win over them. 

 

Team

• Founders and Management and Board of Directors/Board of Advisors - The business plan should also have information about the founders and also the proposed or finalized management team. You have to remember that it is not possible for you to run the company alone. There is well known fact that the companies started by single entrepreneurs have a higher chances of getting closed or running out business. 

• Having a board of directors with people having experience in similar field is an added advantage and will easily  attract good investments in the future. Instead of having a board of directors you can also have an advisory board which can help you and mentor you from time to time. 

Financials

• P and L, Balance sheet and Cash Flow - No business plan is complete without a accounts department. It is always good to consult a C.A (Chartered Accountant) for all your finance related queries. P & L means profit and loss. You need to maintain a profit and loss account, Balance sheet and a Cash Flow statement. I have given a sample template with this article for download and use (you can change the template according to your need). There is a popular misconception that at the early stage there is no need for any such financial bookkeeping but having this set at the starting stage, you will be putting a practice which will enable you to have complete control over your finances. This is also give you a picture on how your company is performing financially. In case if you meet the investors somewhere down the line, these details will come in handy.