Writing a Business Plan

Lean Business Planning

• Build a plan on one page
• Answer basic questions
• Execute: launch your minimum viable product
• Repeat

Lean Planning Questions

• Define the problem you solve
  • Describe what customers do today to solve the problem
• Describe your solution
• Clarify your unique selling proposition
• Note your unfair competitive advantage
• Identify Customer Segments
  • Pay special attention to early adopters
• Note sales channels and marketing strategies
• Define metrics you’ll use to measure success
• The bumper sticker summary

Business Plan Overview

• All entrepreneurs should take this course
• You need a business plan when someone asks for it
  • Raising money through crowdfunding, from angels or VCs
  • Applying for a bank loan
• When you don’t need a business plan
  • Starting a business
• Lean Business Planning
  • One page overview
  • Execute, review, revise and repeat

Purpose of a Business Plan

• Define the problem
• Offer the solution
• Identify the customer
• Explain how you make a profit

If It Ain’t Broke…

• No one will pay you to solve a problem they don’t see as a problem.
• If you already have paying customers, you’re solving a problem.

Solve a Bigger Problem

• In general, the bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity

Tips for Describing the Problem

• Be honest
• Be clear
• Be focused
• Be succinct

Match Your Solution to the Problem

• Your solution should match the problem you identify as well as the pants match the jacket of a business  suit
• If there is a mis-match, go back and redefine the problem or the solution to create the match

Tips for Describing Your Solution

• Focus on clarity
• Challenge: when describing something new your audience will:
  1. Leap to false conclusions,
  2. Fill in gaps with their experience
  3. Miss your point entirely
• Support words with images and video
• Avoid broad, grand words in favor of specific, focused ones

Identify Your Customer

• The problem and solution both lack meaning without a customer
• Avoid broad customer definitions like:
  • Everyone with a cell phone
  • Women over the age of 18
• Seek narrow definitions focused on your early adopters
  • Affluent women between 50 and 65 years of age
  • Unemployed teens in upper income households
  • Male college students at public universities
• Get to know your customers

One Sentence Summary

• Create a customer-focused, one-sentence summary of your business plan.
• This will become:
  • The way you introduce the business to people at cocktail parties
  • The first sentence of your business plan
  • The first slide of your PowerPoint pitch
• Be clear
• Don’t say:
  • “We make the world more beautiful for everyone through horticulture”

…if it would be more accurate to say…

• “We mow lawns for affluent people in this particular Place in the world.”

One-Sentence Template 1

See if your one sentence summary can fit this model:

• We solve [this problem]
• By doing [this activity]
• So that [this outcome results]
• For [our well defined customer]

The order is not especially important

One-Sentence Template 2

• We do _________ for __________ so that they ___________.
• You define your activity in terms of your customers and their outcomes
• For example:
• We manage the apps on smartphones for people who download lots of application so that their phones’ memory, storage and batteries are optimized.
• Note that the problem definition in this example is implied

Download Financial Modeling for a Business Plan

Download Project Forecast Sample Excel Sheet Start Implement your Idea Now