business plan for it company sample

IT Services Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

IT Services Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 500 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their IT companies.

If you’re unfamiliar with creating an IT business plan, you may think creating one will be a time-consuming and frustrating process. For most entrepreneurs it is, but for you, it won’t be since we’re here to help. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great business plan.

In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write an IT business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What is an IT Services Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your IT business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for IT Company

If you’re looking to start an IT business or grow your existing IT company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your IT business to improve your chances of success. Your IT business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for IT Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for an IT business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for IT companies.

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How to write a business plan for an it services business.

If you want to start an IT business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your IT business plan.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of IT business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have an IT business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of IT businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.

Give a brief overview of the IT industry.
Discuss the type of IT business you are operating.
Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
Offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Overview

In your company overview, you will detail the type of IT business you are operating.

For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of IT businesses:

Computer repair: This type of IT business provides computer maintenance and repair services.
Computer training: This type of IT professional specializes in teaching others how to use computers as well as various software and computer programs.
IT support: This type of IT professional provides services for businesses such as setting up a network, backing up data, and systems management.
Cloud computing: This type of IT specialist helps individuals and businesses establish cloud platforms and tools, or may help to migrate their information to the cloud.

In addition to explaining the type of IT business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

When and why did you start the business?
What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of new clients served, the number of repeat clients, reaching $X amount in revenue, etc.
Your legal business Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the IT industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the IT industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.

The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your IT business plan:

How big is the IT industry (in dollars)?
Is the market declining or increasing?
Who are the key competitors in the market?
Who are the key suppliers in the market?
What trends are affecting the industry?
What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your IT business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your IT business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, schools, families, and corporations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of IT business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other IT businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes other types of IT consultants, in-house IT support, or do-it-yourself IT tutorials. You need to mention such competition as well.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as

What types of customers do they serve?
What type of IT business are they?
What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
What are they good at?
What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

Will you make it easier for clients to acquire your product or service?
Will you offer products or services that your competition doesn’t?
Will you provide better customer service?
Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an IT business plan, your marketing strategy should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of IT company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you provide cloud computing, data center management, or network setup services?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the site of your IT company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your IT business located in a busy retail district, a business district, a standalone office, or purely online? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions : The final part of your IT marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
Reach out to websites
Distribute flyers
Engage in email marketing
Advertise on social media platforms
Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your IT business, including answering calls, meeting with new clients, billing and collecting payments from clients, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to acquire your Xth client, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your IT business to a new city.

Management Team

To demonstrate your IT business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing IT businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing an IT business or successfully running a small IT consulting service.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement

An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you charge your clients an hourly rate of $250 per hour, and will you work 5 hours per day? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets

Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your IT business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing an IT business:

Cost of equipment and office supplies
Payroll or salaries paid to staff
Business insurance
Other start-up expenses (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and equipment

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or a list of your IT credentials.

Writing a business plan for your IT business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert on IT business planning. You will understand the IT industry, your competition, and your customers. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful IT business.

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7 Business Plan Examples to Inspire Your Own (2024)

Need support creating your business plan? Check out these business plan examples for inspiration.

Any aspiring entrepreneur researching how to start a business will likely be advised to write a business plan. But few resources provide business plan examples to really guide you through writing one of your own.

Here are some real-world and illustrative business plan examples to help you craft your business plan .

7 business plan examples: section by section

The business plan examples in this article follow this template:

Executive summary. An introductory overview of your business.
Company description. A more in-depth and detailed description of your business and why it exists.
Market analysis. Research-based information about the industry and your target market.
Products and services. What you plan to offer in exchange for money.
Marketing plan. The promotional strategy to introduce your business to the world and drive sales.
Logistics and operations plan. Everything that happens in the background to make your business function properly.
Financial plan. A breakdown of your numbers to show what you need to get started as well as to prove viability of profitability.
Executive summary

Your executive summary is a page that gives a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. It’s easiest to save this section for last.

In this free business plan template , the executive summary is four paragraphs and takes a little over half a page:

A four-paragraph long executive summary for a business.

Company description

You might repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, social media profile pages, or other properties that require a boilerplate description of your small business.

Soap brand ORRIS has a blurb on its About page that could easily be repurposed for the company description section of its business plan.

You can also go more in-depth with your company overview and include the following sections, like in the example for Paw Print Post:

Business structure. This section outlines how you registered your business —as an LLC , sole proprietorship, corporation, or other business type . “Paw Print Post will operate as a sole proprietorship run by the owner, Jane Matthews.”
Nature of the business. “Paw Print Post sells unique, one-of-a-kind digitally printed cards that are customized with a pet’s unique paw prints.”
Industry. “Paw Print Post operates primarily in the pet industry and sells goods that could also be categorized as part of the greeting card industry.”
Background information. “Jane Matthews, the founder of Paw Print Post, has a long history in the pet industry and working with animals, and was recently trained as a graphic designer. She’s combining those two loves to capture a niche in the market: unique greeting cards customized with a pet’s paw prints, without needing to resort to the traditional (and messy) options of casting your pet’s prints in plaster or using pet-safe ink to have them stamp their ‘signature.’”
Business objectives. “Jane will have Paw Print Post ready to launch at the Big Important Pet Expo in Toronto to get the word out among industry players and consumers alike. After two years in business, Jane aims to drive $150,000 in annual revenue from the sale of Paw Print Post’s signature greeting cards and have expanded into two new product categories.”
Team. “Jane Matthews is the sole full-time employee of Paw Print Post but hires contractors as needed to support her workflow and fill gaps in her skill set. Notably, Paw Print Post has a standing contract for five hours a week of virtual assistant support with Virtual Assistants Pro.”

Your mission statement may also make an appearance here. Passionfruit shares its mission statement on its company website, and it would also work well in its example business plan.

Market analysis

The market analysis consists of research about supply and demand, your target demographics, industry trends, and the competitive landscape. You might run a SWOT analysis and include that in your business plan.

Here’s an example SWOT analysis for an online tailored-shirt business:

A SWOT analysis table showing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

You’ll also want to do a competitive analysis as part of the market research component of your business plan. This will tell you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to differentiate your brand. A broad competitive analysis might include:

Target customers
Unique value add or what sets their products apart
Sales pitch
Price points for products
Shipping policy
Products and services

This section of your business plan describes your offerings—which products and services do you sell to your customers? Here’s an example for Paw Print Post:

An example products and services section from a business plan

Marketing plan

It’s always a good idea to develop a marketing plan before you launch your business. Your marketing plan shows how you’ll get the word out about your business, and it’s an essential component of your business plan as well.

The Paw Print Post focuses on four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. However, you can take a different approach with your marketing plan. Maybe you can pull from your existing marketing strategy , or maybe you break it down by the different marketing channels. Whatever approach you take, your marketing plan should describe how you intend to promote your business and offerings to potential customers.

Logistics and operations plan

The Paw Print Post example considered suppliers, production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.

Financial plan

The financial plan provides a breakdown of sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and other relevant financial metrics related to funding and profiting from your business.

Ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy’s financial plan breaks down predicted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

A sample bar chart showing business expenses by month

It then dives deeper into the financials to include:

Funding needs
Projected profit-and-loss statement
Projected balance sheet
Projected cash-flow statement

You can use this financial plan spreadsheet to build your own financial statements, including income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement.

Types of business plans, and what to include for each

A one-page business plan is meant to be high level and easy to understand at a glance. You’ll want to include all of the sections, but make sure they’re truncated and summarized:

Executive summary: truncated
Market analysis: summarized
Products and services: summarized
Marketing plan: summarized
Logistics and operations plan: summarized
Financials: summarized

A startup business plan is for a new business. Typically, these plans are developed and shared to secure outside funding . As such, there’s a bigger focus on the financials, as well as on other sections that determine viability of your business idea—market research, for example.

Market analysis: in-depth
Financials: in-depth

Your internal business plan is meant to keep your team on the same page and aligned toward the same goal.

A strategic, or growth, business plan is a bigger picture, more-long-term look at your business. As such, the forecasts tend to look further into the future, and growth and revenue goals may be higher. Essentially, you want to use all the sections you would in a normal business plan and build upon each.

Market analysis: comprehensive outlook
Products and services: for launch and expansion
Marketing plan: comprehensive outlook
Logistics and operations plan: comprehensive outlook
Financials: comprehensive outlook

Feasibility

Your feasibility business plan is sort of a pre-business plan—many refer to it as simply a feasibility study. This plan essentially lays the groundwork and validates that it’s worth the effort to make a full business plan for your idea. As such, it’s mostly centered around research.

Set yourself up for success as a business owner

Building a good business plan serves as a roadmap you can use for your ecommerce business at launch and as you reach each of your business goals. Business plans create accountability for entrepreneurs and synergy among teams, regardless of your business model .

Kickstart your ecommerce business and set yourself up for success with an intentional business planning process—and with the sample business plans above to guide your own path.

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Business plan examples FAQ

How do i write a simple business plan, what is the best format to write a business plan, what are the 4 key elements of a business plan.

Executive summary: A concise overview of the company's mission, goals, target audience, and financial objectives.
Business description: A description of the company's purpose, operations, products and services, target markets, and competitive landscape.
Market analysis: An analysis of the industry, market trends, potential customers, and competitors.
Financial plan: A detailed description of the company's financial forecasts and strategies.

What are the 3 main points of a business plan?

Concept: Your concept should explain the purpose of your business and provide an overall summary of what you intend to accomplish.
Contents: Your content should include details about the products and services you provide, your target market, and your competition.
Cashflow: Your cash flow section should include information about your expected cash inflows and outflows, such as capital investments, operating costs, and revenue projections.

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Home » Sample Business Plans » Technology

How to Write an IT Tech Startup Business Plan [Sample Template]

Are you about starting an IT tech startup? If YES, here is a detailed sample IT tech startup business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE . If you are a software developer or you have a background in the ICT industry and you are looking for An IT business to start, then you need to look far because there are loads of businesses in the industry and one of them is software as a service (or SaaS) company.

Software as a service (or SaaS) is an emerging paradigm business that enables software to be delivered as a service. This is an arrangement that enables companies to expand their network capacity, and run applications directly on a vendor’s network, offer a host of advantages with the most primary being radically lowering IT costs.

The lower budgetary requirements and commitments allow even smaller companies to piece together an IT project without spending on purchasing legacy server, and storage systems. However, due to the technical nature of this business, it would be wise to consult with a business consultant before starting off.

If your business concept is a great one, the business consultant would offer you tips and suggestions on the way forward. Below is a sample IT tech startup company business plan template that can help you successfully write your own with little or no stress.

A Sample IT Tech Startup Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

An IT technology company (often tech company) is a type of business entity that focuses on the development and manufacturing of technology products, or providing technology as a service. “Technology”, in this context, has come to mean electronics-based technology. This can include businesses relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce.

For the purpose of this business plan, we will be looking at software development as a service. Software as a service (or SaaS) is part of the Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry and players in this industry consist of companies that are into ERP software, bi software, crm software, scm software and other software development and they may decide to strictly adopt the Software as a services (SaaS) Business model.

A recent report published by IBISWorld shows that the Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry has grown steadily due to favorable demand conditions caused by high corporate profit and investment. Over the five years to 2018, industry revenue rose at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent, driven by businesses’ increased technological complexity and the eagerness to adopt efficiency-enhancing software.

The report also shows that many industry products, such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning software systems, have become basic tools in the management of large companies. In 2018, industry revenue is expected to rise 2.6 percent to $55.4 billion. The world’s largest software companies have spent the past five years acquiring high-performing enterprise software vendors, cloud companies and data.

The report further states that over the past five years, the Business Analytics & Enterprise Software Publishing in the US industry has grown by 7.1 percent to reach revenue of $55bn in 2018. In the same timeframe, the number of businesses has grown by 10.0 percent and the number of employees has grown by 10.2 percent.

The Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry is indeed a growing industry and is gaining ground in most countries of the world. Statistics has it that in the united states of America alone, there are about 2,869 registered and licensed business analytics and enterprise software publishing companies (Software as a services (SaaS) business model inclusive) responsible for employing about 139,347 people and the industry rakes $55 billion annually.

The industry is projected to grow at 7.1 percent annual growth within 2013 and 2018. The companies holding the largest market share in the Business Analytics & Enterprise Software Publishing in the US industry include SAP SE, International Business Machines Corporation, Salesforce.com Inc. and Oracle Corporation.

Some of the factors that encourage entrepreneurs to start their own Software as a service (SaaS) business could be the growing recognition of economic and operational benefits and the efficiency of this business model. As companies ease out gradually from the economic uncertainties and financial shackles, widespread adoption of Software as a service is in the offing.

The successful adoption of this technology concept will pave the way for mass enterprise adoption of Software as a service in the upcoming years. The transition of enterprises from virtual machines to the cloud will additionally extend the impetus required for strong growth of Software as a service (SaaS).

Poised to score the maximum gains will be end-to end cloud-computing solutions that offer complete functionalities ranging from integration of internal and external clouds, automation of business-critical tasks, and streamlining of business processes and workflow, among others.

Over and above, starting a software as a services (SaaS) company requires professionalism and good grasp of how the ICT industry works. Besides, you would need to get the required certifications and license and also meet the standard security expected for players in the industry in the United States.

2. Executive Summary

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is an IT tech startup that will specialize in offering software as a service (SaaS). The business will be based in Overland Park – Kansas and we were able to secure a well – positioned and standard office facility.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is a client – focused and result driven IT tech startup company that is into ERP software, bi software, crm software, scm software and other software development. We will provide broad – based software development services at an affordable fee that won’t in any way put a hole in the pocket of our clients. We will offer standard and professional services to all to our clients.

At Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc., our client’s best interest would always come first, and everything we do is guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hire professionals who are experienced in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in general.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will at all times demonstrate her commitment to sustainability, both individually and as a firm, by actively participating in our communities and integrating sustainable business practices wherever possible. We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely.

Our plan is to position the business to become the leading brand in software as a service (SaaS) business in the whole of Overland Park – Kansas, and also to be amongst the top 10 IT tech startup companies in the United States of America within the first 10 years of operation. This might look too tall a dream but we are optimistic that this will surely be realized.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will be owned and managed by Joel Rogers. He has a Bachelor of Technology. He is a certified SOC 2 – Trust (SOC 2 is designed specifically for SaaS operations) and has over 10 years’ experience working in related industry as a senior software engineer prior to starting Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.

3. Our Products and Services

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is going to offer varieties of services within the scope of the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in the United States of America. We are well prepared to make profits from the industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the United States to achieve our business goals, aim and ambition.

Our business offerings are listed below;

ERP software development
BI software development
CRM software development
SCM software development
Other software development

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

Our vision is to build an IT tech startup company that will be among the forerunners when it comes to offering software as a service (SaaS) in the world.
Our mission is as an IT tech startup with bias in software as a services (SaaS) is to help a wide range of clients develop customized software that will help them simplify their businesses and operations.

Our Business Structure

Ordinarily we would have settled for two or three staff members, but as part of our plan to build a standard IT tech startup company in Overland Park – Kansas, we have perfected plans to get it right from the beginning which is why we are going to ensure that we have competent, honest and hardworking employees to occupy all the available positions in our firm.

The kind of IT tech startup company we intend building and the business goals we want to achieve is what informed the amount we are ready to pay for the best hands available in and around Overland Park – Kansas as long as they are willing and ready to work with us.

Below is the business structure that we will build Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. on;

Chief Executive Officer
Programmers and Software Developers

Admin and HR Manager

Digital Marketers (Marketing and Sales Executive)
Customer Care Executive / Front Desk Officer

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Office:

Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results
Creating, communicating, and implementing the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
Responsible for providing direction for the business
Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
Evaluates the success of the organization

Programmers and Software Developer

Responsible for designing, installing, testing and maintenance of software systems for the organization
Identifying areas for modification in existing programs and subsequently developing these modifications
Writing and implementing efficient code
Determining operational practicality
Developing quality assurance procedures
Training users
Working closely with other developers, UX designers, business and systems analysts
Presenting ideas for system improvements, including cost proposals
Working closely with analysts, designers and staff
Producing detailed specifications and writing the programme codes
Maintaining and upgrading existing systems once they are up and running
Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
Regularly hold meetings with key stakeholders to review the effectiveness of HR Policies, Procedures and Processes
Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
Defining job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
Carrying out induction for new team members
Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
Oversee the smooth running of the daily office activities.

Marketing and Sales Executive

Identify, prioritize, and reach out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts
Writing winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with company policy
Responsible for handling business research, marker surveys and feasibility studies for clients
Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
Document all customer contact and information
Represent the company in strategic meetings
Help increase sales and growth for the company
Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
create reports from the information concerning the financial transactions as recorded
Prepare the income statement and balance sheet using the trial balance and ledgers
Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports
Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
Responsible for administering payrolls
Ensuring compliance with taxation legislation
Handles all financial transactions for the company
Serves as internal auditor for the company

Technical Help Desk Officer

Provide technical assistance and support for incoming queries and issues related to our software
Identifies problems and issues by performing relevant research using the appropriate tools and by following established procedures.
Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s services
Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the company’s promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to clients

6. SWOT Analysis

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. engaged the services of a professional in the area of business consulting and structuring to assist the firm in building a well – structured IT tech startup company that can favorably compete in the highly competitive business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry.

Part of what the business consultant did was to work with the management of our organization in conducting a SWOT analysis for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.;

We can boast of a competent technical team that has analytical and critical thinking skills that can help them find creative solutions for our clients. Aside from the synergy that exists in our carefully selected workforce, we have a very strong online presence and we are well positioned to attract loads of clients from the first day we open our doors for business.

One of the weaknesses that is obvious to us is the lack of capacity and inability to compete with big players in the industry especially as it relates to economy of scales.

Opportunities:

The opportunities in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry is massive considering the fact that the world is going the way of technology, and software as a service (SaaS) is indispensable in the value chain of the info tech industry.

Some of the threats that we are likely going to face as an IT tech startup business operating in the United States are hosting issues, installation or upkeep troubles, piracy, unfavorable government policies , and global economic downturn which usually affects purchasing/spending power.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

Market Trends

The advancement we are enjoying in our world today can be attributed to the advancement of technology. Technology has indeed given leverage to all aspects of human endeavor. To start with, it is the advancement of technology that landed man in the moon.

It is the advancement of technology that made communication either via the telephone or computer easier and faster. It is the advancement of technology that made transportation faster and perhaps cheaper. It is the advancement of technology that made the manufacturing of goods faster and cheaper, etc.

The technology industry is so wide and vibrant and there is still room large enough for those who are interested in the industry to come in and create their own impact. One thing is certain, the world will always celebrate any inventor who is able to invent machines or devices that can ease the process of doing things.

8. Our Target Market

We are aware that the nature of our business is geared to words serving B2B clients, hence Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will initially serve small to medium sized business, from new ventures to well established businesses and individual clients, but that does not in any way stop us from growing to compete with the leading IT tech startup companies that offer software as a services (SaaS) in the United States.

As a standard and licensed IT tech startup company that offers software as a service (SaaS), Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will develop software apps for the following clients;

Financial services providers
Insurance companies
Businesses in the health sector
Supply chain businesses
Other related businesses that may need software as a services (SaaS) technology

Our competitive advantage

The level of competition in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry does not in any way depend on the location of the business since most companies that offer software as a service (SaaS), can operate from any part of the world and still effectively compete in the industry.

We are quite aware that to be highly competitive in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry means that we should be able to develop software apps that will help simplify business and operation process for clients.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. might be a new entrant into the industry in the United States of America, but the management staff are considered gurus. They are highly qualified software programmers and developers in the United States. These are part of what will count as a competitive advantage for us.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category in the industry meaning that they will be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our aims and objectives.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

We are mindful of the fact that there is fast – growing competition amongst IT tech startup companies and other players in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in the United States of America and around the globe; hence we have been able to hire some of the best business developer cum digital marketers to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited base on their vast experience in the industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of the organization. We will also ensure that our excellent job deliveries speak for us in the market place; we want to build a standard IT tech startup company that offer software as a services (SaaS), that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to all the companies, institutions and organizations within and outside the United States
Promptness in bidding for software as a service (SaaS) contracts from companies, and organizations within and outside the United States
Advertise our business in relevant programming magazines, radio and TV stations
List our business on local directories/yellow pages
Attend international software as a services (SaaS) developers related, seminars, and business fairs et al
Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets
Leverage on the internet to promote our business
Join related associations around us with the main aim of networking and marketing our services; we are likely going to get referrals from such networks.

Sources of Income

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry and we are going to ensure that we do all it takes to attract clients on a regular basis.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will generate income by offering the following services and products

10. Sales Forecast

We are well positioned to take on the available market in Overland Park – Kansas and in the cyberspace and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first six months of operation and grow the business and our clientele base beyond Overland Park to other cities in the United States of America and in the cyberspace.

We have been able to examine the business analytics and enterprise software publishing market, we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. Below are the sales projections for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc., it is based on the location of our business and the services we will be offering;

First Fiscal Year (FY1): $300,000
Second Fiscal Year (FY2): $550,000
Third Fiscal Year (FY3): $1.5 million

N.B : This projection was done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and internet shutdown within the period stated above. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We have been able to work with our brand and publicity consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market. We are set to take the software as a services (SaaS) industry by storm which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our IT tech startup company.

Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.;

Place adverts on both print (community – based newspapers and magazines) and electronic media platforms
Sponsor relevant community – based events/programs
Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our brand
Install our billboards in strategic locations all around Overland Park
Ensure that all our workers wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our company’s logo et al.

12. Our Pricing Strategy

At Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. we will keep our product and service fees a little bit below the average market rate by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to startups, nonprofits, cooperatives, and small social enterprises who want to develop software apps for their business.

Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will make available to her clients;

Payment via bank transfer
Payment with cash
Payment via online bank transfer
Payment via mobile money
Payment via Point of Sales Machines (POS Machines)
Payment via check

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment without any stress on their part.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

These are the areas we are looking towards spending our startup capital on;

The total fee for incorporating the Business in the United States of America – $750.
Legal expenses for obtaining licenses and permits as well as the accounting services P.O.S machines – $3,300.
The total cost for payment of insurance policy covers (general liability, workers’ compensation and property casualty) coverage at a total premium – $9,400.
The amount needed to acquire a suitable Office facility in a business district for 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) – $40,000.
Marketing expenses for the grand opening of Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. in the amount of $3,500 and as well as flyer printing (2,000 flyers at $0.04 per copy) for the total amount of $3,580.
The total cost for hiring Business Consultant – $2,500
The cost for equipping the office (computers, software apps and hardware such as Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines, internet server, printers, fax machines, furniture, telephones, filing cabins, safety gadgets and electronics et al) – $25,000
The cost of launching our official website – $800
Budget for paying at least two employees for 3 months and utility bills – $75,000
Additional expenditure (Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions et al) – $2,500
Miscellaneous – $10,000

Going by the report from the research and feasibility studies, we will need about Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand US Dollars ($250,000) to set up a small scale but standard IT tech startup company in the United States of America.

Generating Funds/Startup Capital for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is owned and managed by Joel Rogers. He may likely welcome partners later which is why he has decided to restrict the sourcing of the startup capital for the business to just three major sources.

Generate part of the startup capital from personal savings
Source for soft loans from family members and friends
Apply for loan from the bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $50,000 (Personal savings $40,000 and soft loan from family members $10,000) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $200,000 from our bank. All the papers and documents have been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

The future of a business lies in the number of loyal customers that they have, the capacity and competence of their employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business (company), then it won’t be too long before the business closes shop.

One of our major goals of starting Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running. We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to offer our software as a services (SaaS) a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and we are prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will make sure that the right foundation, structures and processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and retraining of our workforce is at the top burner of our business strategy.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of three years or more as determined by the board of the organization. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List/Milestone

Business Name Availability Check : Completed
Business Incorporation: Completed
Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts: Completed
Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
Application for business license and permit: Completed
Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
Leasing a standard and well positioned office facility in the heart of Overland Park – Kansas: Completed
Generating part of the start up capital from the founder: Completed
Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
Writing of Business Plan: Completed
Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
Printing of Promotional Materials: Completed
Recruitment of employees: In Progress
Purchase of the needed software applications, internet server, furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
Establishing business relationship with vendors and key players in the industry: In Progress.

IT Company Business Plan: Everything You Need to Know

An IT company business plan is a detailed plan for running and developing an information technology company. 3 min read updated on September 19, 2022

An IT company business plan is a detailed plan for running and developing an information technology company. It should describe all aspects of the business, including the company's description, product description, marketing strategy, and financial analysis, in a clear and precise manner.

Tips for Writing a Great Business Plan

A business plan should set out a clear roadmap for developing and expanding your business. Keep the following points in mind while writing a business plan:

Test your idea. Avoid the temptation of jumping into a business merely on the basis of the success stories of others. Discuss your idea with prospective customers, vendors, and other people in the industry.
Study the market to get an idea of industry trends, underlying challenges, and scope of future growth.
Share your business plan with your employees. It is not something to be kept confidential.
Write it in a clear and concise manner. Be specific, and cover all areas of the business.
Put the plan to use; simply filing it away will not serve any purpose. Refer to it whenever possible.
Revisit and revise your plan as your business grows.

Sections of a Business Plan

A typical business plan includes the following sections:

Executive summary.
Description of the company.
Market research.
Product or service description.
Management structure.
Sales and marketing strategy.
Financial Analysis.

Benefits of Writing a Business Plan

Writing down your business plan offers the following benefits, among others:

You get to understand your business better.
It increases the chances of your business's success.
It makes it easier to raise capital for a startup.
Businesses with a written plan grow at a higher rate than those without any written plan.

Steps to Writing a Startup Business Plan

1. Have a Clear Objective

Make sure that the company description is not ambiguous. The company description can also include your business's mission statement.
State the reason for choosing that specific business. For example, you might be prompted to open a restaurant because no other restaurants in your area serve the cuisine your restaurant specializes in.
Discuss the vision and growth prospects of your business in brief.

The summary should be concise and should not exceed four paragraphs.

2. Identify Your Target Market

Narrow down your target market based on geography, demography, psychology, and behavior. Your final target market may look like the following:

Ages 20 to 35
Living in the New York area
With an annual income of $50,000-$60,000
Who are interested in recycling and sustainable living

3. Analyze the Competition

Perform a competition analysis and differentiate your product accordingly. Price and quality can be two important differentiating factors. You should analyze the competition while simultaneously identifying your target market since both these steps are a part of the market research section of your business plan.

4. Prepare a Budget

Estimate the amount of funds you will need to start and operate the business. Many startups fail due to lack of funds. Preparing a budget beforehand will reduce this risk. When calculating your budget, consider all possible expenses, including the following:

Cost of equipment.
Money required for buying or leasing property.
Legal fees.
Employees' salaries.
Insurance premiums.
Inventory cost.

5. Make Financial Projections

Prepare financial projections based on the size of your target market and your expected market share. Include the expansion strategy in your projections. Keep your projections reasonable and make sure you cover three to five years of operations.

6. Define Your Business Structure

Define the organizational structure of your business. Having a clear hierarchy of power removes unnecessary doubt and debates over jobs and reporting positions. However, avoid adding too many layers in your business structure since that may create confusion and make the communication inefficient.

7. Prepare a Marketing Plan

A well-balanced marketing plan should include a strategy for customer acquisition in line with your target market, budget, and financial projections.

Some of the basic ideas for a marketing plan include the following:

Launching a website.
Being active on social media.
Building a subscribers' list.
Setting up loyalty programs.

8. Keep It Short and Simple

Although your business plan should be detailed and thorough, make it a point to keep it short and simple. Write it professionally and avoid using jargon. Proofread the plan for grammar, readability, and confusion.

If you need help with IT company business plan, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.

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Creating a Business Plan
Sample of a Good Business Plan
Service Business Plan
Business Plan for Existing Company
Business Plan for New Company
Do I Need a Business Plan
Parts of Business Plan and Definition
LLC Business Plan Template
Business Plan Contents Page
Business Description Outline

18 of My Favorite Sample Business Plans & Examples For Your Inspiration

Published: July 01, 2024

I believe that reading sample business plans is essential when writing your own.

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As you explore business plan examples from real companies and brands, it’s easier for you to learn how to write a good one.

So what does a good business plan look like? And how do you write one that’s both viable and convincing? I’ll walk you through the ideal business plan format along with some examples to help you get started.

Table of Contents

Business Plan Types

Business plan format, sample business plan: section by section, sample business plan templates, top business plan examples.

Ultimately, the format of your business plan will vary based on your goals for that plan. I’ve added this quick review of different business plan types that achieve differing goals.

For a more detailed exploration of business plan types, you can check out this post .

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1. Startups

Startup business plans are for proposing new business ideas. If you’re planning to start a small business, preparing a business plan is crucial. The plan should include all the major factors of your business.

You can check out this guide for more detailed business plan inspiration .

2. Feasibility Studies

Feasibility business plans focus on that business's product or service. Feasibility plans are sometimes added to startup business plans. They can also be a new business plan for an already thriving organization.

3. Internal Use

You can use internal business plans to share goals, strategies, or performance updates with stakeholders. In my opinion, internal business plans are useful for alignment and building support for ambitious goals.

4. Strategic Initiatives

A strategic business plan is another business plan that's often shared internally. This plan covers long-term business objectives that might not have been included in the startup business plan.

5. Business Acquisition or Repositioning

When a business is moving forward with an acquisition or repositioning, it may need extra structure and support. These types of business plans expand on a company's acquisition or repositioning strategy.

Growth sometimes just happens as a business continues operations. But more often, a business needs to create a structure with specific targets to meet set goals for expansion. This business plan type can help a business focus on short-term growth goals and align resources with those goals.

I’m going to focus on a startup business plan that needs to be detailed and research-backed as well as compelling enough to convince investors to offer funding. In my experience, the most comprehensive and convincing business plans contain the following sections.

Executive Summary

This all-important introduction to your business plan sets the tone and includes the company description as well as what you will be exchanging for money — whether that’s product lines, services, or product-service hybrids.

Market Opportunity

Information about gaps in your industry’s market and how you plan to fill them, focused on demand and potential for growth.

Competitive Landscape Analysis

An overview of your competitors that includes consideration of their strengths and how you’ll manage them, their weaknesses and how you’ll capitalize on them, and how you can differentiate your offerings in the industry.

Target Audience

Descriptions of your ideal customers, their various problems that you can solve, and your customer acquisition strategy.

Marketing Strategy

This section details how you will market your brand to achieve specific goals, the channels and tactics you’ll utilize to reach those goals, and the metrics you’ll be using to measure your progress.

Key Features and Benefits

This is where you’ll use plain language to emphasize the value of your product/service, how it solves the problems of your target audiences, and how you’ll scale up over time.

Pricing and Revenue

This section describes your pricing strategy and plans for building revenue streams that fit your audiences while achieving your business goals.

This is the final section, communicating with investors that your business idea is worth investing in via profit/loss statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets to prove viability.

Okay, so now that we have a format established, I’ll give you more specific details about each section along with examples. Truthfully, I wish I’d had this resource to help me flesh out those first business plans long ago.

1. Executive Summary

I’d say the executive summary is the most important section of the entire business plan. It is essentially an overview of and introduction to your entire project.

Write this in such a way that it grabs your readers' attention and guides them through the rest of the business plan. This is important because a business plan can be dozens or hundreds of pages long.

There are two main elements I’d recommend including in your executive summary: your company description and your products and services.

Company Description

This is the perfect space to highlight your company’s mission statement and goals, a brief overview of your history and leadership, and your top accomplishments as a business.

Tell potential investors who you are and why what you do matters. Naturally, they’re going to want to know who they’re getting into business with up front. This is a great opportunity to showcase your impact.

Need some extra help firming up your business goals? I’d recommend HubSpot Academy’s free course to help you set meaningful goals that matter most for your business.

Products and Services

Here, you will incorporate an overview of your offerings. This doesn’t have to be extensive, as it is just a chance to introduce your industry and overall purpose as a business. I recommend including snippets of information about your financial projections and competitive advantage here as well.

Keep in mind that you'll cover many of these topics in more detail later on in the business plan. The executive summary should be clear and brief, only including the most important takeaways.

Executive Summary Business Plan Examples

This example was created with HubSpot’s business plan template . What makes this executive summary good is that it tells potential investors a short story while still covering all of the most important details.

Our Mission

Maria’s Gluten Free Bagels offers gluten-free bagels, along with various toppings, other gluten-free breakfast sandwich items, and coffee. The facility is entirely gluten free. Our team expects to catch the interest of gluten-free, celiac, or health-conscious community members who are seeking an enjoyable cafe to socialize. Due to a lack of gluten-free bagel products in the food industry currently, we expect mild competition and are confident we will be able to build a strong market position.

The Company and Management

Maria’s Gluten Free Bagels was founded in 2010 by Maria Jones, who first began selling her gluten-free bagels online from her home, using social media to spread the word. In 2012 she bought a retail location in Hamilton, MA, which now employs four full-time employees and six part-time employees. Prior to her bagel shop, Maria was a chef in New York and has extensive experience in the food industry.

Along with Maria Jones, Gluten Free Bagel Shop has a board of advisors. The advisors are:

Jeni King, partner at Winding Communications, Ltd.
Henry Wilson, president of Blue Robin, LLP.

Our Product

We offer gluten-free products ranging from bagels and cream cheese to blueberry muffins, coffee, and pastries. Our customers are health-conscious, community-oriented people who enjoy gluten-free products. We will create a welcoming, warm environment with opportunities for open mic nights, poetry readings, and other community functions. We will focus on creating an environment in which someone feels comfortable meeting a friend for lunch, or working remotely.

Our Competitive Advantages

While there are other coffee shops and cafes in the North Shore region, there are none that offer purely gluten-free options. This restricts those suffering from gluten-free illnesses or simply those with a gluten-free preference. This will be our primary selling point. Additionally, our market research [see Section 3] has shown a demand for a community-oriented coffee and bagel shop in the town of Hamilton, MA.

Financial Considerations

Our sales projections for the first year are $400,000. We project a 15% growth rate over the next two years. By year three, we project 61% gross margins.

We will have four full-time employees. The salary for each employee will be $50,000.

Start-up Financing Requirements

We are seeking to raise $125,000 in startup to finance year one. The owner has invested $50,000 to meet working capital requirements, and will use a loan of $100,000 to supplement the rest.

Example 2 :

Marianne and Keith Bean have been involved with the food industry for several years. They opened their first restaurant in Antlers, Oklahoma in 1981, and their second in Hugo in 1988. Although praised for the quality of many of the items on their menu, they have attained a special notoriety for their desserts. After years of requests for their flavored whipped cream toppings, they have decided to pursue marketing these products separately from the restaurants.

Marianne and Keith Bean have developed several recipes for flavored whipped cream topping. They include chocolate, raspberry, cinnamon almond, and strawberry. These flavored dessert toppings have been used in the setting of their two restaurants over the past 18 years, and have been produced in large quantities. The estimated shelf life of the product is 21 days at refrigeration temperatures and up to six months when frozen. The Beans intend to market this product in its frozen state in 8 and 12-ounce plastic tubs. They also intend to have the products available in six ounce pressurized cans. Special attention has been given to developing an attractive label that will stress the gourmet/specialty nature of the products.

Distribution of Fancy's Foods Whipped Dream product will begin in the local southeastern Oklahoma area. The Beans have an established name and reputation in this area, and product introduction should encounter little resistance.

Financial analyses show that the company will have both a positive cash flow and profit in the first year. The expected return on equity in the first year is 10.88%

Tips for Writing Your Executive Summary

Start with a strong introduction of your company that showcases your mission and impact, then outline the products and services you provide.
Clearly define a problem, explain how your product solves that problem, and show why the market needs your business.
Be sure to highlight your value proposition, market opportunity, and growth potential.
Keep it concise and support ideas with data.
Customize your summary to your audience. For example, you might emphasize finances and return on investment for venture capitalists, whereas you might emphasize community benefits and minimal environmental impact for progressive nonprofits.

For more guidance, check out our tips for writing an effective executive summary .

2. Market Opportunity

This is where you'll detail the opportunity in the market. Ask and answer: Where is the gap in the current industry, and how will my product fill that gap?

To get a thorough understanding of the market opportunity, you'll want to conduct a TAM, SAM, SOM analysis , a SWOT analysis , and perform market research on your industry to get some insights for this section. More specifically, here’s what I’d include.

The size of the market
Current or potential market share
Trends in the industry and consumer behavior
Where the gap is
What caused the gap
How you intend to fill it

Market Opportunity Business Plan Example

I like this example because it uses critical data to underline the size of the potential market and what part of that market this service hopes to capture.

Example: The market for Doggie Pause is all of the dog owners in the metropolitan area and surrounding areas of the city. We believe that this is going to be 2/3 of the population, and we have a goal of gaining a 50% market share. We have a target of a 20% yearly profit increase as the business continues.

Tips for Writing Your Market Opportunity Section

Focus on demand and potential for growth.
Use market research, surveys, and industry trend data to support your market forecast and projections.
Add a review of regulation shifts, tech advances, and consumer behavior changes.
Refer to reliable sources.
Showcase how your business can make the most of this opportunity.

3. Competitive Landscape Analysis

Since we’re already speaking of market share, you‘ll also need to create a section that shares details on who the top competitors are. After all, your customers likely have more than one brand to choose from, and you’ll want to understand exactly why they might choose one over another.

My favorite part of performing a competitive analysis is that it can help you uncover the following:

Industry trends that other brands may not be utilizing.
Strengths in your competition that may be obstacles to handle.
Weaknesses in your competition that may help you develop selling points.
The unique proposition you bring to the market that may resonate with customers.

Competitive Landscape Business Plan Example

I like how the competitive landscape section of this business plan shows a clear outline of who the top competitors are. It also highlights specific industry knowledge and the importance of location. This demonstrates useful experience in the industry, helping to build trust in your ability to execute your business plan.

Competitive Environment

Currently, there are four primary competitors in the Greater Omaha Area: Pinot’s Palette Lakeside (franchise partner), Village Canvas and Cabernet, The Corky Canvas, and Twisted Vine Collective. The first three competitors are in Omaha and the fourth is located in Papillion.

Despite the competition, all locations have both public and private events. Each location has a few sold-out painting events each month. The Omaha locations are in new, popular retail locations, while the existing Papillion location is in a downtown business district.

There is an opportunity to take advantage of the environment and open a studio in a well-traveled or growing area. Pinot’s Palette La Vista will differentiate itself from its competitors by offering a premium experience in a high-growth, influential location.

Tips for Writing Your Competitive Landscape

Complete in-depth research, then emphasize your most important findings.
Compare your unique selling proposition (USP) to your direct and indirect competitors.
Show a clear and realistic plan for product and brand differentiation.
Look for specific advantages and barriers in the competitive landscape. Then, highlight how that information could impact your business.
Outline growth opportunities from a competitive perspective.
Add customer feedback and insights to support your competitive analysis.

4. Target Audience

Use this section to describe who your customer segments are in detail. What is the demographic and psychographic information of your audience? I’d recommend building a buyer persona to get in the mindset of your ideal customers and be clear about why you're targeting them. Here are some questions I’d ask myself:

What demographics will most likely need/buy your product or service?
What are the psychographics of this audience? (Desires, triggering events, etc.)
Why are your offerings valuable to them?

Target Audience Business Plan Example

I like the example below because it uses in-depth research to draw conclusions about audience priorities. It also analyzes how to create the right content for this audience.

The Audience

Recognize that audiences are often already aware of important issues. Outreach materials should:

Emphasize a pollution-prevention practice
Tell audience a little about how to prevent pollution
Tell audience where they can obtain information about prevention.

Message Content

Focus the content for outreach materials on cost savings, such as when and where pollution prevention is as cheap as or cheaper than traditional techniques. Include facts and figures.
Emphasize how easy it is to do the right thing and the impacts of not engaging in pollution prevention.
Stress benefits such as efficiency or better relations with government, for businesses not primarily concerned with public image.

Tips for Writing Your Target Audience Section

Include details on the size and growth potential of your target audience.
Figure out and refine the pain points for your target audience , then show why your product is a useful solution.
Describe your targeted customer acquisition strategy in detail.
Share anticipated challenges your business may face in acquiring customers and how you plan to address them.
Add case studies, testimonials, and other data to support your target audience ideas.
Remember to consider niche audiences and segments of your target audience in your business plan.

5. Marketing Strategy

Here, you‘ll discuss how you’ll acquire new customers with your marketing strategy. I think it’s helpful to have a marketing plan built out in advance to make this part of your business plan easier. I’d suggest including these details:

Your brand positioning vision and how you'll cultivate it.
The goal targets you aim to achieve.
The metrics you'll use to measure success.
The channels and distribution tactics you'll use.

Marketing Strategy Business Plan Example

This business plan example includes the marketing strategy for the town of Gawler. In my opinion, it works because it offers a comprehensive picture of how they plan to use digital marketing to promote the community.

You’ll also learn the financial benefits investors can reap from putting money into your venture rather than trying to sell them on how great your product or service is.

This business plan guide focuses less on the individual parts of a business plan, and more on the overarching goal of writing one. For that reason, it’s one of my favorites to supplement any template you choose to use. Harvard Business Review’s guide is instrumental for both new and seasoned business owners.

7. HubSpot’s Complete Guide to Starting a Business

Screenshot of business startup kit download page from hubspot

23 of My Favorite Free Marketing Newsletters

The 8 Best Free Flowchart Templates [+ Examples]

What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates

7 Gantt Chart Examples You'll Want to Copy [+ 5 Steps to Make One]

How to Write an Executive Summary Execs Can't Ignore [+ 5 Top Examples]

20 Free & Paid Small Business Tools for Any Budget

Maximizing Your Social Media Strategy: The Top Aggregator Tools to Use

The Content Aggregator Guide for 2024

16 Best Screen Recorders to Use for Collaboration

The 25 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO

2 Essential Templates For Starting Your Business

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

400+ Business Plan Examples to Launch Your Business

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Didn't find what you are looking for.

Writing a business plan from scratch seems like an uphill climb? We get that, but hold tight—you’re not alone. Even business plan writers often feel the same way while writing from scratch. That’s where a little content reference or inspiration can help—just like these business plan examples .

Reading such real-life sample business plans can be incredibly helpful while drafting your very first business plan with zero clue about business plan writing.

As you read and explore these industry-specific examples, you learn more about what you should and should not include in your business plan, ensuring sustainable and long-term growth.

So, let’s explore these 400+ business plan examples to help you quickly write a business plan—hassle-free.

Why you should refer a business plan example?

A Business plan example will provide you with the complete format and structure for your document, giving you a head start on developing your document so you’re not stuck seeing an empty page working to find out where to start.

Also, it gives you the overall layout of a professional business plan so you understand what goes where and you’re not leaving out anything.

Here are some of the key benefits of using sample business plans:

Guidance on what to include in each section. If you’ve never attended business school, you might never have created a SWOT analysis or a balance sheet before. Business templates that give guidance — in plain language — about what to include and how to fill in each section and create a complete and effective plan.
A business plan is vital to get an investment. If you’re seeking investment for your business, you’ll need to convince banks and investors why they should invest in your business. Lenders and investors will only risk their time and money if they’re certain that your business will be successful and profitable and they will get a great return on their investment.
A business plan can help you prioritize. A complete, well-balanced business plan is one of the most valuable tools in assisting you to reach your long-term goals. It gives your business direction, defines your goals, outlines out strategies to reach your goals, and helps you to manage possible bumps in the way.

Creating a business plan will help you define the business goals you want to achieve, and define the strategies to achieve them. This means you can focus your resources and energy on what is important, rather than wasting time on unimportant things.

If you’re working with a team in your company then having a regular brainstorming session is the best way to keep your business on track and your business plan assures you’re all on the same page.

Make your plan in half the time & twice the impact with Upmetrics.

Sample business plan format

Following is the standard business plan format you must consider while drafting a comprehensive business plan.

Executive Summary : A high-level overview of your business plan.
Company Overview : An in-depth and detailed description of your small business, its fundamental elements, and future goals.
Market Analysis : A detailed description of your industry with the target market, competitors, and growth potential.
Products and Services : Description of the products or services you intend to exchange for money.
Sales and Marketing Strategies : Promotional strategies you will use to attract and retain customers.
Operations Plan : Business processes and procedures that ensure seamless business operations.
Management Team : Introduction to your founders, key management, and their compensation plan.
Financial Plan : A breakdown of your financial projections and financing needs.
Appendix : A supplementary final section that includes additional documents to support your plan.

This was about the outline. Now let’s break down and understand how to write each section, step by step, with real-life examples.

1. Executive Summary

Executive Summary is the first section of your business plan, providing a high-level overview of your entire plan and summarizing it for a quick understanding of your business.

Considering it as an introductory section of your plan, it must be clear, concise, and written to grab readers’ attention and persuade them to take action.

As business plans can be 10-20 to a hundred-page long, an executive summary remains your sole chance to gain a quick extra point.

Here are a few key components your Executive Summary must include:

Business concept
Company’s mission
Company History
Market Opportunity
Management Team
Financial Projections

Remember, you are bound to cover these topics in detail moving forward in your business plan, so make sure your executive summary is brief, covering only the key takeaways.

2. Company Overview

As the name suggests, the Company Overview section of your plan provides an overview of your small business, including your business concept, objectives, future goals, and what customers your business serves.

Since you will provide a brief company description in the executive summary, this section will expand on it—providing an in-depth understanding of your business.

Remember, this section is a platform for introducing and positioning your business as an ideal solution for your target market to your reader. So, make sure it’s short and succinct but impactful enough to help them understand what it does, who your potential customers are, and how you can make a difference.

Here are a few key components your business overview must include:

Company Description
Mission Statement
Business Objectives
Business History
Future Goals

3. Market Analysis

Market Analysis is a study of your external business environment, providing a complete overview of your industry and its dynamics. This section provides valuable insights into the market, like what’s working.

When smartly researched, utilized, and written, this section can help you discover and identify untapped areas in the market and strategize to stand out from your competitors.

Remember, this section helps your readers and potential investors understand your target market, market size, and growth potential, so make sure you play your cards right.

Here are a few key components your market analysis section must include:

Target Market
Market Size and Growth Potential
Competitive Analysis
Market or Industry Trends
Regulatory Environment

Unlike other sections of your business plan , Market Analysis requires deep research and analytical work. However, using an industry-specific example business plan can save hours of research work.

4. Products And Services

The products and services section is where you will mention and elaborate on your product or service range, description, pricing strategies, and more.

Since your business success solely depends on your products or services, your entire plan revolves around this particular section.

This section can be a crucial component of your plan while searching for an investor or partner, as a well-articulated products and services section can help you persuade them.

Here are a few key elements your products and services section must include:

Product Description
Product Comparison
Pricing Strategy
Order Management
Quality Measures

5. Sales And Marketing Strategies

A business’s sales and marketing strategies determine how your product is displayed and reaches your target audience.

A well-designed sales and marketing plan can help you streamline your marketing efforts and create impactful and effective marketing campaigns while keeping track of the marketing budget and maximizing return on investment.

In short, this section will discuss how you’ll acquire new customers using your sales and marketing strategy. You might consider including the following information in your sales and marketing plan:

Your target audience and brand positioning
Your business’ UVP
Marketing channels and distribution tactics you plan to use
Sales goals and performance measurement
Your customer retention strategies
Your sales and marketing goals

6. Operations Plan

The operations plan section outlines the daily business processes and activities centered on achieving business goals and objectives described in the previous sections of your plan.

A detail-oriented logistics and operations plan helps you and your team define your responsibilities, daily tasks, and short-term goals you need to achieve, keeping track of your long-term objective.

Remember, your logistics and operations plan won’t be static but a living document. You may adjust and update it as time goes on.

Here are a few key elements your operations plan section must include:

Staffing and training
Tools and equipment
Inventory management
Supply chain management
Operational process

7. Management Team

Your management team plays a crucial role in the ultimate success of your business. And this section introduces your owners and management team, along with their qualifications, industry experience, roles and responsibilities, and compensation plan.

A strong management team section can be critical to weigh authority and help investors be confident about your business idea and vision.

Make sure to include the educational background, accomplishments, work experience, and area of expertise for each individual, part of your management.

You might consider including the following information in the management team section:

Business owner/founders
Key management
Organization structure
Compensation plan
Advisors/consultants

8. Financial Plan

It’s no secret that the financial plan is the most crucial yet nerve-wracking aspect of business planning. In fact, it’s one of the deciding factors when it comes to convincing potential investors and banks to invest or lend money.

This section of your plan details your business’s financial information and how it will reach its financial goals. The information may include balance sheet, income, and cash flow statements.

Here are a few key components and financial statements you must include or provide while creating a financial plan:

Profit and loss statements
Operating costs
Income statement
Cash flow statement
Balance sheet
Break-even point
Financing needs

9. Appendix

While an Appendix isn’t a required element of your business plan, it can be pretty helpful in adding legal notes, charts, tables, or any other critical information to support your business document.

It generally includes financial statements, information, and documents that didn’t naturally fit into your plan but can be considered critical enough to add.

In addition, it helps readers navigate through the entire business plan and easily find specific information or documents.

Need a way out from manual editing and business plan writing work?

Get Upmetrics’ business plan template, import data directly into the editor, and start editing using Upmetrics AI Assistant.

Start Planning Now

Since we are finished discussing the sections of a business, let’s learn more about how you can put an example business plan to use while writing your own.

How to use an Example of a Business Plan to write your own?

Having real-life and industry-specific business plan examples by your side can be incredibly resourceful to help you write a business plan from scratch.

A well-planned structure helps you outline your plan, while content inspiration helps you set the tone for your business document.

Let’s dive deep and understand how to use these examples effectively to write your business plan.

1. Understanding the Structure

Traditional business plans generally follow a similar structure.

It starts with an executive summary followed by a company description, market analysis, product and services, sales and marketing strategies, operational plan, management team, financial plan, and appendix.

Using an example business plan is the best way to understand the structure and outline your plan.

2. Gaining Inspiration

Reading industry-specific business plan examples can help you gain inspiration for your plan. You can gain insights on presenting your business idea, vision, mission, and values and persuade investors to invest in your idea.

3. Learning Industry-Specific Language

There’s no universal template for business planning that fits all. An industry-specific template can help you learn and understand the business language for your industry and the best way to communicate your message to your investors.

4. Identifying Key Elements

Reading business plan examples of similar businesses can help you identify the key elements and information to include in your plan. You can keep note of these and ensure everything necessary for investors to consider is present in your final draft.

5. Crafting Financial Projections

A financial plan is a critical component of your business plan, and a good business plan example can help you better understand how they project their financials which can be incredibly helpful while forecasting yours.

6. Refining Your Executive Summary

As mentioned earlier, your executive summary is a key factor influencing potential investors and lenders to invest or lend you money. Analyzing free business plan templates can help you optimize your executive summary to make it more brief, persuasive, and attention-grabbing.

7. Realizing what works and what doesn’t

Analyzing industry-specific and real-life examples can help you determine what works best and what doesn’t within your industry. Understanding these factors can help you avoid many significant pitfalls.

While business plan examples can be incredibly helpful in writing a plan from scratch, ensure your plan is customized for your business and sends out a unique message. Your business plan must reflect its unique idea, vision, and target market.

Download business plan examples for:

Business Plan Template for Startups
Business Plan Template for Small Business
Business Plan Example for Non Profits
Business Plan Example for Students

Download a free sample business plan template

Ready to kick-start your business plan writing process? Not sure where to start? Here you go, download our free sample business plan, import data directly into the editor, and start planning.

This intuitive, modern, and investment-ready template is designed specifically for startups and small businesses. In fact, this format has helped 110K+ entrepreneurs create business plans to secure funding, business grants, and loans. It includes a business planning course and step-by-step instructions to write each section.

Business plan types: choose the suitable template

Well, there are a few types of business plans. Though they cover similar categories, they all have different formats intended for different purposes or industries.

Here are a few common business plan types to help you choose the most suitable one for your business:

1. One-page business plan

One page business plan can be considered a one-page version of a standard business plan. It’s mainly used to present a quick overview of small businesses to your vendors, employees, investors, or stakeholders.

Considering its shorter length, creating a one page business plan can be a lot easier and less time-consuming compared to a standard business plan using a business plan software like Upmetrics.

2. Lean business plan

A lean business plan is a summarized version of a standard business plan that is longer than a one-page one. It’s mainly used to track finances and emphasize achieving short-term milestones.

This business plan type is best suitable if you are unsure about the business planning process. Moreover, drafting a lean business plan is also a lot easier and faster than a standard one.

3. Traditional business plan

A traditional business plan is the standard plan entrepreneurs have been using for years to outline marketing strategies, project financials, and draw investors. A traditional business plan can be a few dozen to a hundred-page long, depending on its purpose and your business specifications.

A traditional plan is a must-have business document for business owners aiming to achieve long-term business success.

4. Internal business plan

As the name suggests, an internal business plan is a document designed for internal management and team members to ensure everyone’s on the same page. The primary focus of these plans is to set primary goals and outline processes aiming to achieve them—ultimately streamlining business operations.

Start writing your business plan

There’s no denying—creating a business plan that draws investors in needs some serious work; it’s no stroll in the park. But you must take the first step to stay ahead in the cut-throat competition; there is no way around it.

So, what are you waiting for? Understand your business and the value it offers to its customers, find a suitable template from our library, and start planning.

Simplifying Business Planning through AI-Powered Insights.

Founder, CEO & Lead Scientist at Nanolyse Technologies

After trying Upmetrics, I wish to highly recommend this app to anyone who needs to write a business plan flexibly and to a high standard.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i write my own business plan.

Follow this step-by-step process to write your business plan on your own.

Choose a format that best suits your business requirements
Create a business plan outline
Create a company description section
Conduct market research
Conduct a competitive analysis
Describe your product and services
Outline sales and marketing strategies
Create a logistics and operations plan
Introduce management team
Project financials
Summarize your plan with an executive summary
Complete your plan with an appendix

Where can I find business plan examples?

Upmetrics is an incredible business planning solution providing 400+ business plan samples and examples. You can easily create a good business plan using these industry-specific templates.

What is a business plan template?

A business plan template is a pre-formatted business plan, usually written for a fictional company. These industry-specific templates can help entrepreneurs understand a business plan’s structure and other key components. These templates are used mainly by entrepreneurs planning to launch a new startup or expand an existing business.

Should I hire someone to write my business plan for me?

Concept, contents, and cashflow are the 3Cs of a business plan that can be defined as follows:

Concept: Your concept should explain the purpose of your business, summarizing what you plan to accomplish with this very business.
Contents: Your content should reflect your concept, product and services, target market, and competition.
Cashflow: Your cash flow section must detail your cash in-and-out flows, including capital investment, operations costs, and revenue projections.

Why Is It Beneficial to Use a Sample Business Plan as a Guide?

Let’s face it—writing a 40-50 page business plan from scratch can be too intimidating; you may soon give up and won’t even finish it.

Instead, using a sample business plan as a guide can help you understand its structure, gain inspiration and ideas for content, plan marketing strategies, and project financials. In short, using business template examples is the best way to write a business plan.

When should you not follow a business plan example?

We’ve always been saying this, using an example of a business plan is the best way to write one. However, it’s also critical to understand when not to follow a template. Here’s when:

The format does not align with your business model or industry.
Include outdated templates and information.
Offer poorly written content.
Include misleading and poorly done financials.
There’s a lack of expertise.

These are a few red flags in a template you must consider looking at while choosing one.

Are these examples suited for business plan beginners?

Absolutely. In fact, these examples are specially designed, keeping common issues faced by beginners while drafting a plan in mind to serve them best. So, if you are a new or an established business with no planning experience, you have to check out these templates.

Looking for a faster way to finish your business plan?

Small Business Trends

How to create a business plan: examples & free template.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or launching your very first startup, the guide will give you the insights, tools, and confidence you need to create a solid foundation for your business.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Business Plan

Executive summary.

It’s crucial to include a clear mission statement, a brief description of your primary products or services, an overview of your target market, and key financial projections or achievements.

Our target market includes environmentally conscious consumers and businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. We project a 200% increase in revenue within the first three years of operation.

Overview and Business Objectives

Example: EcoTech’s primary objective is to become a market leader in sustainable technology products within the next five years. Our key objectives include:

Company Description

Example: EcoTech is committed to developing cutting-edge sustainable technology products that benefit both the environment and our customers. Our unique combination of innovative solutions and eco-friendly design sets us apart from the competition. We envision a future where technology and sustainability go hand in hand, leading to a greener planet.

Define Your Target Market

Market analysis.

The Market Analysis section requires thorough research and a keen understanding of the industry. It involves examining the current trends within your industry, understanding the needs and preferences of your customers, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

Our research indicates a gap in the market for high-quality, innovative eco-friendly technology products that cater to both individual and business clients.

SWOT Analysis

Including a SWOT analysis demonstrates to stakeholders that you have a balanced and realistic understanding of your business in its operational context.

Competitive Analysis

Organization and management team.

Provide an overview of your company’s organizational structure, including key roles and responsibilities. Introduce your management team, highlighting their expertise and experience to demonstrate that your team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.

Products and Services Offered

This section should emphasize the value you provide to customers, demonstrating that your business has a deep understanding of customer needs and is well-positioned to deliver innovative solutions that address those needs and set your company apart from competitors.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

Discuss how these marketing and sales efforts will work together to attract and retain customers, generate leads, and ultimately contribute to achieving your business’s revenue goals.

Logistics and Operations Plan

Inventory control is another crucial aspect, where you explain strategies for inventory management to ensure efficiency and reduce wastage. The section should also describe your production processes, emphasizing scalability and adaptability to meet changing market demands.

We also prioritize efficient distribution through various channels, including online platforms and retail partners, to deliver products to our customers in a timely manner.

Financial Projections Plan

This forward-looking financial plan is crucial for demonstrating that you have a firm grasp of the financial nuances of your business and are prepared to manage its financial health effectively.

Income Statement

Cash flow statement.

A cash flow statement is a crucial part of a financial business plan that shows the inflows and outflows of cash within your business. It helps you monitor your company’s liquidity, ensuring you have enough cash on hand to cover operating expenses, pay debts, and invest in growth opportunities.

Section	Description	Example
Executive Summary	Brief overview of the business plan	Overview of EcoTech and its mission
Overview & Objectives	Outline of company's goals and strategies	Market leadership in sustainable technology
Company Description	Detailed explanation of the company and its unique selling proposition	EcoTech's history, mission, and vision
Target Market	Description of ideal customers and their needs	Environmentally conscious consumers and businesses
Market Analysis	Examination of industry trends, customer needs, and competitors	Trends in eco-friendly technology market
SWOT Analysis	Evaluation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats	Strengths and weaknesses of EcoTech
Competitive Analysis	In-depth analysis of competitors and their strategies	Analysis of GreenTech and EarthSolutions
Organization & Management	Overview of the company's structure and management team	Key roles and team members at EcoTech
Products & Services	Description of offerings and their unique features	Energy-efficient lighting solutions, solar chargers
Marketing & Sales	Outline of marketing channels and sales strategies	Digital advertising, content marketing, influencer partnerships
Logistics & Operations	Details about daily operations, supply chain, inventory, and quality control	Partnerships with manufacturers, quality control
Financial Projections	Forecast of revenue, expenses, and profit for the next 3-5 years	Projected growth in revenue and net profit
Income Statement	Summary of company's revenues and expenses over a specified period	Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, Net Income
Cash Flow Statement	Overview of cash inflows and outflows within the business	Net Cash from Operating Activities, Investing Activities, Financing Activities

Tips on Writing a Business Plan

4. Focus on your unique selling proposition (USP): Clearly articulate what sets your business apart from the competition. Emphasize your USP throughout your business plan to showcase your company’s value and potential for success.

FREE Business Plan Template

To help you get started on your business plan, we have created a template that includes all the essential components discussed in the “How to Write a Business Plan” section. This easy-to-use template will guide you through each step of the process, ensuring you don’t miss any critical details.

What is a Business Plan?

Why you should write a business plan.

Understanding the importance of a business plan in today’s competitive environment is crucial for entrepreneurs and business owners. Here are five compelling reasons to write a business plan:

What are the Different Types of Business Plans?

Type of Business Plan	Purpose	Key Components	Target Audience
Startup Business Plan	Outlines the company's mission, objectives, target market, competition, marketing strategies, and financial projections.	Mission Statement, Company Description, Market Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Organizational Structure, Marketing and Sales Strategy, Financial Projections.	Entrepreneurs, Investors
Internal Business Plan	Serves as a management tool for guiding the company's growth, evaluating its progress, and ensuring that all departments are aligned with the overall vision.	Strategies, Milestones, Deadlines, Resource Allocation.	Internal Team Members
Strategic Business Plan	Outlines long-term goals and the steps to achieve them.	SWOT Analysis, Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Long-Term Goals.	Executives, Managers, Investors
Feasibility Business Plan	Assesses the viability of a business idea.	Market Demand, Competition, Financial Projections, Potential Obstacles.	Entrepreneurs, Investors
Growth Business Plan	Focuses on strategies for scaling up an existing business.	Market Analysis, New Product/Service Offerings, Financial Projections.	Business Owners, Investors
Operational Business Plan	Outlines the company's day-to-day operations.	Processes, Procedures, Organizational Structure.	Managers, Employees
Lean Business Plan	A simplified, agile version of a traditional plan, focusing on key elements.	Value Proposition, Customer Segments, Revenue Streams, Cost Structure.	Entrepreneurs, Startups
One-Page Business Plan	A concise summary of your company's key objectives, strategies, and milestones.	Key Objectives, Strategies, Milestones.	Entrepreneurs, Investors, Partners
Nonprofit Business Plan	Outlines the mission, goals, target audience, fundraising strategies, and budget allocation for nonprofit organizations.	Mission Statement, Goals, Target Audience, Fundraising Strategies, Budget.	Nonprofit Leaders, Board Members, Donors
Franchise Business Plan	Focuses on the franchisor's requirements, as well as the franchisee's goals, strategies, and financial projections.	Franchise Agreement, Brand Standards, Marketing Efforts, Operational Procedures, Financial Projections.	Franchisors, Franchisees, Investors

Using Business Plan Software

Upmetrics provides a simple and intuitive platform for creating a well-structured business plan. It features customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, and collaboration capabilities, allowing you to work with team members and advisors. Upmetrics also offers a library of resources to guide you through the business planning process.

Software	Key Features	User Interface	Additional Features
LivePlan	Over 500 sample plans, financial forecasting tools, progress tracking against KPIs	User-friendly, visually appealing	Allows creation of professional-looking business plans
Upmetrics	Customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, collaboration capabilities	Simple and intuitive	Provides a resource library for business planning
Bizplan	Drag-and-drop builder, modular sections, financial forecasting tools, progress tracking	Simple, visually engaging	Designed to simplify the business planning process
Enloop	Industry-specific templates, financial forecasting tools, automatic business plan generation, unique performance score	Robust, user-friendly	Offers a free version, making it accessible for businesses on a budget
Tarkenton GoSmallBiz	Guided business plan builder, customizable templates, financial projection tools	User-friendly	Offers CRM tools, legal document templates, and additional resources for small businesses

Business Plan FAQs

What is a good business plan.

A good business plan is a well-researched, clear, and concise document that outlines a company’s goals, strategies, target market, competitive advantages, and financial projections. It should be adaptable to change and provide a roadmap for achieving success.

What are the 3 main purposes of a business plan?

Can i write a business plan by myself, is it possible to create a one-page business plan.

Yes, a one-page business plan is a condensed version that highlights the most essential elements, including the company’s mission, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial goals.

How long should a business plan be?

What is a business plan outline, what are the 5 most common business plan mistakes, what questions should be asked in a business plan.

A business plan should address questions such as: What problem does the business solve? Who is the specific target market ? What is the unique selling proposition? What are the company’s objectives? How will it achieve those objectives?

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

How is business planning for a nonprofit different.

Sources of Business Finance
Small Business Loans
Small Business Grants
Crowdfunding Sites
How to Get a Business Loan
Small Business Insurance Providers
Best Factoring Companies
Types of Bank Accounts
Best Banks for Small Business
Best Business Bank Accounts
Open a Business Bank Account
Bank Accounts for Small Businesses
Free Business Checking Accounts
Best Business Credit Cards
Get a Business Credit Card
Business Credit Cards for Bad Credit
Build Business Credit Fast
Business Loan Eligibility Criteria
Small-Business Bookkeeping Basics
How to Set Financial Goals
Business Loan Calculators
How to Calculate ROI
Calculate Net Income
Calculate Working Capital
Calculate Operating Income
Calculate Net Present Value (NPV)
Calculate Payroll Tax

How to Write a Business Plan in 9 Steps (+ Template and Examples)

Every successful business has one thing in common, a good and well-executed business plan. A business plan is more than a document, it is a complete guide that outlines the goals your business wants to achieve, including its financial goals . It helps you analyze results, make strategic decisions, show your business operations and growth.

If you want to start a business or already have one and need to pitch it to investors for funding, writing a good business plan improves your chances of attracting financiers. As a startup, if you want to secure loans from financial institutions, part of the requirements involve submitting your business plan.

Writing a business plan does not have to be a complicated or time-consuming process. In this article, you will learn the step-by-step process for writing a successful business plan.

You will also learn what you need a business plan for, tips and strategies for writing a convincing business plan, business plan examples and templates that will save you tons of time, and the alternatives to the traditional business plan.

Let’s get started.

What Do You Need A Business Plan For?

Businesses create business plans for different purposes such as to secure funds, monitor business growth, measure your marketing strategies, and measure your business success.

1. Secure Funds

One of the primary reasons for writing a business plan is to secure funds, either from financial institutions/agencies or investors.

For you to effectively acquire funds, your business plan must contain the key elements of your business plan . For example, your business plan should include your growth plans, goals you want to achieve, and milestones you have recorded.

A business plan can also attract new business partners that are willing to contribute financially and intellectually. If you are writing a business plan to a bank, your project must show your traction , that is, the proof that you can pay back any loan borrowed.

Also, if you are writing to an investor, your plan must contain evidence that you can effectively utilize the funds you want them to invest in your business. Here, you are using your business plan to persuade a group or an individual that your business is a source of a good investment.

2. Monitor Business Growth

A business plan can help you track cash flows in your business. It steers your business to greater heights. A business plan capable of tracking business growth should contain:

The business goals
Methods to achieve the goals
Time-frame for attaining those goals

A good business plan should guide you through every step in achieving your goals. It can also track the allocation of assets to every aspect of the business. You can tell when you are spending more than you should on a project.

You can compare a business plan to a written GPS. It helps you manage your business and hints at the right time to expand your business.

3. Measure Business Success

A business plan can help you measure your business success rate. Some small-scale businesses are thriving better than more prominent companies because of their track record of success.

Right from the onset of your business operation, set goals and work towards them. Write a plan to guide you through your procedures. Use your plan to measure how much you have achieved and how much is left to attain.

You can also weigh your success by monitoring the position of your brand relative to competitors. On the other hand, a business plan can also show you why you have not achieved a goal. It can tell if you have elapsed the time frame you set to attain a goal.

4. Document Your Marketing Strategies

You can use a business plan to document your marketing plans. Every business should have an effective marketing plan.

Competition mandates every business owner to go the extraordinary mile to remain relevant in the market. Your business plan should contain your marketing strategies that work. You can measure the success rate of your marketing plans.

In your business plan, your marketing strategy must answer the questions:

How do you want to reach your target audience?
How do you plan to retain your customers?
What is/are your pricing plans?
What is your budget for marketing?

How to Write a Business Plan Step-by-Step

1. create your executive summary.

The executive summary is a snapshot of your business or a high-level overview of your business purposes and plans . Although the executive summary is the first section in your business plan, most people write it last. The length of the executive summary is not more than two pages.

Generally, there are nine sections in a business plan, the executive summary should condense essential ideas from the other eight sections.

A good executive summary should do the following:

A Snapshot of Growth Potential. Briefly inform the reader about your company and why it will be successful)
Contain your Mission Statement which explains what the main objective or focus of your business is.
Product Description and Differentiation. Brief description of your products or services and why it is different from other solutions in the market.
The Team. Basic information about your company’s leadership team and employees
Business Concept. A solid description of what your business does.
Target Market. The customers you plan to sell to.
Marketing Strategy. Your plans on reaching and selling to your customers
Current Financial State. Brief information about what revenue your business currently generates.
Projected Financial State. Brief information about what you foresee your business revenue to be in the future.

The executive summary is the make-or-break section of your business plan. If your summary cannot in less than two pages cannot clearly describe how your business will solve a particular problem of your target audience and make a profit, your business plan is set on a faulty foundation.

Avoid using the executive summary to hype your business, instead, focus on helping the reader understand the what and how of your plan.

View the executive summary as an opportunity to introduce your vision for your company. You know your executive summary is powerful when it can answer these key questions:

Who is your target audience?
What sector or industry are you in?
What are your products and services?
What is the future of your industry?
Is your company scaleable?
Who are the owners and leaders of your company? What are their backgrounds and experience levels?
What is the motivation for starting your company?
What are the next steps?

Writing the executive summary last although it is the most important section of your business plan is an excellent idea. The reason why is because it is a high-level overview of your business plan. It is the section that determines whether potential investors and lenders will read further or not.

The executive summary can be a stand-alone document that covers everything in your business plan. It is not uncommon for investors to request only the executive summary when evaluating your business. If the information in the executive summary impresses them, they will ask for the complete business plan.

If you are writing your business plan for your planning purposes, you do not need to write the executive summary.

2. Add Your Company Overview

The company overview or description is the next section in your business plan after the executive summary. It describes what your business does.

Adding your company overview can be tricky especially when your business is still in the planning stages. Existing businesses can easily summarize their current operations but may encounter difficulties trying to explain what they plan to become.

Your company overview should contain the following:

What products and services you will provide
Geographical markets and locations your company have a presence
What you need to run your business
Who your target audience or customers are
Who will service your customers
Your company’s purpose, mission, and vision
Information about your company’s founders
Who the founders are
Notable achievements of your company so far

When creating a company overview, you have to focus on three basics: identifying your industry, identifying your customer, and explaining the problem you solve.

If you are stuck when creating your company overview, try to answer some of these questions that pertain to you.

Who are you targeting? (The answer is not everyone)
What pain point does your product or service solve for your customers that they will be willing to spend money on resolving?
How does your product or service overcome that pain point?
Where is the location of your business?
What products, equipment, and services do you need to run your business?
How is your company’s product or service different from your competition in the eyes of your customers?
How many employees do you need and what skills do you require them to have?

After answering some or all of these questions, you will get more than enough information you need to write your company overview or description section. When writing this section, describe what your company does for your customers.

The company description or overview section contains three elements: mission statement, history, and objectives.

Mission Statement

The mission statement refers to the reason why your business or company is existing. It goes beyond what you do or sell, it is about the ‘why’. A good mission statement should be emotional and inspirational.

Your mission statement should follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). For example, Shopify’s mission statement is “Make commerce better for everyone.”

When describing your company’s history, make it simple and avoid the temptation of tying it to a defensive narrative. Write it in the manner you would a profile. Your company’s history should include the following information:

Founding Date
Major Milestones
Location(s)
Flagship Products or Services
Number of Employees
Executive Leadership Roles

When you fill in this information, you use it to write one or two paragraphs about your company’s history.

Business Objectives

Your business objective must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.) Failure to clearly identify your business objectives does not inspire confidence and makes it hard for your team members to work towards a common purpose.

3. Perform Market and Competitive Analyses to Proof a Big Enough Business Opportunity

The third step in writing a business plan is the market and competitive analysis section. Every business, no matter the size, needs to perform comprehensive market and competitive analyses before it enters into a market.

Performing market and competitive analyses are critical for the success of your business. It helps you avoid entering the right market with the wrong product, or vice versa. Anyone reading your business plans, especially financiers and financial institutions will want to see proof that there is a big enough business opportunity you are targeting.

This section is where you describe the market and industry you want to operate in and show the big opportunities in the market that your business can leverage to make a profit. If you noticed any unique trends when doing your research, show them in this section.

Market analysis alone is not enough, you have to add competitive analysis to strengthen this section. There are already businesses in the industry or market, how do you plan to take a share of the market from them?

You have to clearly illustrate the competitive landscape in your business plan. Are there areas your competitors are doing well? Are there areas where they are not doing so well? Show it.

Make it clear in this section why you are moving into the industry and what weaknesses are present there that you plan to explain. How are your competitors going to react to your market entry? How do you plan to get customers? Do you plan on taking your competitors' competitors, tap into other sources for customers, or both?

Illustrate the competitive landscape as well. What are your competitors doing well and not so well?

Answering these questions and thoughts will aid your market and competitive analysis of the opportunities in your space. Depending on how sophisticated your industry is, or the expectations of your financiers, you may need to carry out a more comprehensive market and competitive analysis to prove that big business opportunity.

Instead of looking at the market and competitive analyses as one entity, separating them will make the research even more comprehensive.

Market Analysis

Market analysis, boarding speaking, refers to research a business carried out on its industry, market, and competitors. It helps businesses gain a good understanding of their target market and the outlook of their industry. Before starting a company, it is vital to carry out market research to find out if the market is viable.

The market analysis section is a key part of the business plan. It is the section where you identify who your best clients or customers are. You cannot omit this section, without it your business plan is incomplete.

A good market analysis will tell your readers how you fit into the existing market and what makes you stand out. This section requires in-depth research, it will probably be the most time-consuming part of the business plan to write.

Market Research

To create a compelling market analysis that will win over investors and financial institutions, you have to carry out thorough market research . Your market research should be targeted at your primary target market for your products or services. Here is what you want to find out about your target market.

Your target market’s needs or pain points
The existing solutions for their pain points
Geographic Location
Demographics

The purpose of carrying out a marketing analysis is to get all the information you need to show that you have a solid and thorough understanding of your target audience.

Only after you have fully understood the people you plan to sell your products or services to, can you evaluate correctly if your target market will be interested in your products or services.

You can easily convince interested parties to invest in your business if you can show them you thoroughly understand the market and show them that there is a market for your products or services.

How to Quantify Your Target Market

One of the goals of your marketing research is to understand who your ideal customers are and their purchasing power. To quantify your target market, you have to determine the following:

Your Potential Customers: They are the people you plan to target. For example, if you sell accounting software for small businesses , then anyone who runs an enterprise or large business is unlikely to be your customers. Also, individuals who do not have a business will most likely not be interested in your product.
Total Households: If you are selling household products such as heating and air conditioning systems, determining the number of total households is more important than finding out the total population in the area you want to sell to. The logic is simple, people buy the product but it is the household that uses it.
Median Income: You need to know the median income of your target market. If you target a market that cannot afford to buy your products and services, your business will not last long.
Income by Demographics: If your potential customers belong to a certain age group or gender, determining income levels by demographics is necessary. For example, if you sell men's clothes, your target audience is men.

What Does a Good Market Analysis Entail?

Your business does not exist on its own, it can only flourish within an industry and alongside competitors. Market analysis takes into consideration your industry, target market, and competitors. Understanding these three entities will drastically improve your company’s chances of success.

You can view your market analysis as an examination of the market you want to break into and an education on the emerging trends and themes in that market. Good market analyses include the following:

Industry Description. You find out about the history of your industry, the current and future market size, and who the largest players/companies are in your industry.
Overview of Target Market. You research your target market and its characteristics. Who are you targeting? Note, it cannot be everyone, it has to be a specific group. You also have to find out all information possible about your customers that can help you understand how and why they make buying decisions.
Size of Target Market: You need to know the size of your target market, how frequently they buy, and the expected quantity they buy so you do not risk overproducing and having lots of bad inventory. Researching the size of your target market will help you determine if it is big enough for sustained business or not.
Growth Potential: Before picking a target market, you want to be sure there are lots of potential for future growth. You want to avoid going for an industry that is declining slowly or rapidly with almost zero growth potential.
Market Share Potential: Does your business stand a good chance of taking a good share of the market?
Market Pricing and Promotional Strategies: Your market analysis should give you an idea of the price point you can expect to charge for your products and services. Researching your target market will also give you ideas of pricing strategies you can implement to break into the market or to enjoy maximum profits.
Potential Barriers to Entry: One of the biggest benefits of conducting market analysis is that it shows you every potential barrier to entry your business will likely encounter. It is a good idea to discuss potential barriers to entry such as changing technology. It informs readers of your business plan that you understand the market.
Research on Competitors: You need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how you can exploit them for the benefit of your business. Find patterns and trends among your competitors that make them successful, discover what works and what doesn’t, and see what you can do better.

The market analysis section is not just for talking about your target market, industry, and competitors. You also have to explain how your company can fill the hole you have identified in the market.

Here are some questions you can answer that can help you position your product or service in a positive light to your readers.

Is your product or service of superior quality?
What additional features do you offer that your competitors do not offer?
Are you targeting a ‘new’ market?

Basically, your market analysis should include an analysis of what already exists in the market and an explanation of how your company fits into the market.

Competitive Analysis

In the competitive analysis section, y ou have to understand who your direct and indirect competitions are, and how successful they are in the marketplace. It is the section where you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, the advantage(s) they possess in the market and show the unique features or qualities that make you different from your competitors.

Four Steps to Create a Competitive Marketing Analysis

Many businesses do market analysis and competitive analysis together. However, to fully understand what the competitive analysis entails, it is essential to separate it from the market analysis.

Competitive analysis for your business can also include analysis on how to overcome barriers to entry in your target market.

The primary goal of conducting a competitive analysis is to distinguish your business from your competitors. A strong competitive analysis is essential if you want to convince potential funding sources to invest in your business. You have to show potential investors and lenders that your business has what it takes to compete in the marketplace successfully.

Competitive analysis will s how you what the strengths of your competition are and what they are doing to maintain that advantage.

When doing your competitive research, you first have to identify your competitor and then get all the information you can about them. The idea of spending time to identify your competitor and learn everything about them may seem daunting but it is well worth it.

Find answers to the following questions after you have identified who your competitors are.

What are your successful competitors doing?
Why is what they are doing working?
Can your business do it better?
What are the weaknesses of your successful competitors?
What are they not doing well?
Can your business turn its weaknesses into strengths?
How good is your competitors’ customer service?
Where do your competitors invest in advertising?
What sales and pricing strategies are they using?
What marketing strategies are they using?
What kind of press coverage do they get?
What are their customers saying about your competitors (both the positive and negative)?

If your competitors have a website, it is a good idea to visit their websites for more competitors’ research. Check their “About Us” page for more information.

If you are presenting your business plan to investors, you need to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors. Investors can easily tell when you have not properly researched your competitors.

Take time to think about what unique qualities or features set you apart from your competitors. If you do not have any direct competition offering your product to the market, it does not mean you leave out the competitor analysis section blank. Instead research on other companies that are providing a similar product, or whose product is solving the problem your product solves.

The next step is to create a table listing the top competitors you want to include in your business plan. Ensure you list your business as the last and on the right. What you just created is known as the competitor analysis table.

Direct vs Indirect Competition

You cannot know if your product or service will be a fit for your target market if you have not understood your business and the competitive landscape.

There is no market you want to target where you will not encounter competition, even if your product is innovative. Including competitive analysis in your business plan is essential.

If you are entering an established market, you need to explain how you plan to differentiate your products from the available options in the market. Also, include a list of few companies that you view as your direct competitors The competition you face in an established market is your direct competition.

In situations where you are entering a market with no direct competition, it does not mean there is no competition there. Consider your indirect competition that offers substitutes for the products or services you offer.

For example, if you sell an innovative SaaS product, let us say a project management software , a company offering time management software is your indirect competition.

There is an easy way to find out who your indirect competitors are in the absence of no direct competitors. You simply have to research how your potential customers are solving the problems that your product or service seeks to solve. That is your direct competition.

Factors that Differentiate Your Business from the Competition

There are three main factors that any business can use to differentiate itself from its competition. They are cost leadership, product differentiation, and market segmentation.

1. Cost Leadership

A strategy you can impose to maximize your profits and gain an edge over your competitors. It involves offering lower prices than what the majority of your competitors are offering.

A common practice among businesses looking to enter into a market where there are dominant players is to use free trials or pricing to attract as many customers as possible to their offer.

2. Product Differentiation

Your product or service should have a unique selling proposition (USP) that your competitors do not have or do not stress in their marketing.

Part of the marketing strategy should involve making your products unique and different from your competitors. It does not have to be different from your competitors, it can be the addition to a feature or benefit that your competitors do not currently have.

3. Market Segmentation

As a new business seeking to break into an industry, you will gain more success from focusing on a specific niche or target market, and not the whole industry.

If your competitors are focused on a general need or target market, you can differentiate yourself from them by having a small and hyper-targeted audience. For example, if your competitors are selling men’s clothes in their online stores , you can sell hoodies for men.

4. Define Your Business and Management Structure

The next step in your business plan is your business and management structure. It is the section where you describe the legal structure of your business and the team running it.

Your business is only as good as the management team that runs it, while the management team can only strive when there is a proper business and management structure in place.

If your company is a sole proprietor or a limited liability company (LLC), a general or limited partnership, or a C or an S corporation, state it clearly in this section.

Use an organizational chart to show the management structure in your business. Clearly show who is in charge of what area in your company. It is where you show how each key manager or team leader’s unique experience can contribute immensely to the success of your company. You can also opt to add the resumes and CVs of the key players in your company.

The business and management structure section should show who the owner is, and other owners of the businesses (if the business has other owners). For businesses or companies with multiple owners, include the percent ownership of the various owners and clearly show the extent of each others’ involvement in the company.

Investors want to know who is behind the company and the team running it to determine if it has the right management to achieve its set goals.

Management Team

The management team section is where you show that you have the right team in place to successfully execute the business operations and ideas. Take time to create the management structure for your business. Think about all the important roles and responsibilities that you need managers for to grow your business.

Include brief bios of each key team member and ensure you highlight only the relevant information that is needed. If your team members have background industry experience or have held top positions for other companies and achieved success while filling that role, highlight it in this section.

Create Management Team For Business Plan

A common mistake that many startups make is assigning C-level titles such as (CMO and CEO) to everyone on their team. It is unrealistic for a small business to have those titles. While it may look good on paper for the ego of your team members, it can prevent investors from investing in your business.

Instead of building an unrealistic management structure that does not fit your business reality, it is best to allow business titles to grow as the business grows. Starting everyone at the top leaves no room for future change or growth, which is bad for productivity.

Your management team does not have to be complete before you start writing your business plan. You can have a complete business plan even when there are managerial positions that are empty and need filling.

If you have management gaps in your team, simply show the gaps and indicate you are searching for the right candidates for the role(s). Investors do not expect you to have a full management team when you are just starting your business.

Key Questions to Answer When Structuring Your Management Team

Who are the key leaders?
What experiences, skills, and educational backgrounds do you expect your key leaders to have?
Do your key leaders have industry experience?
What positions will they fill and what duties will they perform in those positions?
What level of authority do the key leaders have and what are their responsibilities?
What is the salary for the various management positions that will attract the ideal candidates?

Additional Tips for Writing the Management Structure Section

1. Avoid Adding ‘Ghost’ Names to Your Management Team

There is always that temptation to include a ‘ghost’ name to your management team to attract and influence investors to invest in your business. Although the presence of these celebrity management team members may attract the attention of investors, it can cause your business to lose any credibility if you get found out.

Seasoned investors will investigate further the members of your management team before committing fully to your business If they find out that the celebrity name used does not play any actual role in your business, they will not invest and may write you off as dishonest.

2. Focus on Credentials But Pay Extra Attention to the Roles

Investors want to know the experience that your key team members have to determine if they can successfully reach the company’s growth and financial goals.

While it is an excellent boost for your key management team to have the right credentials, you also want to pay extra attention to the roles they will play in your company.

Organizational Chart

Adding an organizational chart in this section of your business plan is not necessary, you can do it in your business plan’s appendix.

If you are exploring funding options, it is not uncommon to get asked for your organizational chart. The function of an organizational chart goes beyond raising money, you can also use it as a useful planning tool for your business.

An organizational chart can help you identify how best to structure your management team for maximum productivity and point you towards key roles you need to fill in the future.

You can use the organizational chart to show your company’s internal management structure such as the roles and responsibilities of your management team, and relationships that exist between them.

5. Describe Your Product and Service Offering

In your business plan, you have to describe what you sell or the service you plan to offer. It is the next step after defining your business and management structure. The products and services section is where you sell the benefits of your business.

Here you have to explain how your product or service will benefit your customers and describe your product lifecycle. It is also the section where you write down your plans for intellectual property like patent filings and copyrighting.

The research and development that you are undertaking for your product or service need to be explained in detail in this section. However, do not get too technical, sell the general idea and its benefits.

If you have any diagrams or intricate designs of your product or service, do not include them in the products and services section. Instead, leave them for the addendum page. Also, if you are leaving out diagrams or designs for the addendum, ensure you add this phrase “For more detail, visit the addendum Page #.”

Your product and service section in your business plan should include the following:

A detailed explanation that clearly shows how your product or service works.
The pricing model for your product or service.
Your business’ sales and distribution strategy.
The ideal customers that want your product or service.
The benefits of your products and services.
Reason(s) why your product or service is a better alternative to what your competitors are currently offering in the market.
Plans for filling the orders you receive
If you have current or pending patents, copyrights, and trademarks for your product or service, you can also discuss them in this section.

What to Focus On When Describing the Benefits, Lifecycle, and Production Process of Your Products or Services

In the products and services section, you have to distill the benefits, lifecycle, and production process of your products and services.

When describing the benefits of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

Unique features
Translating the unique features into benefits
The emotional, psychological, and practical payoffs to attract customers
Intellectual property rights or any patents

When describing the product life cycle of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

Upsells, cross-sells, and down-sells
Time between purchases
Plans for research and development.

When describing the production process for your products or services, you need to think about the following:

The creation of new or existing products and services.
The sources for the raw materials or components you need for production.
Assembling the products
Maintaining quality control
Supply-chain logistics (receiving the raw materials and delivering the finished products)
The day-to-day management of the production processes, bookkeeping, and inventory.

Tips for Writing the Products or Services Section of Your Business Plan

1. Avoid Technical Descriptions and Industry Buzzwords

The products and services section of your business plan should clearly describe the products and services that your company provides. However, it is not a section to include technical jargons that anyone outside your industry will not understand.

A good practice is to remove highly detailed or technical descriptions in favor of simple terms. Industry buzzwords are not necessary, if there are simpler terms you can use, then use them. If you plan to use your business plan to source funds, making the product or service section so technical will do you no favors.

2. Describe How Your Products or Services Differ from Your Competitors

When potential investors look at your business plan, they want to know how the products and services you are offering differ from that of your competition. Differentiating your products or services from your competition in a way that makes your solution more attractive is critical.

If you are going the innovative path and there is no market currently for your product or service, you need to describe in this section why the market needs your product or service.

For example, overnight delivery was a niche business that only a few companies were participating in. Federal Express (FedEx) had to show in its business plan that there was a large opportunity for that service and they justified why the market needed that service.

3. Long or Short Products or Services Section

Should your products or services section be short? Does the long products or services section attract more investors?

There are no straightforward answers to these questions. Whether your products or services section should be long or relatively short depends on the nature of your business.

If your business is product-focused, then automatically you need to use more space to describe the details of your products. However, if the product your business sells is a commodity item that relies on competitive pricing or other pricing strategies, you do not have to use up so much space to provide significant details about the product.

Likewise, if you are selling a commodity that is available in numerous outlets, then you do not have to spend time on writing a long products or services section.

The key to the success of your business is most likely the effectiveness of your marketing strategies compared to your competitors. Use more space to address that section.

If you are creating a new product or service that the market does not know about, your products or services section can be lengthy. The reason why is because you need to explain everything about the product or service such as the nature of the product, its use case, and values.

A short products or services section for an innovative product or service will not give the readers enough information to properly evaluate your business.

4. Describe Your Relationships with Vendors or Suppliers

Your business will rely on vendors or suppliers to supply raw materials or the components needed to make your products. In your products and services section, describe your relationships with your vendors and suppliers fully.

Avoid the mistake of relying on only one supplier or vendor. If that supplier or vendor fails to supply or goes out of business, you can easily face supply problems and struggle to meet your demands. Plan to set up multiple vendor or supplier relationships for better business stability.

5. Your Primary Goal Is to Convince Your Readers

The primary goal of your business plan is to convince your readers that your business is viable and to create a guide for your business to follow. It applies to the products and services section.

When drafting this section, think like the reader. See your reader as someone who has no idea about your products and services. You are using the products and services section to provide the needed information to help your reader understand your products and services. As a result, you have to be clear and to the point.

While you want to educate your readers about your products or services, you also do not want to bore them with lots of technical details. Show your products and services and not your fancy choice of words.

Your products and services section should provide the answer to the “what” question for your business. You and your management team may run the business, but it is your products and services that are the lifeblood of the business.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing your Products and Services Section

Answering these questions can help you write your products and services section quickly and in a way that will appeal to your readers.

Are your products existing on the market or are they still in the development stage?
What is your timeline for adding new products and services to the market?
What are the positives that make your products and services different from your competitors?
Do your products and services have any competitive advantage that your competitors’ products and services do not currently have?
Do your products or services have any competitive disadvantages that you need to overcome to compete with your competitors? If your answer is yes, state how you plan to overcome them,
How much does it cost to produce your products or services? How much do you plan to sell it for?
What is the price for your products and services compared to your competitors? Is pricing an issue?
What are your operating costs and will it be low enough for you to compete with your competitors and still take home a reasonable profit margin?
What is your plan for acquiring your products? Are you involved in the production of your products or services?
Are you the manufacturer and produce all the components you need to create your products? Do you assemble your products by using components supplied by other manufacturers? Do you purchase your products directly from suppliers or wholesalers?
Do you have a steady supply of products that you need to start your business? (If your business is yet to kick-off)
How do you plan to distribute your products or services to the market?

You can also hint at the marketing or promotion plans you have for your products or services such as how you plan to build awareness or retain customers. The next section is where you can go fully into details about your business’s marketing and sales plan.

6. Show and Explain Your Marketing and Sales Plan

Providing great products and services is wonderful, but it means nothing if you do not have a marketing and sales plan to inform your customers about them. Your marketing and sales plan is critical to the success of your business.

The sales and marketing section is where you show and offer a detailed explanation of your marketing and sales plan and how you plan to execute it. It covers your pricing plan, proposed advertising and promotion activities, activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success, and the benefits of your products and services.

There are several ways you can approach your marketing and sales strategy. Ideally, your marketing and sales strategy has to fit the unique needs of your business.

In this section, you describe how the plans your business has for attracting and retaining customers, and the exact process for making a sale happen. It is essential to thoroughly describe your complete marketing and sales plans because you are still going to reference this section when you are making financial projections for your business.

Outline Your Business’ Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The sales and marketing section is where you outline your business’s unique selling proposition (USP). When you are developing your unique selling proposition, think about the strongest reasons why people should buy from you over your competition. That reason(s) is most likely a good fit to serve as your unique selling proposition (USP).

Target Market and Target Audience

Plans on how to get your products or services to your target market and how to get your target audience to buy them go into this section. You also highlight the strengths of your business here, particularly what sets them apart from your competition.

Before you start writing your marketing and sales plan, you need to have properly defined your target audience and fleshed out your buyer persona. If you do not first understand the individual you are marketing to, your marketing and sales plan will lack any substance and easily fall.

Creating a Smart Marketing and Sales Plan

Marketing your products and services is an investment that requires you to spend money. Like any other investment, you have to generate a good return on investment (ROI) to justify using that marketing and sales plan. Good marketing and sales plans bring in high sales and profits to your company.

Avoid spending money on unproductive marketing channels. Do your research and find out the best marketing and sales plan that works best for your company.

Your marketing and sales plan can be broken into different parts: your positioning statement, pricing, promotion, packaging, advertising, public relations, content marketing, social media, and strategic alliances.

Your Positioning Statement

Your positioning statement is the first part of your marketing and sales plan. It refers to the way you present your company to your customers.

Are you the premium solution, the low-price solution, or are you the intermediary between the two extremes in the market? What do you offer that your competitors do not that can give you leverage in the market?

Before you start writing your positioning statement, you need to spend some time evaluating the current market conditions. Here are some questions that can help you to evaluate the market

What are the unique features or benefits that you offer that your competitors lack?
What are your customers’ primary needs and wants?
Why should a customer choose you over your competition? How do you plan to differentiate yourself from the competition?
How does your company’s solution compare with other solutions in the market?

After answering these questions, then you can start writing your positioning statement. Your positioning statement does not have to be in-depth or too long.

All you need to explain with your positioning statement are two focus areas. The first is the position of your company within the competitive landscape. The other focus area is the core value proposition that sets your company apart from other alternatives that your ideal customer might consider.

Here is a simple template you can use to develop a positioning statement.

For [description of target market] who [need of target market], [product or service] [how it meets the need]. Unlike [top competition], it [most essential distinguishing feature].

For example, let’s create the positioning statement for fictional accounting software and QuickBooks alternative , TBooks.

“For small business owners who need accounting services, TBooks is an accounting software that helps small businesses handle their small business bookkeeping basics quickly and easily. Unlike Wave, TBooks gives small businesses access to live sessions with top accountants.”

You can edit this positioning statement sample and fill it with your business details.

After writing your positioning statement, the next step is the pricing of your offerings. The overall positioning strategy you set in your positioning statement will often determine how you price your products or services.

Pricing is a powerful tool that sends a strong message to your customers. Failure to get your pricing strategy right can make or mar your business. If you are targeting a low-income audience, setting a premium price can result in low sales.

You can use pricing to communicate your positioning to your customers. For example, if you are offering a product at a premium price, you are sending a message to your customers that the product belongs to the premium category.

Basic Rules to Follow When Pricing Your Offering

Setting a price for your offering involves more than just putting a price tag on it. Deciding on the right pricing for your offering requires following some basic rules. They include covering your costs, primary and secondary profit center pricing, and matching the market rate.

Covering Your Costs: The price you set for your products or service should be more than it costs you to produce and deliver them. Every business has the same goal, to make a profit. Depending on the strategy you want to use, there are exceptions to this rule. However, the vast majority of businesses follow this rule.
Primary and Secondary Profit Center Pricing: When a company sets its price above the cost of production, it is making that product its primary profit center. A company can also decide not to make its initial price its primary profit center by selling below or at even with its production cost. It rather depends on the support product or even maintenance that is associated with the initial purchase to make its profit. The initial price thus became its secondary profit center.
Matching the Market Rate: A good rule to follow when pricing your products or services is to match your pricing with consumer demand and expectations. If you price your products or services beyond the price your customer perceives as the ideal price range, you may end up with no customers. Pricing your products too low below what your customer perceives as the ideal price range may lead to them undervaluing your offering.

Pricing Strategy

Your pricing strategy influences the price of your offering. There are several pricing strategies available for you to choose from when examining the right pricing strategy for your business. They include cost-plus pricing, market-based pricing, value pricing, and more.

Cost-plus Pricing: This strategy is one of the simplest and oldest pricing strategies. Here you consider the cost of producing a unit of your product and then add a profit to it to arrive at your market price. It is an effective pricing strategy for manufacturers because it helps them cover their initial costs. Another name for the cost-plus pricing strategy is the markup pricing strategy.
Market-based Pricing: This pricing strategy analyses the market including competitors’ pricing and then sets a price based on what the market is expecting. With this pricing strategy, you can either set your price at the low-end or high-end of the market.
Value Pricing: This pricing strategy involves setting a price based on the value you are providing to your customer. When adopting a value-based pricing strategy, you have to set a price that your customers are willing to pay. Service-based businesses such as small business insurance providers , luxury goods sellers, and the fashion industry use this pricing strategy.

After carefully sorting out your positioning statement and pricing, the next item to look at is your promotional strategy. Your promotional strategy explains how you plan on communicating with your customers and prospects.

As a business, you must measure all your costs, including the cost of your promotions. You also want to measure how much sales your promotions bring for your business to determine its usefulness. Promotional strategies or programs that do not lead to profit need to be removed.

There are different types of promotional strategies you can adopt for your business, they include advertising, public relations, and content marketing.

Advertising

Your business plan should include your advertising plan which can be found in the marketing and sales plan section. You need to include an overview of your advertising plans such as the areas you plan to spend money on to advertise your business and offers.

Ensure that you make it clear in this section if your business will be advertising online or using the more traditional offline media, or the combination of both online and offline media. You can also include the advertising medium you want to use to raise awareness about your business and offers.

Some common online advertising mediums you can use include social media ads, landing pages, sales pages, SEO, Pay-Per-Click, emails, Google Ads, and others. Some common traditional and offline advertising mediums include word of mouth, radios, direct mail, televisions, flyers, billboards, posters, and others.

A key component of your advertising strategy is how you plan to measure the effectiveness and success of your advertising campaign. There is no point in sticking with an advertising plan or medium that does not produce results for your business in the long run.

Public Relations

A great way to reach your customers is to get the media to cover your business or product. Publicity, especially good ones, should be a part of your marketing and sales plan. In this section, show your plans for getting prominent reviews of your product from reputable publications and sources.

Your business needs that exposure to grow. If public relations is a crucial part of your promotional strategy, provide details about your public relations plan here.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular promotional strategy used by businesses to inform and attract their customers. It is about teaching and educating your prospects on various topics of interest in your niche, it does not just involve informing them about the benefits and features of the products and services you have,

Businesses publish content usually for free where they provide useful information, tips, and advice so that their target market can be made aware of the importance of their products and services. Content marketing strategies seek to nurture prospects into buyers over time by simply providing value.

Your company can create a blog where it will be publishing content for its target market. You will need to use the best website builder such as Wix and Squarespace and the best web hosting services such as Bluehost, Hostinger, and other Bluehost alternatives to create a functional blog or website.

If content marketing is a crucial part of your promotional strategy (as it should be), detail your plans under promotions.

Including high-quality images of the packaging of your product in your business plan is a lovely idea. You can add the images of the packaging of that product in the marketing and sales plan section. If you are not selling a product, then you do not need to include any worry about the physical packaging of your product.

When organizing the packaging section of your business plan, you can answer the following questions to make maximum use of this section.

Is your choice of packaging consistent with your positioning strategy?
What key value proposition does your packaging communicate? (It should reflect the key value proposition of your business)
How does your packaging compare to that of your competitors?

Social Media

Your 21st-century business needs to have a good social media presence. Not having one is leaving out opportunities for growth and reaching out to your prospect.

You do not have to join the thousands of social media platforms out there. What you need to do is join the ones that your customers are active on and be active there.

Businesses use social media to provide information about their products such as promotions, discounts, the benefits of their products, and content on their blogs.

Social media is also a platform for engaging with your customers and getting feedback about your products or services. Make no mistake, more and more of your prospects are using social media channels to find more information about companies.

You need to consider the social media channels you want to prioritize your business (prioritize the ones your customers are active in) and your branding plans in this section.

Choosing the right social media platform

Strategic Alliances

If your company plans to work closely with other companies as part of your sales and marketing plan, include it in this section. Prove details about those partnerships in your business plan if you have already established them.

Strategic alliances can be beneficial for all parties involved including your company. Working closely with another company in the form of a partnership can provide access to a different target market segment for your company.

The company you are partnering with may also gain access to your target market or simply offer a new product or service (that of your company) to its customers.

Mutually beneficial partnerships can cover the weaknesses of one company with the strength of another. You should consider strategic alliances with companies that sell complimentary products to yours. For example, if you provide printers, you can partner with a company that produces ink since the customers that buy printers from you will also need inks for printing.

Steps Involved in Creating a Marketing and Sales Plan

1. Focus on Your Target Market

Identify who your customers are, the market you want to target. Then determine the best ways to get your products or services to your potential customers.

2. Evaluate Your Competition

One of the goals of having a marketing plan is to distinguish yourself from your competition. You cannot stand out from them without first knowing them in and out.

You can know your competitors by gathering information about their products, pricing, service, and advertising campaigns.

These questions can help you know your competition.

What makes your competition successful?
What are their weaknesses?
What are customers saying about your competition?

3. Consider Your Brand

Customers' perception of your brand has a strong impact on your sales. Your marketing and sales plan should seek to bolster the image of your brand. Before you start marketing your business, think about the message you want to pass across about your business and your products and services.

4. Focus on Benefits

The majority of your customers do not view your product in terms of features, what they want to know is the benefits and solutions your product offers. Think about the problems your product solves and the benefits it delivers, and use it to create the right sales and marketing message.

Your marketing plan should focus on what you want your customer to get instead of what you provide. Identify those benefits in your marketing and sales plan.

5. Focus on Differentiation

Your marketing and sales plan should look for a unique angle they can take that differentiates your business from the competition, even if the products offered are similar. Some good areas of differentiation you can use are your benefits, pricing, and features.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing Your Marketing and Sales Plan

What is your company’s budget for sales and marketing campaigns?
What key metrics will you use to determine if your marketing plans are successful?
What are your alternatives if your initial marketing efforts do not succeed?
Who are the sales representatives you need to promote your products or services?
What are the marketing and sales channels you plan to use? How do you plan to get your products in front of your ideal customers?
Where will you sell your products?

You may want to include samples of marketing materials you plan to use such as print ads, website descriptions, and social media ads. While it is not compulsory to include these samples, it can help you better communicate your marketing and sales plan and objectives.

The purpose of the marketing and sales section is to answer this question “How will you reach your customers?” If you cannot convincingly provide an answer to this question, you need to rework your marketing and sales section.

7. Clearly Show Your Funding Request

If you are writing your business plan to ask for funding from investors or financial institutions, the funding request section is where you will outline your funding requirements. The funding request section should answer the question ‘How much money will your business need in the near future (3 to 5 years)?’

A good funding request section will clearly outline and explain the amount of funding your business needs over the next five years. You need to know the amount of money your business needs to make an accurate funding request.

Also, when writing your funding request, provide details of how the funds will be used over the period. Specify if you want to use the funds to buy raw materials or machinery, pay salaries, pay for advertisements, and cover specific bills such as rent and electricity.

In addition to explaining what you want to use the funds requested for, you need to clearly state the projected return on investment (ROI) . Investors and creditors want to know if your business can generate profit for them if they put funds into it.

Ensure you do not inflate the figures and stay as realistic as possible. Investors and financial institutions you are seeking funds from will do their research before investing money in your business.

If you are not sure of an exact number to request from, you can use some range of numbers as rough estimates. Add a best-case scenario and a work-case scenario to your funding request. Also, include a description of your strategic future financial plans such as selling your business or paying off debts.

Funding Request: Debt or Equity?

When making your funding request, specify the type of funding you want. Do you want debt or equity? Draw out the terms that will be applicable for the funding, and the length of time the funding request will cover.

Case for Equity

If your new business has not yet started generating profits, you are most likely preparing to sell equity in your business to raise capital at the early stage. Equity here refers to ownership. In this case, you are selling a portion of your company to raise capital.

Although this method of raising capital for your business does not put your business in debt, keep in mind that an equity owner may expect to play a key role in company decisions even if he does not hold a major stake in the company.

Most equity sales for startups are usually private transactions . If you are making a funding request by offering equity in exchange for funding, let the investor know that they will be paid a dividend (a share of the company’s profit). Also, let the investor know the process for selling their equity in your business.

Case for Debt

You may decide not to offer equity in exchange for funds, instead, you make a funding request with the promise to pay back the money borrowed at the agreed time frame.

When making a funding request with an agreement to pay back, note that you will have to repay your creditors both the principal amount borrowed and the interest on it. Financial institutions offer this type of funding for businesses.

Large companies combine both equity and debt in their capital structure. When drafting your business plan, decide if you want to offer both or one over the other.

Before you sell equity in exchange for funding in your business, consider if you are willing to accept not being in total control of your business. Also, before you seek loans in your funding request section, ensure that the terms of repayment are favorable.

You should set a clear timeline in your funding request so that potential investors and creditors can know what you are expecting. Some investors and creditors may agree to your funding request and then delay payment for longer than 30 days, meanwhile, your business needs an immediate cash injection to operate efficiently.

Additional Tips for Writing the Funding Request Section of your Business Plan

The funding request section is not necessary for every business, it is only needed by businesses who plan to use their business plan to secure funding.

If you are adding the funding request section to your business plan, provide an itemized summary of how you plan to use the funds requested. Hiring a lawyer, accountant, or other professionals may be necessary for the proper development of this section.

You should also gather and use financial statements that add credibility and support to your funding requests. Ensure that the financial statements you use should include your projected financial data such as projected cash flows, forecast statements, and expenditure budgets.

If you are an existing business, include all historical financial statements such as cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements .

Provide monthly and quarterly financial statements for a year. If your business has records that date back beyond the one-year mark, add the yearly statements of those years. These documents are for the appendix section of your business plan.

8. Detail Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projections

If you used the funding request section in your business plan, supplement it with a financial plan, metrics, and projections. This section paints a picture of the past performance of your business and then goes ahead to make an informed projection about its future.

The goal of this section is to convince readers that your business is going to be a financial success. It outlines your business plan to generate enough profit to repay the loan (with interest if applicable) and to generate a decent return on investment for investors.

If you have an existing business already in operation, use this section to demonstrate stability through finance. This section should include your cash flow statements, balance sheets, and income statements covering the last three to five years. If your business has some acceptable collateral that you can use to acquire loans, list it in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

Apart from current financial statements, this section should also contain a prospective financial outlook that spans the next five years. Include forecasted income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and capital expenditure budget.

If your business is new and is not yet generating profit, use clear and realistic projections to show the potentials of your business.

When drafting this section, research industry norms and the performance of comparable businesses. Your financial projections should cover at least five years. State the logic behind your financial projections. Remember you can always make adjustments to this section as the variables change.

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section create a baseline which your business can either exceed or fail to reach. If your business fails to reach your projections in this section, you need to understand why it failed.

Investors and loan managers spend a lot of time going through the financial plan, metrics, and projection section compared to other parts of the business plan. Ensure you spend time creating credible financial analyses for your business in this section.

Many entrepreneurs find this section daunting to write. You do not need a business degree to create a solid financial forecast for your business. Business finances, especially for startups, are not as complicated as they seem. There are several online tools and templates that make writing this section so much easier.

Use Graphs and Charts

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section is a great place to use graphs and charts to tell the financial story of your business. Charts and images make it easier to communicate your finances.

Accuracy in this section is key, ensure you carefully analyze your past financial statements properly before making financial projects.

Address the Risk Factors and Show Realistic Financial Projections

Keep your financial plan, metrics, and projection realistic. It is okay to be optimistic in your financial projection, however, you have to justify it.

You should also address the various risk factors associated with your business in this section. Investors want to know the potential risks involved, show them. You should also show your plans for mitigating those risks.

What You Should In The Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection Section of Your Business Plan

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section of your business plan should have monthly sales and revenue forecasts for the first year. It should also include annual projections that cover 3 to 5 years.

A three-year projection is a basic requirement to have in your business plan. However, some investors may request a five-year forecast.

Your business plan should include the following financial statements: sales forecast, personnel plan, income statement, income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet, and an exit strategy.

1. Sales Forecast

Sales forecast refers to your projections about the number of sales your business is going to record over the next few years. It is typically broken into several rows, with each row assigned to a core product or service that your business is offering.

One common mistake people make in their business plan is to break down the sales forecast section into long details. A sales forecast should forecast the high-level details.

For example, if you are forecasting sales for a payroll software provider, you could break down your forecast into target market segments or subscription categories.

Your sales forecast section should also have a corresponding row for each sales row to cover the direct cost or Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). The objective of these rows is to show the expenses that your business incurs in making and delivering your product or service.

Note that your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) should only cover those direct costs incurred when making your products. Other indirect expenses such as insurance, salaries, payroll tax, and rent should not be included.

For example, the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for a restaurant is the cost of ingredients while for a consulting company it will be the cost of paper and other presentation materials.

2. Personnel Plan

The personnel plan section is where you provide details about the payment plan for your employees. For a small business, you can easily list every position in your company and how much you plan to pay in the personnel plan.

However, for larger businesses, you have to break the personnel plan into functional groups such as sales and marketing.

The personnel plan will also include the cost of an employee beyond salary, commonly referred to as the employee burden. These costs include insurance, payroll taxes , and other essential costs incurred monthly as a result of having employees on your payroll.

3. Income Statement

The income statement section shows if your business is making a profit or taking a loss. Another name for the income statement is the profit and loss (P&L). It takes data from your sales forecast and personnel plan and adds other ongoing expenses you incur while running your business.

Every business plan should have an income statement. It subtracts your business expenses from its earnings to show if your business is generating profit or incurring losses.

The income statement has the following items: sales, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), gross margin, operating expenses, total operating expenses, operating income , total expenses, and net profit.

Sales refer to the revenue your business generates from selling its products or services. Other names for sales are income or revenue.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) refers to the total cost of selling your products. Other names for COGS are direct costs or cost of sales. Manufacturing businesses use the Costs of Goods Manufactured (COGM) .
Gross Margin is the figure you get when you subtract your COGS from your sales. In your income statement, you can express it as a percentage of total sales (Gross margin / Sales = Gross Margin Percent).
Operating Expenses refer to all the expenses you incur from running your business. It exempts the COGS because it stands alone as a core part of your income statement. You also have to exclude taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Your operating expenses include salaries, marketing expenses, research and development (R&D) expenses, and other expenses.
Total Operating Expenses refers to the sum of all your operating expenses including those exemptions named above under operating expenses.
Operating Income refers to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is simply known as the acronym EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). Calculating your operating income is simple, all you need to do is to subtract your COGS and total operating expenses from your sales.
Total Expenses refer to the sum of your operating expenses and your business’ interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
Net profit shows whether your business has made a profit or taken a loss during a given timeframe.

4. Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement tracks the money you have in the bank at any given point. It is often confused with the income statement or the profit and loss statement. They are both different types of financial statements. The income statement calculates your profits and losses while the cash flow statement shows you how much you have in the bank.

5. Balance Sheet

The balance sheet is a financial statement that provides an overview of the financial health of your business. It contains information about the assets and liabilities of your company, and owner’s or shareholders’ equity.

You can get the net worth of your company by subtracting your company’s liabilities from its assets.

6. Exit Strategy

The exit strategy refers to a probable plan for selling your business either to the public in an IPO or to another company. It is the last thing you include in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

You can choose to omit the exit strategy from your business plan if you plan to maintain full ownership of your business and do not plan on seeking angel investment or virtual capitalist (VC) funding.

Investors may want to know what your exit plan is. They invest in your business to get a good return on investment.

Your exit strategy does not have to include long and boring details. Ensure you identify some interested parties who may be interested in buying the company if it becomes a success.

Exit Strategy Section of Business Plan Infographic

Key Questions to Answer with Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection

Your financial plan, metrics, and projection section helps investors, creditors, or your internal managers to understand what your expenses are, the amount of cash you need, and what it takes to make your company profitable. It also shows what you will be doing with any funding.

You do not need to show actual financial data if you do not have one. Adding forecasts and projections to your financial statements is added proof that your strategy is feasible and shows investors you have planned properly.

Here are some key questions to answer to help you develop this section.

What is your sales forecast for the next year?
When will your company achieve a positive cash flow?
What are the core expenses you need to operate?
How much money do you need upfront to operate or grow your company?
How will you use the loans or investments?

9. Add an Appendix to Your Business Plan

Adding an appendix to your business plan is optional. It is a useful place to put any charts, tables, legal notes, definitions, permits, résumés, and other critical information that do not fit into other sections of your business plan.

The appendix section is where you would want to include details of a patent or patent-pending if you have one. You can always add illustrations or images of your products here. It is the last section of your business plan.

When writing your business plan, there are details you cut short or remove to prevent the entire section from becoming too lengthy. There are also details you want to include in the business plan but are not a good fit for any of the previous sections. You can add that additional information to the appendix section.

Businesses also use the appendix section to include supporting documents or other materials specially requested by investors or lenders.

You can include just about any information that supports the assumptions and statements you made in the business plan under the appendix. It is the one place in the business plan where unrelated data and information can coexist amicably.

If your appendix section is lengthy, try organizing it by adding a table of contents at the beginning of the appendix section. It is also advisable to group similar information to make it easier for the reader to access them.

A well-organized appendix section makes it easier to share your information clearly and concisely. Add footnotes throughout the rest of the business plan or make references in the plan to the documents in the appendix.

The appendix section is usually only necessary if you are seeking funding from investors or lenders, or hoping to attract partners.

People reading business plans do not want to spend time going through a heap of backup information, numbers, and charts. Keep these documents or information in the Appendix section in case the reader wants to dig deeper.

Common Items to Include in the Appendix Section of Your Business Plan

The appendix section includes documents that supplement or support the information or claims given in other sections of the business plans. Common items you can include in the appendix section include:

Additional data about the process of manufacturing or creation
Additional description of products or services such as product schematics
Additional financial documents or projections
Articles of incorporation and status
Backup for market research or competitive analysis
Bank statements
Business registries
Client testimonials (if your business is already running)
Copies of insurances
Credit histories (personal or/and business)
Deeds and permits
Equipment leases
Examples of marketing and advertising collateral
Industry associations and memberships
Images of product
Intellectual property
Key customer contracts
Legal documents and other contracts
Letters of reference
Links to references
Market research data
Organizational charts
Photographs of potential facilities
Professional licenses pertaining to your legal structure or type of business
Purchase orders
Resumes of the founder(s) and key managers
State and federal identification numbers or codes
Trademarks or patents’ registrations

Avoid using the appendix section as a place to dump any document or information you feel like adding. Only add documents or information that you support or increase the credibility of your business plan.

Tips and Strategies for Writing a Convincing Business Plan

To achieve a perfect business plan, you need to consider some key tips and strategies. These tips will raise the efficiency of your business plan above average.

1. Know Your Audience

When writing a business plan, you need to know your audience . Business owners write business plans for different reasons. Your business plan has to be specific. For example, you can write business plans to potential investors, banks, and even fellow board members of the company.

The audience you are writing to determines the structure of the business plan. As a business owner, you have to know your audience. Not everyone will be your audience. Knowing your audience will help you to narrow the scope of your business plan.

Consider what your audience wants to see in your projects, the likely questions they might ask, and what interests them.

A business plan used to address a company's board members will center on its employment schemes, internal affairs, projects, stakeholders, etc.
A business plan for financial institutions will talk about the size of your market and the chances for you to pay back any loans you demand.
A business plan for investors will show proof that you can return the investment capital within a specific time. In addition, it discusses your financial projections, tractions, and market size.

2. Get Inspiration from People

Writing a business plan from scratch as an entrepreneur can be daunting. That is why you need the right inspiration to push you to write one. You can gain inspiration from the successful business plans of other businesses. Look at their business plans, the style they use, the structure of the project, etc.

To make your business plan easier to create, search companies related to your business to get an exact copy of what you need to create an effective business plan. You can also make references while citing examples in your business plans.

When drafting your business plan, get as much help from others as you possibly can. By getting inspiration from people, you can create something better than what they have.

3. Avoid Being Over Optimistic

Many business owners make use of strong adjectives to qualify their content. One of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make when preparing a business plan is promising too much.

The use of superlatives and over-optimistic claims can prepare the audience for more than you can offer. In the end, you disappoint the confidence they have in you.

In most cases, the best option is to be realistic with your claims and statistics. Most of the investors can sense a bit of incompetency from the overuse of superlatives. As a new entrepreneur, do not be tempted to over-promise to get the interests of investors.

The concept of entrepreneurship centers on risks, nothing is certain when you make future analyses. What separates the best is the ability to do careful research and work towards achieving that, not promising more than you can achieve.

To make an excellent first impression as an entrepreneur, replace superlatives with compelling data-driven content. In this way, you are more specific than someone promising a huge ROI from an investment.

4. Keep it Simple and Short

When writing business plans, ensure you keep them simple throughout. Irrespective of the purpose of the business plan, your goal is to convince the audience.

One way to achieve this goal is to make them understand your proposal. Therefore, it would be best if you avoid the use of complex grammar to express yourself. It would be a huge turn-off if the people you want to convince are not familiar with your use of words.

Another thing to note is the length of your business plan. It would be best if you made it as brief as possible.

You hardly see investors or agencies that read through an extremely long document. In that case, if your first few pages can’t convince them, then you have lost it. The more pages you write, the higher the chances of you derailing from the essential contents.

To ensure your business plan has a high conversion rate, you need to dispose of every unnecessary information. For example, if you have a strategy that you are not sure of, it would be best to leave it out of the plan.

5. Make an Outline and Follow Through

A perfect business plan must have touched every part needed to convince the audience. Business owners get easily tempted to concentrate more on their products than on other sections. Doing this can be detrimental to the efficiency of the business plan.

For example, imagine you talking about a product but omitting or providing very little information about the target audience. You will leave your clients confused.

To ensure that your business plan communicates your full business model to readers, you have to input all the necessary information in it. One of the best ways to achieve this is to design a structure and stick to it.

This structure is what guides you throughout the writing. To make your work easier, you can assign an estimated word count or page limit to every section to avoid making it too bulky for easy reading. As a guide, the necessary things your business plan must contain are:

Table of contents
Introduction
Product or service description
Target audience
Market size
Competition analysis
Financial projections

Some specific businesses can include some other essential sections, but these are the key sections that must be in every business plan.

6. Ask a Professional to Proofread

When writing a business plan, you must tie all loose ends to get a perfect result. When you are done with writing, call a professional to go through the document for you. You are bound to make mistakes, and the way to correct them is to get external help.

You should get a professional in your field who can relate to every section of your business plan. It would be easier for the professional to notice the inner flaws in the document than an editor with no knowledge of your business.

In addition to getting a professional to proofread, get an editor to proofread and edit your document. The editor will help you identify grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and inappropriate writing styles.

Writing a business plan can be daunting, but you can surmount that obstacle and get the best out of it with these tips.

Business Plan Examples and Templates That’ll Save You Tons of Time

1. hubspot's one-page business plan.

The one-page business plan template by HubSpot is the perfect guide for businesses of any size, irrespective of their business strategy. Although the template is condensed into a page, your final business plan should not be a page long! The template is designed to ask helpful questions that can help you develop your business plan.

Hubspot’s one-page business plan template is divided into nine fields:

Business opportunity
Company description
Industry analysis
Target market
Implementation timeline
Marketing plan
Financial summary
Funding required

2. Bplan’s Free Business Plan Template

Bplans' free business plan template is investor-approved. It is a rich template used by prestigious educational institutions such as Babson College and Princeton University to teach entrepreneurs how to create a business plan.

The template has six sections: the executive summary, opportunity, execution, company, financial plan, and appendix. There is a step-by-step guide for writing every little detail in the business plan. Follow the instructions each step of the way and you will create a business plan that impresses investors or lenders easily.

3. HubSpot's Downloadable Business Plan Template

HubSpot’s downloadable business plan template is a more comprehensive option compared to the one-page business template by HubSpot. This free and downloadable business plan template is designed for entrepreneurs.

The template is a comprehensive guide and checklist for business owners just starting their businesses. It tells you everything you need to fill in each section of the business plan and how to do it.

There are nine sections in this business plan template: an executive summary, company and business description, product and services line, market analysis, marketing plan, sales plan, legal notes, financial considerations, and appendix.

4. Business Plan by My Own Business Institute

My Own Business Institute (MOBI) which is a part of Santa Clara University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship offers a free business plan template. You can either copy the free business template from the link provided above or download it as a Word document.

The comprehensive template consists of a whopping 15 sections.

The Business Profile
The Vision and the People
Home-Based Business and Freelance Business Opportunities
Organization
Licenses and Permits
Business Insurance
Communication Tools
Acquisitions
Location and Leasing
Accounting and Cash Flow
Opening and Marketing
Managing Employees
Expanding and Handling Problems

There are lots of helpful tips on how to fill each section in the free business plan template by MOBI.

5. Score's Business Plan Template for Startups

Score is an American nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs build successful companies. This business plan template for startups by Score is available for free download. The business plan template asks a whooping 150 generic questions that help entrepreneurs from different fields to set up the perfect business plan.

The business plan template for startups contains clear instructions and worksheets, all you have to do is answer the questions and fill the worksheets.

There are nine sections in the business plan template: executive summary, company description, products and services, marketing plan, operational plan, management and organization, startup expenses and capitalization, financial plan, and appendices.

The ‘refining the plan’ resource contains instructions that help you modify your business plan to suit your specific needs, industry, and target audience. After you have completed Score’s business plan template, you can work with a SCORE mentor for expert advice in business planning.

6. Minimalist Architecture Business Plan Template by Venngage

The minimalist architecture business plan template is a simple template by Venngage that you can customize to suit your business needs .

There are five sections in the template: an executive summary, statement of problem, approach and methodology, qualifications, and schedule and benchmark. The business plan template has instructions that guide users on what to fill in each section.

7. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers two free business plan templates, filled with practical real-life examples that you can model to create your business plan. Both free business plan templates are written by fictional business owners: Rebecca who owns a consulting firm, and Andrew who owns a toy company.

There are five sections in the two SBA’s free business plan templates.

Executive Summary
Company Description
Service Line
Marketing and Sales

8. The $100 Startup's One-Page Business Plan

The one-page business plan by the $100 startup is a simple business plan template for entrepreneurs who do not want to create a long and complicated plan . You can include more details in the appendices for funders who want more information beyond what you can put in the one-page business plan.

There are five sections in the one-page business plan such as overview, ka-ching, hustling, success, and obstacles or challenges or open questions. You can answer all the questions using one or two sentences.

9. PandaDoc’s Free Business Plan Template

The free business plan template by PandaDoc is a comprehensive 15-page document that describes the information you should include in every section.

There are 11 sections in PandaDoc’s free business plan template.

Executive summary
Business description
Products and services
Operations plan
Management organization
Financial plan
Conclusion / Call to action
Confidentiality statement

You have to sign up for its 14-day free trial to access the template. You will find different business plan templates on PandaDoc once you sign up (including templates for general businesses and specific businesses such as bakeries, startups, restaurants, salons, hotels, and coffee shops)

PandaDoc allows you to customize its business plan templates to fit the needs of your business. After editing the template, you can send it to interested parties and track opens and views through PandaDoc.

10. Invoiceberry Templates for Word, Open Office, Excel, or PPT

InvoiceBerry is a U.K based online invoicing and tracking platform that offers free business plan templates in .docx, .odt, .xlsx, and .pptx formats for freelancers and small businesses.

Before you can download the free business plan template, it will ask you to give it your email address. After you complete the little task, it will send the download link to your inbox for you to download. It also provides a business plan checklist in .xlsx file format that ensures you add the right information to the business plan.

Alternatives to the Traditional Business Plan

A business plan is very important in mapping out how one expects their business to grow over a set number of years, particularly when they need external investment in their business. However, many investors do not have the time to watch you present your business plan. It is a long and boring read.

Luckily, there are three alternatives to the traditional business plan (the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck). These alternatives are less laborious and easier and quicker to present to investors.

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

The business model canvas is a business tool used to present all the important components of setting up a business, such as customers, route to market, value proposition, and finance in a single sheet. It provides a very focused blueprint that defines your business initially which you can later expand on if needed.

The sheet is divided mainly into company, industry, and consumer models that are interconnected in how they find problems and proffer solutions.

Segments of the Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas was developed by founder Alexander Osterwalder to answer important business questions. It contains nine segments.

Key Partners: Who will be occupying important executive positions in your business? What do they bring to the table? Will there be a third party involved with the company?
Key Activities: What important activities will production entail? What activities will be carried out to ensure the smooth running of the company?
The Product’s Value Propositions: What does your product do? How will it be different from other products?
Customer Segments: What demography of consumers are you targeting? What are the habits of these consumers? Who are the MVPs of your target consumers?
Customer Relationships: How will the team support and work with its customer base? How do you intend to build and maintain trust with the customer?
Key Resources: What type of personnel and tools will be needed? What size of the budget will they need access to?
Channels: How do you plan to create awareness of your products? How do you intend to transport your product to the customer?
Cost Structure: What is the estimated cost of production? How much will distribution cost?
Revenue Streams: For what value are customers willing to pay? How do they prefer to pay for the product? Are there any external revenues attached apart from the main source? How do the revenue streams contribute to the overall revenue?

Lean Canvas

The lean canvas is a problem-oriented alternative to the standard business model canvas. It was proposed by Ash Maurya, creator of Lean Stack as a development of the business model generation. It uses a more problem-focused approach and it majorly targets entrepreneurs and startup businesses.

Lean Canvas uses the same 9 blocks concept as the business model canvas, however, they have been modified slightly to suit the needs and purpose of a small startup. The key partners, key activities, customer relationships, and key resources are replaced by new segments which are:

Problem: Simple and straightforward number of problems you have identified, ideally three.
Solution: The solutions to each problem.
Unfair Advantage: Something you possess that can't be easily bought or replicated.
Key Metrics: Important numbers that will tell how your business is doing.

Startup Pitch Deck

While the business model canvas compresses into a factual sheet, startup pitch decks expand flamboyantly.

Pitch decks, through slides, convey your business plan, often through graphs and images used to emphasize estimations and observations in your presentation. Entrepreneurs often use pitch decks to fully convince their target audience of their plans before discussing funding arrangements.

Considering the likelihood of it being used in a small time frame, a good startup pitch deck should ideally contain 20 slides or less to have enough time to answer questions from the audience.

Unlike the standard and lean business model canvases, a pitch deck doesn't have a set template on how to present your business plan but there are still important components to it. These components often mirror those of the business model canvas except that they are in slide form and contain more details.

Using Airbnb (one of the most successful start-ups in recent history) for reference, the important components of a good slide are listed below.

Cover/Introduction Slide: Here, you should include your company's name and mission statement. Your mission statement should be a very catchy tagline. Also, include personal information and contact details to provide an easy link for potential investors.
Problem Slide: This slide requires you to create a connection with the audience or the investor that you are pitching. For example in their pitch, Airbnb summarized the most important problems it would solve in three brief points – pricing of hotels, disconnection from city culture, and connection problems for local bookings.
Solution Slide: This slide includes your core value proposition. List simple and direct solutions to the problems you have mentioned
Customer Analysis: Here you will provide information on the customers you will be offering your service to. The identity of your customers plays an important part in fundraising as well as the long-run viability of the business.
Market Validation: Use competitive analysis to show numbers that prove the presence of a market for your product, industry behavior in the present and the long run, as well as the percentage of the market you aim to attract. It shows that you understand your competitors and customers and convinces investors of the opportunities presented in the market.
Business Model: Your business model is the hook of your presentation. It may vary in complexity but it should generally include a pricing system informed by your market analysis. The goal of the slide is to confirm your business model is easy to implement.
Marketing Strategy: This slide should summarize a few customer acquisition methods that you plan to use to grow the business.
Competitive Advantage: What this slide will do is provide information on what will set you apart and make you a more attractive option to customers. It could be the possession of technology that is not widely known in the market.
Team Slide: Here you will give a brief description of your team. Include your key management personnel here and their specific roles in the company. Include their educational background, job history, and skillsets. Also, talk about their accomplishments in their careers so far to build investors' confidence in members of your team.
Traction Slide: This validates the company’s business model by showing growth through early sales and support. The slide aims to reduce any lingering fears in potential investors by showing realistic periodic milestones and profit margins. It can include current sales, growth, valuable customers, pre-orders, or data from surveys outlining current consumer interest.
Funding Slide: This slide is popularly referred to as ‘the ask'. Here you will include important details like how much is needed to get your business off the ground and how the funding will be spent to help the company reach its goals.
Appendix Slides: Your pitch deck appendix should always be included alongside a standard pitch presentation. It consists of additional slides you could not show in the pitch deck but you need to complement your presentation.

It is important to support your calculations with pictorial renditions. Infographics, such as pie charts or bar graphs, will be more effective in presenting the information than just listing numbers. For example, a six-month graph that shows rising profit margins will easily look more impressive than merely writing it.

Lastly, since a pitch deck is primarily used to secure meetings and you may be sharing your pitch with several investors, it is advisable to keep a separate public version that doesn't include financials. Only disclose the one with projections once you have secured a link with an investor.

Advantages of the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck over the Traditional Business Plan

Time-Saving: Writing a detailed traditional business plan could take weeks or months. On the other hand, all three alternatives can be done in a few days or even one night of brainstorming if you have a comprehensive understanding of your business.
Easier to Understand: Since the information presented is almost entirely factual, it puts focus on what is most important in running the business. They cut away the excess pages of fillers in a traditional business plan and allow investors to see what is driving the business and what is getting in the way.
Easy to Update: Businesses typically present their business plans to many potential investors before they secure funding. What this means is that you may regularly have to amend your presentation to update statistics or adjust to audience-specific needs. For a traditional business plan, this could mean rewriting a whole section of your plan. For the three alternatives, updating is much easier because they are not voluminous.
Guide for a More In-depth Business Plan: All three alternatives have the added benefit of being able to double as a sketch of your business plan if the need to create one arises in the future.

Business Plan FAQ

Business plans are important for any entrepreneur who is looking for a framework to run their company over some time or seeking external support. Although they are essential for new businesses, every company should ideally have a business plan to track their growth from time to time. They can be used by startups seeking investments or loans to convey their business ideas or an employee to convince his boss of the feasibility of starting a new project. They can also be used by companies seeking to recruit high-profile employee targets into key positions or trying to secure partnerships with other firms.

Business plans often vary depending on your target audience, the scope, and the goals for the plan. Startup plans are the most common among the different types of business plans. A start-up plan is used by a new business to present all the necessary information to help get the business up and running. They are usually used by entrepreneurs who are seeking funding from investors or bank loans. The established company alternative to a start-up plan is a feasibility plan. A feasibility plan is often used by an established company looking for new business opportunities. They are used to show the upsides of creating a new product for a consumer base. Because the audience is usually company people, it requires less company analysis. The third type of business plan is the lean business plan. A lean business plan is a brief, straight-to-the-point breakdown of your ideas and analysis for your business. It does not contain details of your proposal and can be written on one page. Finally, you have the what-if plan. As it implies, a what-if plan is a preparation for the worst-case scenario. You must always be prepared for the possibility of your original plan being rejected. A good what-if plan will serve as a good plan B to the original.

A good business plan has 10 key components. They include an executive plan, product analysis, desired customer base, company analysis, industry analysis, marketing strategy, sales strategy, financial projection, funding, and appendix. Executive Plan Your business should begin with your executive plan. An executive plan will provide early insight into what you are planning to achieve with your business. It should include your mission statement and highlight some of the important points which you will explain later. Product Analysis The next component of your business plan is your product analysis. A key part of this section is explaining the type of item or service you are going to offer as well as the market problems your product will solve. Desired Consumer Base Your product analysis should be supplemented with a detailed breakdown of your desired consumer base. Investors are always interested in knowing the economic power of your market as well as potential MVP customers. Company Analysis The next component of your business plan is your company analysis. Here, you explain how you want to run your business. It will include your operational strategy, an insight into the workforce needed to keep the company running, and important executive positions. It will also provide a calculation of expected operational costs. Industry Analysis A good business plan should also contain well laid out industry analysis. It is important to convince potential investors you know the companies you will be competing with, as well as your plans to gain an edge on the competition. Marketing Strategy Your business plan should also include your marketing strategy. This is how you intend to spread awareness of your product. It should include a detailed explanation of the company brand as well as your advertising methods. Sales Strategy Your sales strategy comes after the market strategy. Here you give an overview of your company's pricing strategy and how you aim to maximize profits. You can also explain how your prices will adapt to market behaviors. Financial Projection The financial projection is the next component of your business plan. It explains your company's expected running cost and revenue earned during the tenure of the business plan. Financial projection gives a clear idea of how your company will develop in the future. Funding The next component of your business plan is funding. You have to detail how much external investment you need to get your business idea off the ground here. Appendix The last component of your plan is the appendix. This is where you put licenses, graphs, or key information that does not fit in any of the other components.

The business model canvas is a business management tool used to quickly define your business idea and model. It is often used when investors need you to pitch your business idea during a brief window.

A pitch deck is similar to a business model canvas except that it makes use of slides in its presentation. A pitch is not primarily used to secure funding, rather its main purpose is to entice potential investors by selling a very optimistic outlook on the business.

Business plan competitions help you evaluate the strength of your business plan. By participating in business plan competitions, you are improving your experience. The experience provides you with a degree of validation while practicing important skills. The main motivation for entering into the competitions is often to secure funding by finishing in podium positions. There is also the chance that you may catch the eye of a casual observer outside of the competition. These competitions also provide good networking opportunities. You could meet mentors who will take a keen interest in guiding you in your business journey. You also have the opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs whose ideas can complement yours.

Exlore Further

12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)
13 Sources of Business Finance For Companies & Sole Traders
5 Common Types of Business Structures (+ Pros & Cons)
How to Buy a Business in 8 Steps (+ Due Diligence Checklist)

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Martin luenendonk.

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

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The 7 Best Business Plan Examples (2024)

As an aspiring entrepreneur gearing up to start your own business , you likely know the importance of drafting a business plan. However, you might not be entirely sure where to begin or what specific details to include. That’s where examining business plan examples can be beneficial. Sample business plans serve as real-world templates to help you craft your own plan with confidence. They also provide insight into the key sections that make up a business plan, as well as demonstrate how to structure and present your ideas effectively.

Example business plan

To understand how to write a business plan, let’s study an example structured using a seven-part template. Here’s a quick overview of those parts:

Executive summary: A quick overview of your business and the contents of your business plan.
Company description: More info about your company, its goals and mission, and why you started it in the first place.
Market analysis: Research about the market and industry your business will operate in, including a competitive analysis about the companies you’ll be up against.
Products and services: A detailed description of what you’ll be selling to your customers.
Marketing plan: A strategic outline of how you plan to market and promote your business before, during, and after your company launches into the market.
Logistics and operations plan: An explanation of the systems, processes, and tools that are needed to run your business in the background.
Financial plan: A map of your short-term (and even long-term) financial goals and the costs to run the business. If you’re looking for funding, this is the place to discuss your request and needs.

7 business plan examples (section by section)

In this section, you’ll find hypothetical and real-world examples of each aspect of a business plan to show you how the whole thing comes together.

Executive summary

Your executive summary offers a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. You’ll want to include a brief description of your company, market research, competitor analysis, and financial information.

In this free business plan template, the executive summary is three paragraphs and occupies nearly half the page:

Company description

You might go more in-depth with your company description and include the following sections:

Nature of the business. Mention the general category of business you fall under. Are you a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer of your products?
Background information. Talk about your past experiences and skills, and how you’ve combined them to fill in the market.
Business structure. This section outlines how you registered your company —as a corporation, sole proprietorship, LLC, or other business type.
Industry. Which business sector do you operate in? The answer might be technology, merchandising, or another industry.
Team. Whether you’re the sole full-time employee of your business or you have contractors to support your daily workflow, this is your chance to put them under the spotlight.

You can also repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, Instagram page, or other properties that ask for a boilerplate description of your business. Hair extensions brand Luxy Hair has a blurb on it’s About page that could easily be repurposed as a company description for its business plan.

Market analysis

Market analysis comprises research on product supply and demand, your target market, the competitive landscape, and industry trends. You might do a SWOT analysis to learn where you stand and identify market gaps that you could exploit to establish your footing. Here’s an example of a SWOT analysis for a hypothetical ecommerce business:

You’ll also want to run a competitive analysis as part of the market analysis component of your business plan. This will show you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to gain an edge over the competition.

Products and services

This part of your business plan describes your product or service, how it will be priced, and the ways it will compete against similar offerings in the market. Don’t go into too much detail here—a few lines are enough to introduce your item to the reader.

Marketing plan

Potential investors will want to know how you’ll get the word out about your business. So it’s essential to build a marketing plan that highlights the promotion and customer acquisition strategies you’re planning to adopt.

Most marketing plans focus on the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. However, it’s easier when you break it down by the different marketing channels . Mention how you intend to promote your business using blogs, email, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing.

Here’s an example of a hypothetical marketing plan for a real estate website:

marketing section template for business plan

Logistics and operations

This section of your business plan provides information about your production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.

Financial plan

The financial plan (a.k.a. financial statement) offers a breakdown of your sales, revenue, expenses, profit, and other financial metrics. You’ll want to include all the numbers and concrete data to project your current and projected financial state.

In this business plan example, the financial statement for ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy includes forecasted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

It then goes deeper into the financials, citing:

Funding needs
Project cash-flow statement
Project profit-and-loss statement
Projected balance sheet

You can use Shopify’s financial plan template to create your own income statement, cash-flow statement, and balance sheet.

Types of business plans (and what to write for each)

A one-page business plan is a pared down version of a standard business plan that’s easy for potential investors and partners to understand. You’ll want to include all of these sections, but make sure they’re abbreviated and summarized:

Logistics and operations plan
Financials

A startup business plan is meant to secure outside funding for a new business. Typically, there’s a big focus on the financials, as well as other sections that help determine the viability of your business idea—market analysis, for example. Shopify has a great business plan template for startups that include all the below points:

Market research: in depth
Financials: in depth

Your internal business plan acts as the enforcer of your company’s vision. It reminds your team of the long-term objective and keeps them strategically aligned toward the same goal. Be sure to include:

Market research

Feasibility

A feasibility business plan is essentially a feasibility study that helps you evaluate whether your product or idea is worthy of a full business plan. Include the following sections:

A strategic (or growth) business plan lays out your long-term vision and goals. This means your predictions stretch further into the future, and you aim for greater growth and revenue. While crafting this document, you use all the parts of a usual business plan but add more to each one:

Products and services: for launch and expansion
Market analysis: detailed analysis
Marketing plan: detailed strategy
Logistics and operations plan: detailed plan
Financials: detailed projections

Free business plan templates

Now that you’re familiar with what’s included and how to format a business plan, let’s go over a few templates you can fill out or draw inspiration from.

Bplans’ free business plan template

Bplans’ free business plan template focuses a lot on the financial side of running a business. It has many pages just for your financial plan and statements. Once you fill it out, you’ll see exactly where your business stands financially and what you need to do to keep it on track or make it better.

PandaDoc’s free business plan template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is detailed and guides you through every section, so you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Filling it out, you’ll grasp the ins and outs of your business and how each part fits together. It’s also handy because it connects to PandaDoc’s e-signature for easy signing, ideal for businesses with partners or a board.

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template helps you map out the essentials of your business, like partnerships, core activities, and what makes you different. It’s a collaborative tool for you and your team to learn how everything in your business is linked.

Better business planning equals better business outcomes

Building a business plan is key to establishing a clear direction and strategy for your venture. With a solid plan in hand, you’ll know what steps to take for achieving each of your business goals. Kickstart your business planning and set yourself up for success with a defined roadmap—utilizing the sample business plans above to inform your approach.

Business plan FAQ

What are the 3 main points of a business plan.

Concept. Explain what your business does and the main idea behind it. This is where you tell people what you plan to achieve with your business.
Contents. Explain what you’re selling or offering. Point out who you’re selling to and who else is selling something similar. This part concerns your products or services, who will buy them, and who you’re up against.
Cash flow. Explain how money will move in and out of your business. Discuss the money you need to start and keep the business going, the costs of running your business, and how much money you expect to make.

How do I write a simple business plan?

To create a simple business plan, start with an executive summary that details your business vision and objectives. Follow this with a concise description of your company’s structure, your market analysis, and information about your products or services. Conclude your plan with financial projections that outline your expected revenue, expenses, and profitability.

What is the best format to write a business plan?

The optimal format for a business plan arranges your plan in a clear and structured way, helping potential investors get a quick grasp of what your business is about and what you aim to achieve. Always start with a summary of your plan and finish with the financial details or any extra information at the end.

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Take the first step towards success in the fuel industry with our professionally crafted Gas Station Business Plan template.

Beauty Supply Store Business Plan

This Beauty Supply Store Business Plan Template covers all the appropriate sections needed to invest in a beauty supply store. The template will help you to raise money for your business.

Flower Shop Business Plan Template

The Flower Shop Business Plan Template is organized to help you achieve the awareness of various investors to invest in your company.

Electrical Contractor Business Plan

This Electrical Contractor Business Plan template include information about the services you offer, who your target consumers are, why they should prefer you over your opponents and how much capital you require to get started.

Car Dealership Business Plan

A Car Dealership Business Plan is a detailed plan that will help you take your business to the next level. Use this template to create your plan.

Farm Business Plan

Farm Business Plan gives an overview of the company, including corporation history, owner backgrounds, creations and more. Use this template to quickly develop your farm company plan.

Consultant Business Plan Template

An example of a document outlining your strategy for launching or expanding your consulting firm is a Consultant Business Plan Template. The essential elements include a summary of the company, team, sector, rivals, target audience, and an operations and marketing strategy.

Construction Company Business Plan

The objectives and tactics of a construction company are described in a business plan for a construction company. For the creation of your business plan, use this Construction Company Business Plan Template.

Fashion Business Plan Template

Structural and action plans for a fashion firm are laid out in the fashion business plan template.

Daycare Business Plan

The creation of a business strategy is the first step in starting a daycare. Use this Daycare Business Plan Template to describe your company’s objectives, as well as your target market, potential rivals, and your financing strategy.

Convenience Store Business Plan

Do you need a Convenience Store Business Plan Template? This plan includes all the details and information needed to secure funding for a convenience store.

Startup Business Plan Template

We offer you the steps and the tools to create a fantastic business plan. Attract investors with this sleek and free startup business plan template.

Business Plan Template

This business plan template is a great tool for your startup to customize to reflect your strong qualifications, experienced team, and marketable business idea.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document that helps small business owners determine the viability of their business idea. Combining market research and financial analysis, a professional business plan helps startup CEOs and potential investors determine if the company can compete in the target market.

Typically, a good business plan consists of the following:

Executive summary
Company description
Mission statement
Product and services
Marketing plan
Operations plan
Management organization
Financial plan
Conclusion & appendix

Every section involved in a business plan is designed to help startup businesses reach their target market.

A business plan asks founders and entrepreneurs to detail their business strategy in a step-by-step process that makes sense from an operational perspective. This is essential if a startup is seeking a business loan or an investment from a venture capital firm.

However, even small businesses that are already economically viable can benefit from creating a business plan, since it encourages business owners and their management teams to examine their business model and reevaluate the best ways to reach their target customers.

Should I use a business plan template?

Yes. If you’ve never written one, a business plan can be challenging to write.

Creating a successful plan that you can use to grow your small business can require weeks of market analysis and financial preparation. You may spend time using Microsoft Excel or Powerpoint in order to create documentation which better supports our operational decisions.

However, almost every professional business plan is structured in the same way and most ask for the same information. Because of this, using a business plan template is advisable to save time, money, and effort.

Business plan templates for free

Rather than spending time trying to figure out how to write a business plan , use a free template as a guide to completion.

Business plan templates from PandaDoc can help you reach an effective go-to-market strategy even faster by asking you to provide all the relevant information you need when creating an effective business plan.

Grab a free template to get started!

Frequently asked questions

How many pages should my business plan be.

This depends on the kind of business plan you need to write and how you intend to use the plan that you create.

For example, a plan for a small business seeking potential investors or a business loan will need to provide income statements, cash flow statements, and a balance sheet (usually for a three-year or five-year forecast period).

These financial statements can be omitted if a small business owner isn’t seeking funding and is instead planning to use their business plan as a guiding document for themselves and their management team members.

Some business plans may only run a few pages. Fully-developed business plans can be as long as 50 pages. Much of this depends on the type of business, the operational strategy, and the level of detail that goes into developing the business plan.

Who needs a business plan?

Every business should have a business plan. This is an essential guidance document for any founder or CEO.

Good business plans help a company determine the viability of its place in the market and can help the business develop better strategies for differentiating itself from its competitors.

Business planning also forces business owners to evaluate their marketing strategy, the cost of customer acquisition and retention, and how they plan to grow their business over time.

What is the best business plan template?

Business plans come in all shapes and sizes. The best business plan template for your business is one that you understand and that matches the size and legal structure of your operation.

If you’re a sole proprietor, a business plan template designed for a big corporation probably doesn’t make sense. However, a business plan that helps you build an effective roadmap to grow your business while protecting your intellectual property is a good starting point.

PandaDoc offers specialized business plan templates for common industries along with tips to help you get started with business planning.

Should I hire someone to write my business plan for me?

No. You’ll find freelance writers and business strategy companies out there who are happy to write your business plan for a fee. These resources can guide you through the process, but you should write (or be heavily involved in) the creation of your business plan.

The reason for this is simple: You know the most about your business, and your business needs you to succeed.

A writer can work with you to make your business plan sound better to investors, and a consultant can help you fill in knowledge gaps — like how to conduct a SWOT analysis — and point out weaknesses in your plan. But, at the end of the day, you need to use the business plan to pitch investors and run your business.

Those ideas and guiding principles aren’t something you can outsource.

Should I use business planning software?

Software isn’t required when creating an effective business plan. Most business planning software is designed to help you navigate the outlining and writing process more effectively.

You don’t need software to write a professional business plan, but a solid template can help you get started. Download a free template from PandaDoc today and take your business to the next level.

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Business Plan Example and Template

Learn how to create a business plan

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that contains the operational and financial plan of a business, and details how its objectives will be achieved. It serves as a road map for the business and can be used when pitching investors or financial institutions for debt or equity financing .

Business Plan - Document with the words Business Plan on the title

A business plan should follow a standard format and contain all the important business plan elements. Typically, it should present whatever information an investor or financial institution expects to see before providing financing to a business.

Contents of a Business Plan

A business plan should be structured in a way that it contains all the important information that investors are looking for. Here are the main sections of a business plan:

1. Title Page

The title page captures the legal information of the business, which includes the registered business name, physical address, phone number, email address, date, and the company logo.

2. Executive Summary

The executive summary is the most important section because it is the first section that investors and bankers see when they open the business plan. It provides a summary of the entire business plan. It should be written last to ensure that you don’t leave any details out. It must be short and to the point, and it should capture the reader’s attention. The executive summary should not exceed two pages.

3. Industry Overview

The industry overview section provides information about the specific industry that the business operates in. Some of the information provided in this section includes major competitors, industry trends, and estimated revenues. It also shows the company’s position in the industry and how it will compete in the market against other major players.

4. Market Analysis and Competition

The market analysis section details the target market for the company’s product offerings. This section confirms that the company understands the market and that it has already analyzed the existing market to determine that there is adequate demand to support its proposed business model.

Market analysis includes information about the target market’s demographics , geographical location, consumer behavior, and market needs. The company can present numbers and sources to give an overview of the target market size.

A business can choose to consolidate the market analysis and competition analysis into one section or present them as two separate sections.

5. Sales and Marketing Plan

The sales and marketing plan details how the company plans to sell its products to the target market. It attempts to present the business’s unique selling proposition and the channels it will use to sell its goods and services. It details the company’s advertising and promotion activities, pricing strategy, sales and distribution methods, and after-sales support.

6. Management Plan

The management plan provides an outline of the company’s legal structure, its management team, and internal and external human resource requirements. It should list the number of employees that will be needed and the remuneration to be paid to each of the employees.

Any external professionals, such as lawyers, valuers, architects, and consultants, that the company will need should also be included. If the company intends to use the business plan to source funding from investors, it should list the members of the executive team, as well as the members of the advisory board.

7. Operating Plan

The operating plan provides an overview of the company’s physical requirements, such as office space, machinery, labor, supplies, and inventory . For a business that requires custom warehouses and specialized equipment, the operating plan will be more detailed, as compared to, say, a home-based consulting business. If the business plan is for a manufacturing company, it will include information on raw material requirements and the supply chain.

8. Financial Plan

The financial plan is an important section that will often determine whether the business will obtain required financing from financial institutions, investors, or venture capitalists. It should demonstrate that the proposed business is viable and will return enough revenues to be able to meet its financial obligations. Some of the information contained in the financial plan includes a projected income statement , balance sheet, and cash flow.

9. Appendices and Exhibits

The appendices and exhibits part is the last section of a business plan. It includes any additional information that banks and investors may be interested in or that adds credibility to the business. Some of the information that may be included in the appendices section includes office/building plans, detailed market research , products/services offering information, marketing brochures, and credit histories of the promoters.

Business Plan Template

Here is a basic template that any business can use when developing its business plan:

Section 1: Executive Summary

Present the company’s mission.
Describe the company’s product and/or service offerings.
Give a summary of the target market and its demographics.
Summarize the industry competition and how the company will capture a share of the available market.
Give a summary of the operational plan, such as inventory, office and labor, and equipment requirements.

Section 2: Industry Overview

Describe the company’s position in the industry.
Describe the existing competition and the major players in the industry.
Provide information about the industry that the business will operate in, estimated revenues, industry trends, government influences, as well as the demographics of the target market.

Section 3: Market Analysis and Competition

Define your target market, their needs, and their geographical location.
Describe the size of the market, the units of the company’s products that potential customers may buy, and the market changes that may occur due to overall economic changes.
Give an overview of the estimated sales volume vis-à-vis what competitors sell.
Give a plan on how the company plans to combat the existing competition to gain and retain market share.

Section 4: Sales and Marketing Plan

Describe the products that the company will offer for sale and its unique selling proposition.
List the different advertising platforms that the business will use to get its message to customers.
Describe how the business plans to price its products in a way that allows it to make a profit.
Give details on how the company’s products will be distributed to the target market and the shipping method.

Section 5: Management Plan

Describe the organizational structure of the company.
List the owners of the company and their ownership percentages.
List the key executives, their roles, and remuneration.
List any internal and external professionals that the company plans to hire, and how they will be compensated.
Include a list of the members of the advisory board, if available.

Section 6: Operating Plan

Describe the location of the business, including office and warehouse requirements.
Describe the labor requirement of the company. Outline the number of staff that the company needs, their roles, skills training needed, and employee tenures (full-time or part-time).
Describe the manufacturing process, and the time it will take to produce one unit of a product.
Describe the equipment and machinery requirements, and if the company will lease or purchase equipment and machinery, and the related costs that the company estimates it will incur.
Provide a list of raw material requirements, how they will be sourced, and the main suppliers that will supply the required inputs.

Section 7: Financial Plan

Describe the financial projections of the company, by including the projected income statement, projected cash flow statement, and the balance sheet projection.

Section 8: Appendices and Exhibits

Quotes of building and machinery leases
Proposed office and warehouse plan
Market research and a summary of the target market
Credit information of the owners
List of product and/or services

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Blog Business 15+ Best Business Plan Examples for Entrepreneurs & Startups

15+ Best Business Plan Examples for Entrepreneurs & Startups

Written by: Jennifer Gaskin Jun 09, 2021

15+ Business Plan Examples to Win Your Next Round of Funding Blog Header

Not having a solid plan makes it unlikely for you to achieve the goals you seek, whether it’s getting your to-do list done or launching a successful organization.

In the early stages of a company, that means developing things like pitch decks, business plans, one-sheeters and more. With Venngage’s Business Plan Builder , you can easily organize your business plan into a visually appealing format that can help you win over investors, lenders or partners.

Learn more about how to create a business plan so you can hit the ground running after reading through this list for inspirational business plan templates .

15+ Best business plan examples for entrepreneurs and startups

Simple business plan example, startup business plan example, small business plan example, nonprofit business plan example, strategic business plan example, market analysis business plan example, sales business plan example, organization and management business plan example, marketing and sales strategy business plan example, apple business plan example, airbnb business plan example, sequoia capital business plan example.

While your business plan should be supported by thorough and exhaustive research into your market and competitors, the resulting document does not have to be overwhelming for the reader. In fact, if you can boil your business plan down to a few key pages, all the better.

Simple business plan outline:

Table of contents : List all sections and sub-sections within the business plan.
Business review : Include an overview of the business’s purpose, history, and key objectives.
The market : Analyze the target market, including customer demographics and market needs.
The competition : Evaluate the main competitors and their strengths and weaknesses in the market.

The simple, bold visual aesthetic of this business plan template pairs well with the straightforward approach to the content and various elements of the business plan itself.

Use Venngage’s My Brand Kit to automatically add your brand colors and fonts to your business plan with just a few clicks.

An essential startup business plan should include a clear and compelling value proposition, market analysis, competitive analysis, target audience identification, financial projections, and a well-defined marketing and operational strategy.

For a typical startup, the need to appear disruptive in the industry is important. After all, if you’re not offering anything truly new, why would an investor turn their attention toward your organization. That means establishing a problem and the ways in which you solve it right away.

Startup business plan outline:

The problem : Identify the specific issue or pain point your startup aims to solve.
Target market & opportunity : Define your customers and the potential market size.
The solution : Describe the product or service that addresses the identified problem.
Traction and validation/roadmap : Outline the progress made so far and the future milestones and goals.

Whether it’s a full-scale business plan or, in this case, a pitch deck, the ideal way for a startup to make a splash with its plans is to be bold. This successful business plan example is memorable and aspirational.

In the Venngage editor, you can upload images of your business. Add these images to your plans and reports to make them uniquely your own.

All businesses start out small at first, but that doesn’t mean their communications have to be small. One of the best ways to get investors, lenders and talent on board is to show that you’ve done your due diligence.

Small business plan outline:

Table of contents : List down of all the sections and sub-sections in the business plan.
Business overview : Include a quick overview of what your business is all about, including your mission and goals.
The market : Analyzes who your customers are, what they need, and how big the market is.
The competition : Look into your main competitors and what they’re good at (and not so good at).
Sales and marketing plan : Lay out your game plan for attracting and keeping customers.
Operating plan : Explain how you’ll run the day-to-day operations and manage the business.

In this small business plan example, the content is spread over many pages, which is useful in making lengthy, in-depth research feel less like a chore than packing everyone on as few pages as possible.

Organizations that set out to solve problems rather than earning profits also benefit from creating compelling business plans that stir an emotional response in potential donors, benefactors, potential staff members or even media.

Nonprofit business plan outline:

Table of contents : Lists all sections and sub-sections of your nonprofit business plan.
Introduction : Provide an overview of your mission and purpose.
Goal : State the specific objectives your nonprofit organization aims to achieve.
Impact & strategy : Explain how you plan to create positive change and the methods you will use.

Simplicity is the goal for nonprofits when it comes to business plans, particularly in their early days. Explain the crisis at hand and exactly how your organization will make a difference, which will help donors visualize how their money will be used to help.

Business plans are also helpful for companies that have been around for a while. Whether they’re considering new products to launch or looking for new opportunities, companies can approach business plans from the strategy side of the equation as well.

Strategic business plan outline:

The problem, issue, or job at hand : Define the specific challenge or task the strategic plan addresses.
Approach & methodology : Describe the methods and strategies that will be used to tackle the problem or achieve the objective.

Strategic business plans or strategy infographics should be highly focused on a single area or problem to be solved rather than taking a holistic approach to the entire business. Expanding scope too much can make a strategy seem too difficult to implement.

Easily share your business plan with Venngage’s multiple download options, including PNG, PNG HD, and as an interactive PDF.

One-page business plan example

For organizations with a simple business model, often a one-page business plan is all that’s needed. This is possible in any industry, but the most common are traditional ones like retail, where few complex concepts need to be explained.

This one-page strategic business plan example could be easily replicated for an organization that offers goods or services across multiple channels or one with three core business areas. It’s a good business plan example for companies whose plans can be easily boiled down to a few bullet points per area.

Especially when entering a saturated market, understanding the landscape and players is crucial to understanding how your organization can fit it—and stand out. That’s why centering your business plan around a market analysis is often a good idea.

Market analysis business plan outline:

Table of contents : Lists all sections and sub-sections of the market analysis business plan.
Executive summary : Provide a brief overview of the key points of the market analysis.
Business overview : Summarize your business’s mission, vision and core activities.
The market : Analyze the target market, including customer demographics and market trends.
The competition : Review the main competitors and their market positioning.
Sales & marketing plan : Outline strategies for reaching and engaging customers.
Operating plan : Details the day-to-day operations and management structure.

In this example, the majority of the content and about half the pages are focused on the market analysis, including competitors, trends, pricing, demographics and more. This successful business plan example ensures the artwork and style used perfectly matches the company’s aesthetic, which further reinforces its position in the market.

You can find more memorable business plan templates to customize in the Venngage editor. Browse Venngage’s business plan templates to find plans that work for you and start editing.

Company description business plan example

Depending on the market, focusing on your company story and what makes you different can drive your narrative home with potential investors. By focusing your business plan on a company description, you center yourself and your organization in the minds of your audience.

Company description business plan outline:

Executive summary : Briefly summarize the key components and objectives of the company description section.
Approach & direction : Outline the company’s strategy, goals and the direction it intends to take in achieving them.

This abbreviated plan is a good business plan example. It uses most of the content to tell the organization’s story. In addition to background about the company, potential investors or clients can see how this design firm’s process is different from their rivals.

With Venngage Business , you can collaborate with team members in real-time to create a business plan that will be effective when presenting to investors.

Five-year business plan example

For most startups or young companies, showing potential investors or partners exactly how and when the company will become profitable is a key aspect of presenting a business plan. Whether it’s woven into a larger presentation or stands alone, you should be sure to include your five-year business plan so investors know you’re looking far beyond the present.

With Venngage’s Business Plan Builder , you can customize a schedule like this to quickly illustrate for investors or partners what your revenue targets are for the first three to five years your company is in operation.

The lifeblood of any company is the sales team. These are the energetic folks who bring in new business, develop leads and turn prospects into customers. Focusing your energy on creating a sales business plan would prove to investors that you understand what will make your company money.

Sales business plan outline:

Table of contents : List all sections and subsections within the sales business plan.
Target market : Identify the specific segment or segments of customers the sales efforts will focus on.
Customer profile : Provide detailed descriptions of the ideal customers, including demographics, preferences and needs.
Action plan : Outline the specific steps and strategies to be taken to reach and engage the target market and achieve sales objectives.

In this example sales business plan, several facets of ideal buyers are detailed. These include a perfect customer profile that helps to convey to your audience that customer relationships will be at the heart of your operation.

You can include business infographics in your plan to visualize your goals. And with Venngage’s gallery of images and icons, you can customize the template to better reflect your business ethos.

Company mergers and shakeups are also major reasons for organizations to require strong business planning. Creating new departments, deciding which staff to retain and charting a course forward can be even more complex than starting a business from scratch.

Organization and management business plan outline:

Table of contents : List all sections and subsections within the organization and management business plan.
About us : Provide an overview of the organization, its mission, vision and values.
Project summary : Summarize the key details and objectives of the project.
Project timeline : Outline the milestones and schedule for completing the project.

This organization and management business plan focuses on how the company can optimize operations through a few key organizational projects.

Executive summary for business plan example

Executive summaries give your business plan a strong human touch, and they set the tone for what’s to follow. That could mean having your executive leadership team write a personal note or singling out some huge achievements of which you’re particularly proud in a business plan infographic .

Executive summary business plan outline:

Table of contents : Lists all sections and subsections within the executive summary business plan.
Executive summary : Provide a concise overview of the entire business plan, highlighting key points and objectives.
Statement of problem : Clearly define the specific issue or challenge the business aims to address.
Approach & methodology : Outline the methods and strategies that will be employed to solve the stated problem or achieve the desired goals.

In this executive summary for a business plan, a brief note is accompanied by a few notable achievements that signal the organization and leadership team’s authority in the industry.

Marketing and sales are two sides of the same coin, and clever companies know how they play off each other. That’s why centering your business plan around your marketing and sales strategy can pay dividends when it comes time to find investors and potential partners.

Marketing and sales strategy business plan outline:

Table of contents : List all sections and subsections within the marketing and sales strategy business plan.
Positioning : Describe how the business intends to position its products or services in the market to stand out from competitors.
Value prop : Highlight the unique value proposition that the business offers to its target customers, including its benefits and advantages.
Marketing strategy : Outline the overall approach and tactics that will be used to promote the products or services and attract customers.

This marketing and sales business plan example is the picture of a sleek, modern aesthetic, which is appropriate across many industries and will speak volumes to numbers-obsesses sales and marketing leaders.

Do business plans really help? Well, here’s some math for you; in 1981, Apple had just gone public and was in the midst of marketing an absolute flop , the Apple III computer. The company’s market cap, or total estimated market value, could hit $3 trillion this year.

Did this Apple business plan make the difference? No, it’s not possible to attribute the success of Apple entirely to this business plan from July 1981, but this ancient artifact goes to show that even the most groundbreaking companies need to take an honest stock of their situation.

Apple’s 1981 business plan example pdf covers everything from the market landscape for computing to the products that founder Steve Jobs expects to roll out over the next few years, and the advanced analysis contained in the document shows how strategic Jobs and other Apple executives were in those early days.

Inviting strangers to stay in your house for the weekend seemed like a crazy concept before Airbnb became one of the world’s biggest companies. Like all disruptive startups, Airbnb had to create a robust, active system from nothing.

Airbnb business plan outline:

Problem : Identify the specific challenge or need in the accommodation industry that the Airbnb business aims to address.
Solution : Describe how Airbnb’s platform provides a solution to the identified problem by connecting hosts with guests.
Market validation : Demonstrate through research or evidence that there is demand for Airbnb’s services.
Market size : Estimate the total addressable market for Airbnb’s accommodation services.
Product : Detail the features and functionalities of the Airbnb platform for both hosts and guests.
Business model : Explain how Airbnb generates revenue and sustains its operations.
Market adoption : Discuss the rate at which Airbnb’s services are being embraced by hosts and guests.
Competition : Identify other players in the accommodation industry offering similar services to Airbnb.
Competitive advantages : Highlight the unique strengths or advantages that set Airbnb apart from its competitors.

As this Airbnb business plan pitch deck example shows, for companies that are introducing entirely new concepts, it’s helpful not to get too into the weeds. Explain the problem simply and boil down the essence of your solution into a few words; in this case, “A web platform where users can rent out their space” perfectly sums up this popular company.

Sequoia Capital is one of the most successful venture capital firms in the world, backing startups that now have a combined stock market value of more than $1 trillion, according to a Forbes analysis .

For young companies and startups that want to play in the big leagues, tailoring your pitch to something that would appeal to a company like Sequoia Capital is a good idea. That’s why the company has a standard business plan format it recommends .

Sequoia capital business plan outline:

Company purpose : Clarify the core reason for the business and its overarching goals.
Problems : Identify specific challenges or pain points that the business aims to solve.
Solution : Describe how the business addresses the identified problems with its products or services.
Market potential : Assess the size and growth opportunities within the target market for the business.
Competition : Analyze existing competitors and their strengths and weaknesses in the market.
Business model : Outline how the business plans to generate revenue and sustain its operations.
Our team : Introduce the key members of the team and their relevant expertise and experience.
Financials : Provide projections and forecasts for the financial performance of the business.
Vision : Articulate the long-term aspirations and goals that the business seeks to achieve.

Using Sequoia Capital’s business plan example means being simple and clear with your content, like the above deck. Note how no slide contains much copy, and even when all slides appear on the screen at once, the text is legible.

Use Venngage to design business plans that will impress investors

Not every business plan, pitch deck or one-sheeter will net you billions in investment dollars, but every entrepreneur should be adept at crafting impressive, authoritative and informative business plans.

Whether you use one of the inspirational templates shared here or you want to go old school and mimic Apple’s 1981 business plan, using Venngage’s Business Plan Builder helps you bring your company’s vision to life.

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How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am

How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.

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Drafting the Summary

An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.

Ask for Help

When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.

After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business.

The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.

Numbers-based Goals

Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.

Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.

Intangible Goals

Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.

The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.

If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.

This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.

You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.

Business Operations Costs

Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.

Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.

Other Costs

Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.

Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.

What are some common mistakes in a business plan?

The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business, an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

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Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.

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12 Best Company Profile Template to Present Your Business

Written by: Olujinmi Oluwatoni

Whether you’re pitching your product or service to investors, clients, or partners, a compelling business profile can be the catalyst you need to win their confidence and secure deals.

A company profile is an excellent way to present who you are, what you do and, most importantly, why it matters. It goes beyond showcasing your company; it articulates your brand’s essence.

A poorly crafted company profile can cast a lasting shadow on your brand. Hence, it's crucial to put your best foot forward when creating one. To assist you, we've curated some professionally designed company profile templates you can easily customize right away. We’ve also included some of Visme’s features and tools to make your design experience seamless.

Let's get to it!

Before we dive in, here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit company profile templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

What Is a Company Profile Template

The Importance of a Company Profile Template

12 best company profile templates, company profile faqs.

A company profile template is a designed framework that offers a professional snapshot of a business.
It typically includes key information, such as the company's background, mission, products or services, achievements and other relevant details.
A company profile template enhances consistency, saves time, offers adaptability, simplifies updates, ensures professionalism and promotes effective collaboration.
Visme offers an extensive library of company profile templates , features and tools to help you and your team create excellent company profiles.

What is a Company Profile Template?

A company profile template is a pre-designed framework that provides a professional overview of a business . It is an excellent way to showcase your company's essence and offerings.

A well-designed company profile creates a positive first impression on potential clients, partners, investors and other stakeholders. It is suitable for use in different contexts, such as creating presentations, proposals or marketing materials.

A typical company profile includes information such as the company's history, mission, vision, products or services rendered, target market, team members, achievements, pricing information and more.

A pitch deck and a company profile share similarities as tools for introducing a business. However, a pitch deck is brief and tailored for selling ideas or seeking funding. In contrast, a company profile is a comprehensive marketing tool used to introduce your company to a broader audience.

Creating the perfect profile for your company can be challenging without a template to work with.

Below are the benefits of using a company profile template

A company profile template ensures consistency in branding, corporate messaging, representation and business detail as well as business documents and presentations.
Using a template saves time by providing a pre-designed framework that only requires customization rather than starting from scratch.
A well-designed profile template enhances the professional image of your company. It ensures that the information is organized clearly and creates a positive impression on clients, partners, investors and other stakeholders.
A good profile template can be adapted easily to fit different purposes or changing business needs or landscapes. Whether it's a new product launch, a significant milestone, or a shift in focus, the template can be modified to keep the company profile current.
Templates provide a structured framework for collaboration. When multiple individuals or teams contribute to a company profile, maintaining cohesiveness and structure becomes easier.

Visme’s company profile templates are designed to be adaptable to different purposes and audiences. You can customize the template based on your specific business requirements.

If your team needs to collaborate on a company profile, Visme allows you to do this seamlessly. Our collaboration tool allows teams and organizations of all sizes to work together on projects in real time.

Hey executives! Looking to cut design costs?

Spend less time on presentations and more time strategizing
Ensure your brand looks and feels visually consistent across all your organization's documents
Impress clients and stakeholders with boardroom ready presentations

In this section, we have listed twelve of the best company profile templates you can use to create one for your company right away

Our professionally crafted company profile examples are easily customizable to suit various needs and projects. You can effortlessly customize them by swapping, removing, or adding sections, adjusting text and fonts, brand colors, visuals and more.

And if you’re unable to find a template you like, you can always use Visme’s AI Designer to whip up a custom design for you based on prompts.

Here’s what one of Visme's clients had to say about our templates and features:

Cassandra C.

Graphic Designer & Business Owner

1. Technology Company Presentation Template

This company profile template is a perfect framework for providing a comprehensive overview of your tech startup to investors or clients. The presentation features a stylish purple background with white and pink text, ensuring optimal visibility and clarity. It also offers ample space to showcase your business without overcrowding the text.

You can utilize the dedicated sections to highlight your company's history, team, services, unique offerings, pricing and contact details. You can also add a link to website's contact us page if that's you're preferred communication.

Visme’s brand wizard makes it a breeze to turn this template into a document that truly reflects your brand identity . Simply input your company website and the Wizard will collect your colors, fonts, icons and more to generate a cohesive brand kit. It will even recommend templates that align with your branding.

2. Tangerine Presentation Template

Utilize this vibrant template to present business concepts to clients and investors, introduce project teams, or unveil new products and services.

The template highlights your company's creative essence with captivating shapes, pooping colors and lively themes. Dominated by orange hues, the design effortlessly captures attention.

The sections include an about us page, product showcase, user reach, SWOT analysis, mobile description, pricing details and more.

You can add flair by transforming this company profile example into a captivating page-turner with Visme's flipbook effect . This feature lets your audience virtually flip through pages, providing a document-like experience.

3. Retro Neon Startup Presentation Template

This retro-futuristic presentation template would work exceptionally well for a company targeted at young people or a startup specializing in quirky hardware tech.

It uses moody, neon colors, inspirational graphics and storytelling design to captivate your audience’s attention and keep them reading. The slides incorporate dynamic graphics—reminiscent of vintage neon signs—to create an engaging and visually striking appeal.

Sections covered in this template include about us, mission statement, team members, services offered and business statistics. With Visme's data visualization tools , including charts and widgets, you can present data-driven reasons why potential customers should choose you over competitors.

4. Terminal Presentation Template

Enhance your software business presentations and make a strong impact with this sleek terminal template. Whether you want to showcase your business to investors or introduce new offerings to clients, this template is a great choice.

This example of a company profile boasts stylish gradients, clean icons and user-friendly layouts, ensuring a professional and modern impact on your audience. The gradient color scheme captures attention while maintaining readability.

With a detailed presentation of your company overview, innovative strategies, SWOT analysis and financial details , this template helps you to present a compelling presentation.

The best part? This design is entirely customizable, making it adaptable to any product or brand.

If you have trouble crafting content for various sections, utilize Visme's AI writer to generate well-written initial drafts based on your prompts. You can also effortlessly refine, summarize, or edit your content using this AI tool.

5. Colorful CMYK Presentation Template

Want to show the artsy, fun side of your business? Build your company profile with this colorful CMYK presentation template.

CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and key(black) and this presentation template boasts a vibrant and diverse color palette inspired by this color model. The sections in this template cover diverse topics, from company details to project highlights, all presented in a bold and visually cohesive manner.

You can infuse more fun into this presentation by integrating diverse animations , such as stylish text and object transitions, along with animated icons, illustrations, characters and gestures.

6. Rebel Presentation Template

This rebel presentation template is a befitting design for a company looking to break the mold and differentiate itself from the competition. The template features dark, intense hues, conveying a sense of rebellion and nonconformity, as well as striking, greenish-yellow graphics that symbolize freshness.

The sections covered in this template include about us, services offered, business channels, relevant quotes, stats and contact details.

Use subtle hover effects or clickable pop-ups to include additional information like testimonials and technical details without cluttering the page. You can also allow seamless navigation by linking contact buttons, social media icons, or websites directly to relevant pages using interactive links.

7. Tiffany Startup Presentation Template

Looking for a modern, sleek company profile template that can be used to present your startup to customers, clients and investors? This template fits the bill.

The template blends shades of blue, creating a calm and professional aesthetic. It also integrates striking stock photos and icons to enhance visual appeal and reinforce key messages. Utilize its sections to emphasize your company overview, values, mission, team members, services and more.

If you prefer to customize the visuals, explore Visme’s vast library of high-quality icons and stock photos to find the perfect fit for your needs. If you want to give your existing photos a professional look, utilize Visme’s AI Touch Up tool .

Choose the photo you'd like to improve, then click “Edit” on the top left bar to access a range of touch-up options such as upscale, unblur, erase and replace or remove unwanted background. ‘

Though this template was designed for startups, it can easily be customized for established businesses.

8. Sky Background Company Profile

Showcase your creative projects in a visually striking manner and make a lasting impression on clients or investors with this elegant template.

The template boasts a contemporary design, crisp layout and refined red color palette that makes a bold statement. Its engaging slides incorporate storytelling, guiding clients or investors on why your solution stands out and outshines alternatives.

Utilize this template to present your company's plans for the future, your services, financial performance, team members and more.

Use Visme’s Presenter Studio to record a custom presentation of your company profile for prospects, investors and busy executives.

Watch this video to learn how to record your presentations using Visme’s presenter studio.

9. Sleek Presentation Template

This business profile template is perfect for showcasing tech products, but it can be customized to demonstrate any other product or service your company provides.

Featuring a contrasting blue and white background cream backdrop, the template is stylish and appealing, retaining sufficient space for essential information. Visual aids such as images, icons, charts and graphs help you present your content in an organized and engaging way. While there is a clear focus on style and general appeal, the design is still business-oriented and professional.

To make this company profile even more appealing, put your creativity to good use with Visme’s AI image generator . The wizard turns your text prompts into images in different output styles, such as photos, paintings, pencil drawings, etc.

10. Stratagem Presentation

Share your company narrative detailing your organization's plans and strategies with this compelling presentation template.

This template maximizes visual aids like charts, icons and images to tell your story effectively while maintaining a clean design.

Provide an overview of your company, covering goals, business processes, teams, services, products and more using this versatile presentation template.

With Visme's user-friendly share and publish feature , effortlessly distribute your finalized company profile to your target audience in various formats, such as PDF, PPTX, MP4 and HTML5, or generate a shareable link.

Curious about your presentation's impact on investors or clients? Utilize Visme's analytics to track engagement metrics like unique visits, average viewing time, duration, IP addresses and more.

11. Tesla Corporate Presentation

Whether you're introducing your recently established company, proposing a business concept, or unveiling a new product, feature, or service, this template will help you make an impactful presentation.

Its dynamic blend of blue and white, paired with compelling visuals and bold icons, ensures your presentation captures attention.

The template includes dedicated sections for key elements such as company introduction, team members, SWOT analysis, your process, product samples, clients across locations, timeline, testimonials and more.

Manually entering all this information on multiple company profile pages can quickly become cumbersome. Utilize Visme's dynamic fields tool to easily update data across your company profile.

12. Neuro Presentation Template

The best part of this template apart is its rich utilization of appealing data visualization tools like flowcharts, maps and pie charts, ensuring a clear and concise presentation of key statistics and figures.

Visme's collaboration feature allows team members to contribute to and review the consulting proposal individually or in real-time. The workflow tool enhances task management. You can easily assign tasks, set deadlines, monitor the progress of work and make corrections—all within a unified platform

Q. What Should a Company Profile Include?

A good company profile should provide a complete overview of the business. It should offer a written representation of the company and reflect everything it offers. It should include your company’s branding, history, culture and values; team members; products and services; contact information and testimonials. Be sure to include relevant numbers and dates.

Q. What Is the Basic Structure of a Company Profile?

The ideal company profile would have the following sections:

Introduction: This section briefly introduces the company. It includes details such as the company's name and contact details.
Mission and Vision Statement: You should clearly state the company's mission and vision and how these statements guide the company's actions in this section.
Key Personnel: Introduce key team members, executives and leadership in this section. You can also include brief bios highlighting their roles.
Products/Services: This section details the range of products or services you're offering. You can also highlight the unique selling points and competitive advantages.
Clientele/Projects: Showcase major clients, successful collaborations and significant projects in this section.
Financial Overview: Give a summary of your company's financial status, key financial indicators and growth trends in this section.
Testimonials: This section should feature top customer reviews that resonate with your brand values and highlight your key benefits.
Call to Action/Contact Information: Provide your contact details for further inquiries or partnerships.

Q. How Long Does It Take To Write a Company Profile?

To give an estimate, it can take anything from a few hours to several days, depending on the level of planning and coordination.

However, the time needed to write a company profile depends on several factors, such as whether you are starting from scratch or using a template, whether you already have the needed information on hand, the desired length of the profile, the complexity of the business, the level of detail required and the ease of collaboration between the team members involved.

A straightforward profile for a small business may be completed more quickly, while a detailed profile for a large corporation with multiple divisions might take longer.

Highlight the Best of Your Company with Visme

A company profile is a great way to market your business and communicate your company’s offerings. It is an incredible marketing tool that can help build and reinforce your company's brand identity and reputation.

Visme’s company profile templates are easy to customize and offer access to several built-in design assets to turn your company profile into the storytelling presentation it needs.

You'll also access a comprehensive suite of cutting-edge features, including an intuitive editor, collaboration tool, presenter tool, data visualizations and many more to enhance your creations.

Beyond company profiles, Visme empowers you to create professional business plans , marketing plans , video presentations , training materials and more.

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About the Author

Olujinmi is a Content writer for Visme who creates human-first SEO content. She loves helping businesses smash their ROI goals with strategic content development and optimization. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her composing songs.

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ExxonMobil plans study to explore oil and gas in Indonesia

The specific location for exploration is classified, but activities are expected to commence by the end of the year.

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US energy giant ExxonMobil is set to conduct a joint study to identify potential oil and gas reserves in Indonesia, according to the Indonesia Business Post .

The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Arifin Tasrif, has indicated that while the specific location for exploration is classified, activities are expected to commence by the end of the year.

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Malaysia Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Market Volumes and ...

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Related Company Profiles

Exxon mobil corp, pt pertamina (persero), petronas gas bhd.

“They will begin by the end of this year. They will conduct seismic surveys and exploration. The specific area is classified,” said Arifin during a visit to the Banyu Urip Field in the Cepu Block, Central Java.

The commitment from ExxonMobil is seen as a key move to address Indonesia’s declining oil production and enhance the country’s energy security.

The Head of the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Task Force, Dwi Soetjipto, stressed the importance of ExxonMobil’s exploration efforts.

“Exploration activities like this are critically needed because the national oil production curve can only be improved through the discovery of new, large reserves or what we call a ‘giant discovery’,” Dwi was quoted as saying.

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ExxonMobil has previously collaborated with Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE), a subsidiary of state oil and gas company PT Pertamina, on carbon capture storage/carbon capture utilisation storage (CCS/CCUS) projects in Indonesia.

PHE and ExxonMobil have a CCS/CCUS technology hub offshore south-east Sumatra and identified the potential to store up to three gigatonnes of CO₂ in Pertamina’s fields, with a $2bn (Rp31.27trn) investment.

The CCS Hub development with ExxonMobil offers a CO₂ storage opportunity and opens new business avenues in South East Asia’s decarbonisation efforts.

Separately, last month, ExxonMobil announced its intention to transfer operations of assets under two production-sharing contracts in Malaysia to the national energy company Petronas, including the long-producing Tapis oilfield.

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550+ Business Plan Examples to Launch Your Business

Need help writing your business plan? Explore over 550 industry-specific business plan examples for inspiration.

Find your business plan example

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View all sample business plans

Example business plan format

Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format . You'll find that the business plan samples in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections:

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your business plan and is ideally only one to two pages. You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan.

Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements (if you are raising money).

Products & services

The products & services chapter of your business plan is where the real meat of your plan lives. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and any traction that proves that it truly meets the need you identified.

This is your chance to explain why you're in business and that people care about what you offer. It needs to go beyond a simple product or service description and get to the heart of why your business works and benefits your customers.

Market analysis

Conducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base.

Competition

Part of defining your opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage may be. To do this effectively you need to get to know your competitors just as well as your target customers. Every business will have competition, if you don't then you're either in a very young industry or there's a good reason no one is pursuing this specific venture.

To succeed, you want to be sure you know who your competitors are, how they operate, necessary financial benchmarks, and how your business will be positioned. Start by identifying who your competitors are or will be during your market research. Then leverage competitive analysis tools like the competitive matrix and positioning map to solidify where your business stands in relation to the competition.

Marketing & sales

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments. You'll address how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.

The operations section in our business plan examples covers the day-to-day workflows for your business to deliver your product or service. What's included here fully depends on the type of business. Typically you can expect to add details on your business location, sourcing and fulfillment, use of technology, and any partnerships or agreements that are in place.

Milestones & metrics

The milestones section is where you lay out strategic milestones to reach your business goals.

A good milestone clearly lays out the parameters of the task at hand and sets expectations for its execution. You'll want to include a description of the task, a proposed due date, who is responsible, and eventually a budget that's attached. You don't need extensive project planning in this section, just key milestones that you want to hit and when you plan to hit them.

You should also discuss key metrics, which are the numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common data points worth tracking include conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, profit, etc.

Company & team

Use this section of your business plan to describe your current team and who you need to hire. If you intend to pursue funding, you'll need to highlight the relevant experience of your team members. Basically, this is where you prove that this is the right team to successfully start and grow the business. You will also need to provide a quick overview of your legal structure and history if you're already up and running.

Financial projections

Your financial plan should include a sales and revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You may not have established financials of any kind at this stage. Not to worry, rather than getting all of the details ironed out, focus on making projections and strategic forecasts for your business. You can always update your financial statements as you begin operations and start bringing in actual accounting data.

Now, if you intend to pitch to investors or submit a loan application, you'll also need a "use of funds" report in this business plan section. This outlines how you intend to leverage any funding for your business and how much you're looking to acquire. Like the rest of your financials, this can always be updated later on.

The appendix isn't a required element of your business plan. However, it is a useful place to add any charts, tables, definitions, legal notes, or other critical information that supports your business plan. These are often lengthier or out-of-place information that simply didn't work naturally into the structure of your plan. You'll notice that in these business plan examples, the appendix mainly includes extended financial statements.

Types of business plans explained

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. To get the most out of your business plan, it's best to find a format that suits your needs. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan

The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used for external purposes. Typically this is the type of plan you'll need when applying for funding or pitching to investors. It can also be used when training or hiring employees, working with vendors, or in any other situation where the full details of your business must be understood by another individual.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template. It encourages you to build connections between every element of your business. It's faster to write out and update, and much easier for you, your team, and anyone else to visualize your business operations.

One-page business plan

The true middle ground between the business model canvas and a traditional business plan is the one-page business plan . This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business.

By starting with a one-page plan , you give yourself a minimal document to build from. You'll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences making it much easier to elaborate or expand sections into a longer-form business plan.

Growth planning

Growth planning is more than a specific type of business plan. It's a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, forecast, review, and refine based on your performance.

It holds all of the benefits of the single-page plan, including the potential to complete it in as little as 27 minutes . However, it's even easier to convert into a more detailed business plan thanks to how heavily it's tied to your financials. The overall goal of growth planning isn't to just produce documents that you use once and shelve. Instead, the growth planning process helps you build a healthier company that thrives in times of growth and remains stable through times of crisis.

It's faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your business plan is always up-to-date.

Download a free sample business plan template

Ready to start writing your own business plan but aren't sure where to start? Download our free business plan template that's been updated for 2024.

This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan sample is designed to make planning easy. It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales. It includes additional instructions for how to write each section and is formatted to be SBA-lender approved. All you need to do is fill in the blanks.

How to use an example business plan to help you write your own

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How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at business plan examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started. Here's how to get the most out of a business plan sample.

Choose a business plan example from a similar type of company

You don't need to find an example of a business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match up exactly with the business plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a business plan sample that's related to the type of business you're starting.

For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.

Use a business plan example as a guide

Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying an example of a business plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your business plan to be a useful tool for starting a business —and getting funding if you need it.

One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market , and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful.

You'll also look at where you stand among your competition (and everyone has competition), and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet. Looking at an example of a business plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business.

If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, our business planning guide is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template .

Think of business planning as a process, instead of a document

Think about business planning as something you do often , rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business. It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page.

Adjust your business plan regularly to use it as a business management tool

Keep in mind that businesses that use their business plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of a part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis.

If things are going well, your business plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast. Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities—it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business.

Prepare to pitch your business

If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides.

Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest. Luckily we have a round-up of real-world pitch deck examples used by successful startups that you can review and reference as you build your pitch.

For more resources, check out our full Business Pitch Guide .

Ready to get started?

Now that you know how to use an example of a business plan to help you write a plan for your business, it's time to find the right one.

Use the search bar below to get started and find the right business plan example for your business idea.

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Disaster recovery planning and management

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6 business continuity plan software providers to know

Business continuity planning software can help organizations create a plan that automates time-consuming processes and accounts for critical aspects such as regulatory compliance..

Brien Posey

Developing a business continuity plan can be an overwhelming task, particularly for larger organizations. Business continuity plan software can help ease the process.

Business continuity encompasses the processes that get an organization back to normal operations after a disruption. Depending on the industry, the amount of downtime a business experiences can result in loss of reputation or even legal action from customers. Organizations can manually create business continuity plans , but might not want to risk the possibility of human error in a critical process.

Business continuity software does more than just outline the details that need to be included in an organization's planning effort. It can help identify key risks and existing single points of failure within the organization's operations. A good business continuity plan software package can help the organization maintain regulatory compliance as well as automate some of the more time-consuming tasks associated with the planning process, such as gathering data with a business impact analysis .

The sections below outline some of the more prominent software options for risk management. While some of these options might best be described as full-blown business continuity plan software suites, others focus on specific aspects of the business continuity planning process.

The following list is based on the writer's research and professional insights into the business continuity and disaster recovery market. In choosing featured vendors, the author focused on ease of use and range of features.

This list is unranked and published in alphabetical order.

Agility Recovery

Agility Recovery specializes in helping businesses acquire the resources they need in times of crisis. This might include replacement IT hardware or fuel for generators. In addition to business continuity testing and tabletop exercises, the company also offers Agility Planner.

Agility Planner is designed to be easy to use and helps organizations create a business continuity plan. Where possible, these plans are prepopulated, using the organization's own data, all with an eye toward maintaining compliance. A built-in reporting engine makes it easy to generate reports on the organization's emergency preparedness.

Agility Recovery does not publicly disclose pricing information.

Archer Engage might best be described as a collaborative platform that is geared toward risk management. The idea is that to be effective, risk management practices must be adopted throughout the organization, and Archer Engage provides a way for stakeholders to participate in the risk management process.

Risk management is all about balancing the potential financial impact of risks against the cost of mitigating those risks . Archer Engage provides decision-makers with information about the potential economic impact of various risks as well as an analysis of risk prevention options.

Archer does not publicly disclose pricing information.

Everbridge provides business continuity planning software, but also focuses on workforce safety, IT-related disruptions, physical security and public safety.

Everbridge provides options for developing business continuity plans, particularly for retail and manufacturing. Everbridge has designed its software so that business continuity plans become part of an end-to-end protective tool revolving around an interactive dashboard that provides risk intelligence. The company also offers a mass messaging feature designed to deliver notifications to employees who are affected by an incident.

Everbridge does not publicly disclose pricing information.

Fusion Risk Management

Fusion Risk Management provides risk management software options, but also focuses on operational resilience, third-party risk management, IT and security risks, crisis and incident management, and business continuity management.

The company's business continuity management software, Fusion Framework System, works by charting all of a business's processes. This helps the software map dependencies and identify business impact tolerances . The software also enables organizations to perform what-if analysis and various exercises as a way of improving operational resiliency . Recently, Fusion Risk Management also integrated generative AI-powered assistants as an additional tool that customers can use in the resilience planning process.

Fusion Risk Management does not publicly disclose pricing information.

LogicManager

LogicManager is designed to act as a comprehensive enterprise risk management suite. Business continuity is only one of the software's core functions. The software also helps with IT governance and cybersecurity, third-party risk management, compliance, internal audit management, financial controls and HR risk management. Users can manage all these areas through a central risk management hub.

Because LogicManager is designed for enterprise use, risks can be defined on a per-location basis; for example, an organization might have one location that is especially prone to flooding. LogicManager also provides native integration with more than 500 business applications, making it easier to work with an organization's existing data.

LogicManager does not publicly disclose pricing information, but the company does offer a 90-day free trial.

Riskonnect Business Continuity Management software is designed to assist organizations with disaster readiness.

Riskonnect's software is based around a series of KPIs and enables businesses to experiment with various what-if models. Perhaps more importantly, Riskonnect detects hidden vulnerabilities that an organization has not addressed. It also automates the review, update and approval cycle. This process is critical, since without regular reviews, business continuity plans quickly become outdated.

Riskonnect does not publicly disclose pricing information.

Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP and a commercial astronaut candidate. In his more than 30 years in IT, he has served as a lead network engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America.

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U.S. Unveils Price Limits for 10 Costly or Common Medications

The Biden administration said it would have saved $6 billion had the new prices been in effect last year.

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A syringe with the word Enbrel on it is held in two hands.

By Noah Weiland and Rebecca Robbins

Noah Weiland covers federal health policy, and Rebecca Robbins covers the pharmaceutical industry.

The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled the results of landmark drug price negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical companies, allowing President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to cast themselves as confronting the drug industry on behalf of older Americans at a critical moment in the presidential campaign.

The negotiated prices, which take effect in 2026, are expected to save billions of dollars for Medicare, which is funded by taxpayers. But they will lead to direct out-of-pocket savings for only a subset of the millions of older Americans who take the drugs subject to negotiations.

Other provisions of the law that created the drug negotiation program, such as capping patients’ expenses for insulin and their yearly out-of-pocket drug costs, will do more to save older Americans money at the pharmacy counter.

The 10 drugs subject to negotiations include widely used blood thinners and arthritis medications. Had the new prices been in effect last year, administration officials said, Medicare would have saved $6 billion, which would have reduced its spending on those drugs by 22 percent.

“This is a fight all of us have been fighting for a long time: taking on Big Pharma,” Mr. Biden said at an event in Maryland celebrating the announcement, where he and Ms. Harris had their first joint public appearance since she took over the Democratic presidential ticket.

The negotiations, a longtime aspiration of Democrats, are the first that the federal government has directly conducted with drugmakers on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries. Mr. Biden on Thursday recalled working on legislation as a senator in the 1970s that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate prices directly.

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IT Services Business Plan Template

IT Services Business Plan

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Why You Need a Business Plan for IT Company

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Executive Summary

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How to Write an IT Tech Startup Business Plan [Sample Template]

A Sample IT Tech Startup Business Plan Template

2. Executive Summary

3. Our Products and Services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

6. SWOT Analysis

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

8. Our Target Market

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

10. Sales Forecast

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

12. Our Pricing Strategy

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

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1. Startups

2. Feasibility Studies

3. Internal Use

4. Strategic Initiatives

5. Business Acquisition or Repositioning

Executive Summary

Market Opportunity

Competitive Landscape Analysis

Target Audience

Marketing Strategy

Key Features and Benefits

Pricing and Revenue

1. Executive Summary

Company Description

Executive Summary Business Plan Examples

Tips for Writing Your Executive Summary

Market Opportunity Business Plan Example

Tips for Writing Your Market Opportunity Section

3. Competitive Landscape Analysis

Competitive Landscape Business Plan Example

Tips for Writing Your Competitive Landscape

4. Target Audience

Sample business plan format