Follow the scheme below to write your business plan

• 20 slides or less, about 1 minute per slide to be read
• Order slides to introduce your idea / company in a story, don't give too much information
• Don't use fonts too small, or hard to read
• Slides must be printable on a black and white printer too
• Company structure: staff, location
• Company purpose: describe the business in a sentence
• Product: describe all product and services including intellectual property
• Market analysis: overview of market trends at present and real margins to develop for a business like yours
• Problem and solution: describe your idea’s value proposition, problems you could find and how to solve them
• Timing: why it is time to start your business, historical evolution of your business, and future trends
• Market: describe the profile of your clients
• Competitors: list of competitors, and the advantages of your products / services
• Business model: pricing, market size, lifetime of your business, marketing, sales & distribution channels, customer list
• Team: list and resume of founders & management
• Financial statement : profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow, capitalization

To know more, see the business plan template below:

Business Plan for a Startup Business

The business plan consists of a description of the company and several financial worksheets, to think of your business in a systematic way. Writing a business plan takes several weeks, but you will save a lot of time and money later, and avoid an economic disastrous. Our business plan template is suitable for any business, but we suggest you modify it emphasizing innovative ideas of your business to make a good impression to investors. Pay particular attention to financial data. If you need assistance to write your business plan, Contatta i nostri esperti.

Founders

Your Business Name
Full Address
Tel.
Fax
E-Mail

I. Contents

I. Contents
II. Summary
III. Company description
IV. Products / services
V. Marketing plan
VI. Operational data
VII. Management
VIII. Financial statement
IX. Startup costs
X. Financial plan
XI. Appendices
XII. Rewriting the plan

II. Summary

Write a draft now, and rewrite it later. Be enthusiastic but at the same time professional. Write in just 1 page everything about your business, owners and executive boards, your products and/or services, customers,capitals for start up, and return of investment.

III. Company description

Describe the company business, mission, goal and objectives.
Write a report about your industry, the present market and if it is an high potential growth market, a short and long term forecast, why your company will success in the market, and which factors will make the company succeed.
Mission is what your company will do. Why people will appreciate your products and services. What will be your market, what is the reason to run the business.
The goal is what you want your company to be in the future (for example, to become a successful company leader in the market of ... )
Objectives are progress will be made year by year such as annual sales.
Describe the company strengths, your management background experience, competencies, and skills.
Legal form of ownership and why you have selected this form.

IV. Products / services

Describe accurately your products and/or services including technical details, drawings, brochures, pricing, etc.
Emphasize the key factors that will give you competitive advantages, such as the high quality of your products, and/or or unique services, but report also disadvantages (if any).

V. Marketing plan

Market - no business cannot success without marketing. The Market research is necessary to make sure you’re on the right way. Time spent in writing a detailed research for the business plan is a good investment. Market research should consists of both primary and secondary. Because the marketing plan is the centerpiece of all sales projection, report the truth, giving sources, statistics, and numbers.

• Primary market research consists of using the information given by a homemade research, such as doing a survey or interviews to know about preferences of your potential clients, or using internet to see how many competitors you have
• Secondary research use public information such as industry profiles, newspapers & magazines articles, chambers of commerce data, and trade publications

Economics - describe in details your business:
Market size, % market share, present demand of the market, future trends in consumer preferences, product /services development, opportunity for your business.
List all difficulties you will find to entering this market with a new company:

• High start up capitals
• High production costs
• High marketing costs
• Long time for a new brand recognition from clients
• Long time and high costs for training
• Long time to tweak unique technology
• High logistic and shipping costs
• High speed in technology changing
• Unreliable governments
• Unsuspected change in local or global economy

Product / Service features and benefits - describe your products / services first as you see them, then as your customers will see them.
List all distinctive features emphasizing advantages compared to competitors, including also a toll free number for after-sale services, warranty terms and refund policy.
Outstanding features allow a product be sold at higher price (benefits). Luxury accessories can be considered a feature for a car, high market price is the benefit.

Customers - the main difference is if your company will sell directly to consumers (b2c), or to other businesses (b2b).
Describe your targeted customer characteristics, and locations.
If you sell consumer goods through distributors and retailers, you must satisfy both end consumer and middleman businesses needs.

For b2c, list the most important groups, and build a demographic profile for each customer group as follows:

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Education, Job, Income level
• Other details useful to your business

For b2b, the demographic profile is:

• Location
• Category of industry
• Business (factory, wholesaler, retail)
• Size of firm
• Pricing
• Other details useful to your business

Competitors - list below major companies will compete with you, detailing if direct or indirect competitor, if competitor at 100% or just for certain products, certain customers, or in certain locations?
Direct competitors offer similar products/services, indirect competitors run a different type of business, but his products/services could influence your business. For example, the airport shuttle bus compete with taxi.
Customize the Competitive Analysis Table below deleting or adding the key factors that better define you industry, and identifying your most important competitors.
Be very honest while filling the table, and think as an independent client numbering the column My firm.
Then analyze strong and weak points for each factor, check major competitors, and number the importance of each competitive factor to the customer from 1 (essential factor) to 5 (not ver important).

Competitive analysis table

After checking carefully the competitive analysis table, you will be able to list competitive advantages and disadvantages, and to know which kind of are the potential clients.

Strategy - define a marketing strategy that will fit for your clientele market.

Promotion - spell out the image you want to project to targeted customers. Define a budget for promotion that includes the study of your company image and the cost of advertising, before start up (start up budget) and ongoing promotion (costs will be included into operating plan).
Most people forget of assigning money to promotion before opening a new firms. To have a vast clientele, clients must be informed about your products. Define which media (TV, newspaper, magazines, free press, exhibitions, brochures, etc.) better suite your products according to your promotional budget.

Distribution - specify the sale channels chosen, and why, trough distributors and wholesalers, retailers, directly (online, catalogs), and the sales force involved such as agents and representatives.

Pricing strategy - according to the competitive analysis table, and comparing your prices with competitors, describe your pricing policy. Hitting the right price for a product is very hard, anyway we suggest small companies compete on high quality products and services rather than on a low price strategy. Low prices don’t give you enough margin for developing business and ad campaign. A small company that put on low price to find clients, will go bankrupt within the year.

Sales forecast - write a projection of your monthly sales, paying particular attention on if seasonal products. Use historical sales, or a your competitor data to do 2 forecasts:
best case: your expected sales
worst case: your sales in case of many inconveniences occurred (if you produce umbrellas and it will be a winter without raining days).

Location - location is the key factor for a shop or restaurant, for an online business location is no important. If customers will come to your site, location is one of key success factor, including parking.
Many success online companies were born at home.

VI. Operational plan

Location - detail your location, including city planning, description of building, square meters, water, electricity power, etc. List all factors why you choose this location: distance from airport, easy parking, access to highways, easy materials handling. Count up renting, maintenance, and utilities costs.

Legal requirements - licensing, city planning, regulations, permits, worker health, workplace, patents (if any).

Production - describe your production techniques, business hour, production costs, quality control method, after sale service.

Suppliers - list all suppliers, including products, prices, payment, delivery time, reliability. Specify how much fluctuating price of raw materials will weigh upon your business.

Workforce - number of employees and skill required, training, existing staff, salary. Write the doing list for each worker.

Inventory - list all materials you will keep in your inventory and its investment (value of stock), turnover, time for new ordering.

Payment terms - write something about credit policies, terms of payment offered your customers (why and how) and discounts in case of prompt payment. If you offer 60-90days credit, report carefully when your clients should provide payments and policy for slow paying customers: email, phone call, letter.

VII. Management

List position of owners and key employees including resumes. Write a management chart with key functions and name of person in charge. It is very important to know who will manage your business, his skills and previous experience. Indicate also the second option for main positions, in case of short or long problem with first choice. Here is a list of people be listed:
Board of directors
Management board
Attorney
Accountant
Insurance
Bank
Key advisors (if any)

VIII. Financial statement

Include financial statements of founders and first stockholders. Founders often have a hand at financing the business, and investors want to know their personal assets.

IX. Startup costs

Describe in details the criteria of your forecasts of start up costs. Underestimating the costs of opening a new business will leave your business without sufficient capitals. The best way to write the right start up costs in the business plan, is to have a look at similar business accounting. If you cannot read accounting books of your competitors, we suggest you to increase of 20% the total costs of start up. This amount of money will be available for contingencies, covering unsuspected expenses.

X. Financial plan

The profit and loss projections for the first 12 month is the centerpiece of a business plan, that coupled with a 36 month profit and loss projection, estimated time for break-even, cash-flow projection, and balance, constitute the financial future of your company. More important, the process of thinking through the financial plan will improve your insight into the inner financial workings of your company.

12 Month profit / loss projections - having a look at the 12-month profit and loss projection, you can realize if your business will be a success, and timing for break-even. Explain the criteria used for your forecast sales, and detail profit and loss for each month.

36 Month profit projections - use same criteria for the above projection, just take into consideration unsuspected things that could change after the first year.

Projected cash flow - the main cause of business bankruptcy is the lack of funds. If you are out of cash, you cannot pay the bills. To know exactly how much money you need for startup, preliminary expenses, and operating expenses, is of primary importance.
Track all operating data, when you will receive cash (sales) and when you will do a payment (renting, billing, purchases, etc.).
The cash flow table allows to know if your estimated capital is enough. If it happens that the cash balance turn on negative, you will have to increase the start-up capital.

Be careful, cash flow projection differs from profit and loss projection. If you run a shop you collect money when selling, but if you are wholesaler, maybe you will collect money after 30-60 days. Furthermore you could pay in advance some products in order to take advantage of discounted price. Be sure to include all payments.

Projected day balance sheet - the balance sheet reports financial reports displaying assets (company valuable goods kept) and liabilities.
Use a spreadsheet for startup costs and capitalization, and detail the account balances. It will show your estimated financial position for the year.

Break-even analysis - the break-even point is the sales level that separates profit from loss. If you fix a sale price, the break-even will show you the minimum sales necessary to recover total costs. Variable costs varies according to total sales. In a factory that produce cotton fabrics, fixed costs are given by purchasing the machinery, while variable costs are given by cotton (raw materials), and will grow up according to fabrics produced.

XI. Notes

List materials used for writing the business plan, and other details:
Advertising materials
Industry studies
Maps of location
Newspaper & Magazines articles about your business
Copies of contracts and pro forma invoices
Letters from potential customers interested in purchasing your products / services
Market research sources

XII. Rewriting the plan

The generic business plan presented above should be modified to suit your specific type of business and the audience for which the plan is written.

For raising capitals

For bankers - bankers want assurance of orderly repayment. If you intend using this plan to present to lenders, include:
Amount of loan
How the funds will be used
What this will accomplish - how will it make the business stronger?
Requested repayment terms (number of years to repay). You will probably not have much negotiating room on interest rate but may be able to negotiate a longer repayment term, which will help cash flow.
Collateral offered, and a list of all existing liens against collateral

For investors - investors have a different perspective. They are looking for dramatic growth, and they expect to share in the rewards:
Funds needed short-term
Funds needed in 2 to 5 years
How the company will use the funds, and what this will accomplish for growth.
Estimated return on investment
Exit strategy for investors (buyback, sale, or IPO)
Percent of ownership that you will give up to investors
Milestones or conditions that you will accept
Financial reporting to be provided
Involvement of investors on the board or in management

For type of business

Manufacturing
Planned production levels
Anticipated levels of direct production costs and indirect (overhead) costs - how do these compare to industry averages (if available)?
Prices per product line
Gross profit margin, overall and for each product line
Production/capacity limits of planned physical plant
Production/capacity limits of equipment
Purchasing and inventory management procedures
New products under development or anticipated to come online after startup

Service businesses
Service businesses sell intangible products. They are usually more flexible than other types of businesses, but they also have higher labor costs and generally very little in fixed assets.
What are the key competitive factors in this industry?
Your prices
Methods used to set prices
System of production management
Quality control procedures. Standard or accepted industry quality standards.
How will you measure labor productivity?
Percent of work subcontracted to other firms. Will you make a profit on subcontracting?
Credit, payment, and collections policies and procedures
Strategy for keeping client base

High technology companies
Economic outlook for the industry
Will the company have information systems in place to manage rapidly changing prices, costs, and markets?
Will you be on the cutting edge with your products and services?
What is the status of research and development? And what is required to: 1) Bring product/service to market? 2) Keep the company competitive?
How does the company: 1) Protect intellectual property?
2) Avoid technological obsolescence? 3) Supply necessary capital? 4) Retain key personnel?

High-tech companies sometimes have to operate for a long time without profits and sometimes even without sales. If this fits your situation, a banker probably will not want to lend to you. Venture capitalists may invest, but your story must be very good. You must do longer-term financial forecasts to show when profit take-off is expected to occur. And your assumptions must be well documented and well argued.

Retail business
Company image
Pricing: Explain markup policies. Prices should be profitable, competitive, and in accordance with company image.
Inventory: Selection and price should be consistent with company image. Inventory level: Find industry average numbers for annual inventory turnover rate (available in RMA book). Multiply your initial inventory investment by the average turnover rate. The result should be at least equal to your projected first year's cost of goods sold. If it is not, you may not have enough budgeted for startup inventory.
Customer service policies: These should be competitive and in accord with company image.
Location: Does it give the exposure that you need? Is it convenient for customers? Is it consistent with company image?
Promotion: Methods used, cost. Does it project a consistent company image?
Credit: Do you extend credit to customers? If yes, do you really need to, and do you factor the cost into prices?

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