As a fact of the matter, business plan is the foundation on which your startup is going to be built. You may have the most amazing and most innovative business idea, but you cannot put it on success track without a plan. So, right after conceiving the business idea, the first and most important step is to write a business plan for your startup.

Business Plan Writing: Simple Business Plan Outline

You may be running out of time and have to present business plan in the upcoming meeting with investor/financier? I have already published a guide to write one page business plan, but writing comes second; you must have an outline first.

So this article will cover the outlines of a simple/brief business plan. Once you have an outline, you can develop a quick business plan either it’s one page or comprises of a few.

Let’s move to the outlines of a simple business plan;

1. Executive Summary:

This content highlights the key points you’ve made in your entire business plan. It’s the doorway to your plan, but you should write this at the end, just to make sure you give a clear picture of what’s inside!

Related Reading:
How to write a business plan executive summary

2. Company Summary:

An overview of who you are and what you do. Ideally, you should summarize the vision of your business with the details about incorporation and related statistics in this section. In case of a one page business plan, you may skip this section. But, if you are developing a business plan for investors, this section makes your pitch more appealing.

3. Products and Services:

A list of all products and or services you sell. You may need to include tables and charts for details, detailed price lists etc.

4. Market Analysis Summary:

This section explains the type of business you are doings,what are your customers’ needs, where your customers are based, how will you reach them and what actually is the value your business is bringing to the customers and the society as a whole.

5. Strategies & Implementation:

Strategies may not be documented at an instance, but you need to have a clear action plan that highlights what techniques you will be using to promote and sell the products, who will be responsible and of course clear timeline with measurable benchmarking methodology.

This section will include the details on how you are going to decide the marketing budget, complete marketing plan and an action plan for complete startup operations.

6. Management Summary:

This section covers the organization of your business and the key members of the management team. Summaries of the professional background of team members enhance your business plan and attract the attention of investors.

7. The Financial Plan:

You need to present the projected Profit and Loss and Cash Flow tables, sales forecast, business ratios, and a break-even analysis etc.

The Bottom Line:

Having this much in a business plan will definitely make it worth considering for the investors. Although, it can help anyone, but in some cases depending upon your industry and specifically the products, you may alter the arrangement and also add more points to the above list!

Related Readings:

• Online Toy Store Business Plan
• Salon Business Plan
• Bakery Business Plan