Writing a business plan

A business plan is the foundation of your business. It is a roadmap for how to structure, run, and grow the various aspect involved. It should guide you through starting your business and managing each step ahead. Writing a business plan promotes thinking through the key elements of your business and can even help in the process to acquire funding, attract investors, or bring on new business partners.

The first step in writing a good business plan is to create an executive summary. This is the first page of your business plan and should briefly tell your reader what your company is and why it will be successful. Include your mission statement, your product or service, and basic information about your company's leadership team, employees, and location. You should also include financial information and high-level growth plans if you plan to ask for financing

Here are some points to consider:

Choose a format that suits you best:
There's no right or wrong way to write a business plan. What's important is that your plan meets your needs.

Provide a company description:
This section provides a snapshot of your business. Go into detail about the problems your business solves. Be specific, and list out the consumers, organization, or businesses your company plans to serve. Explain the competitive advantages that will make your business a success.

Define your company's goals:
Use an objective statement or business goals section. An objective statement should clearly define your company's goals and contain a business strategy that details how you plan to achieve them.

Describe your business and management structure:
Here, you'll list your business's legal structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — as well as key employees, managers or other owners.

There are many other sections that can be included in a good business plan such as market analysis, products and services description, customer segmentation, marketing plan etc. The most important thing is that your plan meets your needs

SBA.gov recommends that a business plan include:

• Executive summary -- a snapshot of your business
• Company description -- describes what you do
• Market analysis - research on your industry, market and competitors
• Organization and management -- your business and management structure
• Service or product -- the products or services you're offering
• Marketing and sales -- how you'll market your business and your sales strategy
• Funding request -- how much money you'll need for next 3 to 5 years
• Financial projections -- supply information like balance sheets
• Appendix -- an optional section that includes résumés and permits

According to Forbes, you should have a plan in order to get yourself organized, to ensure you have some type of viable commercial potential, you have focus and hopefully aren't going to run out of money or starve before you get going. If that's all you need, and you don't plan to raise money, apply for loans and don't intend on bringing in partners, then you certainly don't need a 25lb manuscript. Keep it simple.

It is however worth noting that if your plans include visiting a financial institution to obtain a business loan, or approaching your sphere of influence for backing who you know is accustomed to seeing traditional business plans, then you know you probably need to create something that they understand in a format they are comfortable with.

Most Importantly, use your plan:
Don't get lost in what you're doing. If you start losing your way, refer to your plan – as your roadmap. Review it when you've made a wrong turn. Sometimes a mistake people make is that they prepare the document and then put it in a drawer and never look at it again. Or more likely these days, you stored it in Google Drive and then forgot which gmail account.

Nevertheless, although vastly important, remember that your plan is all based on hypotheses until validated. You can update it while moving from one stage to the other. Do not be limited by what you originally thought. Instead research and then document your new ideas and paths as you continue. At the end of the day, what truly matters is creating a product or service that people use and pay for.