Business Plan

Business Plan Project Template

A business plan is an essential roadmap for business success. This living document generally provides an orderly statement of a company’s goals and the methods by which it intends to achieve those goals. Further, the plan will detail the standards by which it will measure those achievements.

The plan provides a sense of purpose to the organization by providing, guidance, influence, leadership and communicates leadership ideas to the associates, employees, and to whoever else is involved.

The plan must be word processed (12 pt. font), single-spaced, have no grammatical or typing errors, and have correct spelling. I am more interested in quality than quantity in the paper. However, as a guide, the business plan should be no shorter than 16 pages.

Your final plan is due on date listed in the calendar and course schedule. The Business Plan will not be accepted late.

I look for a demonstration of critical and original thinking in this assignment. The critical thinker is one who works on doing things better, solving problems more efficiently, or going beyond what is read in texts or what is considered a fact.

The business plan concept itself will have no bearing on the grading/evaluation of the overall plan. Chances are, after the first several weeks of working on the business plan, your original concept may lose your initial enthusiasm and support. The primary goal of this project is to instruct about the process of small business planning and management, not venture idea/concept generation. So don’t worry about it.

Please follow business plan template below.

Page 1 – Title Page – Please refer to APA standards for the Title Page.
Page 2 – Table of Contents – This should include a list of all the sections of the project and each sections respective page numbers.
Pages 3 and 4 – Executive Summary – This page summarizes your overall plan – it provides a reviewer a quick glimpse as to what you will propose in detail in the plan. It is strongly recommended that the executive summary be written last, after you’ve had a chance to work out the details in the rest of the plan. The following areas should be detailed in this section.
a. Problem/Opportunity – Summarize what you wrote in the Problem/Opportunity section. What is it that your customers need and cannot find elsewhere? Even if your business isn’t unique, highlight the key reasons why your business needs to exist. Perhaps your location is unique or your pricing strategy is different than that of your competitors.
b. Solution – Summarize what you wrote in the Solution section. How do you solve the problem that your customers face? What makes your products or services compelling to them? What is your competitive advantage.
c. Market – Summarize what you wrote in the Target Market chapter. Provide a brief description of your ideal customer. How many potential customers are there for your solution, and how do they break down into recognizable types?
d. Competition – Summarize what you wrote in the Competition section. What other options do your customers have to address their needs, and what makes your solution better for them?
e. Execution – Summarize what you wrote in the Execution section.
f. Financial Expectations / Forecast – Summarize your financial goals. How much revenue do you expect to make in the first year of your business? What kind of revenue growth do you expect in the following years? When do you expect your business to be profitable, or do you have a strategic reason for running at a loss instead? What are the key metrics that you need to watch?
g. Financing Needed and Expected First Tear Expenses – Summarize what you wrote in the Financing section. How do you plan to fund your business? Is it already self-sufficient, or will you need to seek outside financing or invest your own money to get it started or grow it to the next level? If you don’t plan to use any financing, you can note that here or just remove this section from your plan.
Pages 5 and 6 – Problem/Opportunity & Solution
Problem/Opportunity – Describe the key problem or unmet need (opportunity) that you will address for your customers. If you have a common business, such as a restaurant or nail salon, explain why your customers need your particular restaurant or nail salon. What is your competitive advantage: Do you offer lower prices? More convenient hours? A better location? A specialty that is not otherwise available in your area, such as a Moroccan restaurant or a late-night taco truck?
If your company is doing something new and different, explain why the world needs your innovation. What is it about the existing solutions that is subpar? Maybe your new medical device avoids the need for invasive surgery to treat a serious medical condition. Or maybe you are improving on a mediocre product category creating a better hospital gown, an easier way to de-wrinkle clothing, a more convenient way to outsource your tax preparation, and so on.
If your company solves several distinct customer problems or opportunities, describe them all here. You may want to rename the topic to be plural: “Problems/Opportunities Worth Solving.”
Your Solution – Explain how your company will address the problem/ opportunities you identified above. What products or services do you offer, and how do they meet your customers’ need? For example, if the problem is that parking near the local college is expensive and hard to find, your solution might be a bike rental service with designated pickup and drop-off locations near both classrooms and off-campus student housing.
If your company is tackling several distinct problems, describe your solutions individually here. You may want to rename the topic to be plural too: “Our Solutions.”
Pages 7 and 8 – Target Market
Market Size & Segments – Describe your target market. Who is your ideal customer? Who are the people or companies who suffer from the problem that you are solving? How do they break down into segments — that is, recognizable customer types with similar demographics, needs, and expectations? How many potential customers does your research suggest there are in each segment?
Say, for example, that you run a downtown fitness center. In getting to know your market, you might find three common types of customers: urban professionals who want to exercise on their lunch breaks, retired businesspeople who want to both stay fit and enjoy the social amenities of a regular meeting place, and students from the nearby college. Everything you do — what services you offer, what prices you charge, whether you offer laundry services or not — should be driven by your understanding of the needs of your target customers.

Pages 9 and 10 – Competition
Current Alternatives/Competition – Describe the competitive landscape for your products or services. Do you have direct competitors — that is, other vendors who provide the same sort of solution to the customer’s problem that you do? If so, describe who they are, what they offer, and why customers might choose them.
Don’t have any competitors doing the same thing you are doing? That is common with new, innovative companies. When Ford introduced the Model T, for example, they weren’t competing with other automobile companies yet. Their potential customers were still spending money on transportation, though. It was just on horse-drawn buggies and other traditional means. One of Ford’s early challenges was to figure out how to outcompete those well-known alternatives.
If you do not have direct competitors yet, it is still important to discuss how your potential customers are solving their problems today. Saying that you “don’t have any competition” is a big business plan mistake that is easy to avoid.
Your Competitive Advantages – Identify your key advantages over the other competitors and alternatives in your market. Do you have the lowest price in a market where all of the solutions are basically the same? If not, why should customers choose your solution? Is it better somehow — easier, faster, better tasting, longer lasting, more conveniently located, backed by better customer service? Or is it a specialized solution that is better for a particular group of customers?
Note that your advantages may be different for different types of competitors. For example, imagine that your company offers high-end leather-bound notebooks. Compared to a supplier of cheap paper notebooks, you might offer higher-quality materials, construction, and cover designs. Compared to a competitor making note-taking software for tablet computers, your advantages might be the low-distraction nature of paper, the old-fashioned pleasure of handwriting, and the lack of need for a battery.

Pages 11 and 12 – Execution – your plans!
Marketing & Sales:
Marketing Plan – Describe the major components of your marketing plan. What kind of marketing activities will you use to attract customers? Do you plan to invest in signage, physical or digital advertising, email newsletters, search engine optimization, social media outreach, TV or radio commercials? Have you developed a logo and branding? Choose the activities you think are right for your business, and make sure the related expenses are included in your forecast.
Sales Plan – Explain how you plan to sell your products or services. You do not need to cover marketing activities here — that is, how you are going to attract potential customers. Focus instead on how you will turn those prospects who express interest — the people who visit your store, who sign up for your newsletter, who ask for an estimate — into paying customers. For a simple business, such as a food truck, that is pretty simple. You might want to talk about the payment methods you accept and any order tracking tools you are using.
Operations:
Locations & Facilities – Describe your company’s physical locations. This might be your office, store locations, manufacturing plants, storage facilities — whatever is relevant to your business. How much space do you have available, and how well will it meet your current and future needs?
If location is important in your market, as with a restaurant or an art gallery, explain the benefits of where you are located. Do you get a lot of vehicle or foot traffic passing by? Is your target customer type heavily represented in your neighborhood’s demographics? Are you close to other key resources, such as a key supplier’s office or shipping ports or freeways?
If you are working from a home office, talk about how well that is working for you. Are you planning to move to an outside office later? If so, when and why?
Technology – Describe any important software, hardware, or other information technology that you use now or plan to use later to operate your business. That might include a point-of-sale system to take payments, an e-commerce engine for your website, a CRM solution for managing your pipeline, marketing tools for generating leads, and so on. For an industrial company, be sure to cover any industry-specific technologies that you have developed or purchased to power or manage your operations.
Equipment & Tools – List any specialty equipment that you have or plan to acquire to do your work. This is an important component of the business plan for many industrial companies. A steel fabrication plant, for example, needs CNC lines, welding machines, drill presses, and other metalworking tools. Likewise, with a photography studio business, having the right sort of cameras, lighting rigs, editing tools, and so on is going to be key.

Pages 13 and 14 – Company Ownership Structure, Management Structure, and Employees
Ownership Structure – Use this area to specify who owns your company. If there are multiple owners, describe each of them and how much of an ownership stake they have. Also, identify your company’s legal structure. Is it a sole proprietorship — that is, just you working for yourself? Or a partnership, such as a limited-liability corporation (LLC) or partnership (LLP), where the profits pass through to the partners involved? Or a nonprofit organization? Or a proper S- or C-type corporation with its own tax obligations and the rest?
If you are just getting started on your business and are not familiar with these options, searching online for “business structures” should provide plenty of background reading on the pros and cons of the various options.
Management Structure – List the members of the management team, including yourself. Describe each person’s skills and experience and what they will be doing for the company. How do they make your team stronger? Do they have specific expertise in your industry or subject matter? Do they have experience starting or managing other small businesses? Use this space to really emphasize the strengths of yourself and your team. Assuming you have identified a great market opportunity, why are you the right ones to capitalize on it?
If you are a sole proprietor or otherwise working by yourself, just focus on your own skills, experience, and past successes. You may want to rename this section to avoid the “team” language.
Employees – If your company has employees list the positions and provide job descriptions/specifications

Pages 15 and 16 – Financial Plan/Budget
Financial Plan Overview/Forecast – Key Assumptions – Describe how you came up with the values in your financial forecast. Did you project your revenue based on past results, market research, your best guess at how many people who visit your store and what percentage of them might buy, or some other method? What kind of growth are you assuming? What are your key hires and notable expenses? What level of profit do you expect to generate?
Your readers can see the full forecast detail in your plan. Use this space to craft the story behind the numbers. How do your financial projections reinforce your sense that this is a strong business opportunity and one worthy of your time and investment?
If your forecast includes loans, investments, or other financing, use this space to explain what you plan do with that money. Will it help to cover operating costs as your new business scales up? Will it finance capital expenditures, such as the purchase of expensive equipment? Will it enable you to add personnel or expand your marketing to increase revenue? Give your reader a clear picture of why these funds are needed and how they will pay off. If you are not seeking financing, you can just remove this topic from your plan.
One Year Sample Budget – Please detail the expenses you plan to incur the first year. In other words, provide a one year budget detailing all expected expenses.

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Business Plan Project

Project Rationale: This project is designed to incorporate many of the concepts you will learn in this course. Your project will include components from economics, management, marketing, accounting, and financial management. Depending on the business or service chosen you may be involved in emerging trends in technology,

Project Description:
For the purposes of this project you will create a business of your choosing. The business can be product or service oriented. Students are encouraged to consider a business that they would like to open up in the future. Students will then prepare the following business plan in reference to the business they have selected to open.

Students will need to do research using the Internet and other varied sources to obtain information about the industry and other data necessary to successfully complete the project.

The project will be completed using APA guidelines for the project layout and citation purposes. (Detailed information on APA standards can be found on the Library tab in Owlnet.)

Project Details:
The following sections must be included in the final Business Plan Project. Students are asked to label each section as indicated below.

Title Page – Please refer to APA standards for the Title Page.

Table of Contents – This could include a list of all the sections of the project and each sections respective page numbers.
I. Executive Summary – Note it is strongly recommended that the executive summary be written last, after you’ve had a chance to work out the details in the rest of the plan. The executive summary will contain these sections:

a. Problem – Summarize what you wrote in the Problem Worth Solving section. What is it that your customers need and cannot find elsewhere? Even if your business isn’t unique, highlight the key reasons why your business needs to exist. Perhaps your location is unique or your pricing strategy is different than that of your competitors.
b. Solution – Summarize what you wrote in the Our Solution section. How do you solve the problem that your customers face? What makes your products or services compelling to them?
c. Market – Summarize what you wrote in the Target Market chapter. Provide a brief description of your ideal customer. How many potential customers are there for your solution, and how do they break down into recognizable types?
d. Competition – Summarize what you wrote in the Competition section. What other options do your customers have to address their needs, and what makes your solution better for them?
e. Execution – Summarize what you wrote in the Execution section.
f. Expectations / Forecast – Summarize your financial goals. How much revenue do you expect to make in the first year of your business? What kind of revenue growth do you expect in the following years? When do you expect your business to be profitable, or do you have a strategic reason for running at a loss instead? What are the key metrics that you need to watch?
g. Financing Needed – Summarize what you wrote in the Financing section. How do you plan to fund your business? Is it already self-sufficient, or will you need to seek outside financing or invest your own money to get it started or grow it to the next level? If you don’t plan to use any financing, you can note that here.

II. Problem & Solution
a. Problem Worth Solving:
i. Describe the key problem or unmet need that you will address for your customers. If you have a common business, such as a restaurant or nail salon, explain why your customers need your particular restaurant or nail salon. Do you offer lower prices? More convenient hours? A better location? A specialty that is not otherwise available in your area, such as a Moroccan restaurant or a late-night taco truck?
ii. If your company is doing something new and different, explain why the world needs your innovation. What is it about the existing solutions that is subpar? Maybe your new medical device avoids the need for invasive surgery to treat a serious medical condition. Or maybe you are improving on a mediocre product category creating a better hospital gown, an easier way to de-wrinkle clothing, a more convenient way to outsource your tax preparation, and so on.
iii. If your company solves several distinct customer problems, describe them all here. You may want to rename the topic to be plural: “Problems Worth Solving.”
b. Our Solution:
i. Explain how your company will address the problem you identified above. What products or services do you offer, and how do they meet your customers’ need? For example, if the problem is that parking near the local college is expensive and hard to find, your solution might be a bike rental service with designated pickup and dropoff locations near both classrooms and off-campus student housing.
ii. If your company is tackling several distinct problems, describe your solutions individually here. You may want to rename the topic to be plural too: “Our Solutions.”
III. Target Market
a. Market Size & Segments:
i. Describe your target market. Who is your ideal customer? Who are the people or companies who suffer from the problem that you are solving? How do they break down into segments — that is, recognizable customer types with similar demographics, needs, and expectations? How many potential customers does your research suggest there are in each segment?
ii. Say, for example, that you run a downtown fitness center. In getting to know your market, you might find three common types of customers: urban professionals who want to exercise on their lunch breaks, retired businesspeople who want to both stay fit and enjoy the social amenities of a regular meeting place, and students from the nearby college. Everything you do — what services you offer, what prices you charge, whether you offer laundry services or not — should be driven by your understanding of the needs of your target customers.

IV. Competition
a. Current Alternatives
i. Describe the competitive landscape for your products or services. Do you have direct competitors — that is, other vendors who provide the same sort of solution to the customer’s problem that you do? If so, describe who they are, what they offer, and why customers might choose them.
ii. Don’t have any competitors doing the same thing you are doing? That is common with new, innovative companies. When Ford introduced the Model T, for example, they weren’t competing with other automobile companies yet. Their potential customers were still spending money on transportation, though. It was just on horse-drawn buggies and other traditional means. One of Ford’s early challenges was to figure out how to outcompete those well-known alternatives.
iii. If you do not have direct competitors yet, it is still important to discuss how your potential customers are solving their problems today. Saying that you “don’t have any competition” is a big business plan mistake that is easy to avoid.
b. Our Advantages
i. Identify your key advantages over the other competitors and alternatives in your market. Do you have the lowest price in a market where all of the solutions are basically the same? If not, why should customers choose your solution? Is it better somehow — easier, faster, better tasting, longer lasting, more conveniently located, backed by better customer service? Or is it a specialized solution that is better for a particular group of customers?
ii. Note that your advantages may be different for different types of competitors. For example, imagine that your company offers high-end leather-bound notebooks. Compared to a supplier of cheap paper notebooks, you might offer higher-quality materials, construction, and cover designs. Compared to a competitor making note-taking software for tablet computers, your advantages might be the low-distraction nature of paper, the old-fashioned pleasure of handwriting, and the lack of need for a battery.
V. Execution
a. Marketing & Sales
i. Marketing Plan – Describe the major components of your marketing plan. What kind of marketing activities will you use to attract customers? Do you plan to invest in signage, physical or digital advertising, email newsletters, search engine optimization, social media outreach, TV or radio commercials? Have you developed a logo and branding? Choose the activities you think are right for your business, and make sure the related expenses are included in your forecast.
ii. Sales Plan – Explain how you plan to sell your products or services. You do not need to cover marketing activities here — that is, how you are going to attract potential customers. Focus instead on how you will turn those prospects who express interest — the people who visit your store, who sign up for your newsletter, who ask for an estimate — into paying customers. For a simple business, such as a food truck, that is pretty simple. You might want to talk about the payment methods you accept and any order tracking tools you are using.
b. Operations
i. Locations & Facilities – Describe your company’s physical locations. This might be your office, store locations, manufacturing plants, storage facilities — whatever is relevant to your business. How much space do you have available, and how well will it meet your current and future needs?
1. If location is important in your market, as with a restaurant or an art gallery, explain the benefits of where you are located. Do you get a lot of vehicle or foot traffic passing by? Is your target customer type heavily represented in your neighborhood’s demographics? Are you close to other key resources, such as a key supplier’s office or shipping ports or freeways?
2. If you are working from a home office, talk about how well that is working for you. Are you planning to move to an outside office later? If so, when and why?
c. Technology
i. Describe any important software, hardware, or other information technology that you use now or plan to use later to operate your business. That might include a point-of-sale system to take payments, an e-commerce engine for your website, a CRM solution for managing your pipeline, marketing tools for generating leads, and so on. For an industrial company, be sure to cover any industry-specific technologies that you have developed or purchased to power or manage your operations.
d. Equipment & Tools
i. List any specialty equipment that you have or plan to acquire to do your work. This is an important component of the business plan for many industrial companies. A steel fabrication plant, for example, needs CNC lines, welding machines, drill presses, and other metalworking tools. Likewise, with a photography studio business, having the right sort of cameras, lighting rigs, editing tools, and so on is going to be key.
VI. Company
a. Overview
i. Use this area to specify who owns your company. If there are multiple owners, describe each of them and how much of an ownership stake they have. Also, identify your company’s legal structure. Is it a sole proprietorship — that is, just you working for yourself? Or a partnership, such as a limited-liability corporation (LLC) or partnership (LLP), where the profits pass through to the partners involved? Or a nonprofit organization? Or a proper S- or C-type corporation with its own tax obligations and the rest?
ii. We cover the various legal forms in our course.
b. Management Structure
i. Management Team – List the members of the management team, including yourself. Describe each person’s skills and experience and what they will be doing for the company. How do they make your team stronger? Do they have specific expertise in your industry or subject matter? Do they have experience starting or managing other small businesses? Use this space to really emphasize the strengths of yourself and your team. Assuming you have identified a great market opportunity, why are you the right ones to capitalize on it?
ii. If you are a sole proprietor or otherwise working by yourself, just focus on your own skills, experience, and past successes. You may want to rename this section to avoid the “team” language.

VII. Financial Plan
(For this section students will want to prepare a spreadsheet in MS Excel similar to that provided in the example. Make sure that all information is cited.)
a. Forecast – Key Assumptions
i. Describe how you came up with the values in your financial forecast. Did you project your revenue based on past results, market research, your best guess at how many people who visit your store and what percentage of them might buy, or some other method? What kind of growth are you assuming? What are your key hires and notable expenses? What level of profit do you expect to generate?
ii. Your readers can see the full forecast detail in your plan. Use this space to craft the story behind the numbers. How do your financial projections reinforce your sense that this is a strong business opportunity and one worthy of your time and investment?
b. Financing
i. Use of Funds – If your forecast includes loans, investments, or other financing, use this space to explain what you plan do with that money. Will it help to cover operating costs as your new business scales up? Will it finance capital expenditures, such as the purchase of expensive equipment? Will it enable you to add personnel or expand your marketing to increase revenue? Give your reader a clear picture of why these funds are needed and how they will pay off.
ii. If you are not seeking financing, you can just remove this topic from your plan.

This is a graded assignment, please see grading rubric in Black Board.

Check Calendar/Course Schedule for Due Date