BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE

Outline of a Business Plan

1. Introductory page
A. Name and address of business
B. Names and address(es) of principal(s)
C. Nature of business
D. D. Statement of Financing needed
E. Statement of Confidentiality of report

2. Executive Summary-Two to three pages summarizing the complete business plan

3. Industry Analysis
A. Future outlook and trends
B. Analysis of competitors
C. Market Segmentation
D. Industry and market forecast

4. Description of venture
A. Product
B. Service(s)
C. Size of business
D. Office equipment and personnel
E. Background of Entrepreneur(s)

5. Production Plan
A. Manufacturing process(amount Subcontracted)
B. Physical Plant
C. Machinery and Equipment
D. Names of Suppliers or raw materials

6. Operation Plan
A. Description of company’s operation
B. Flow of orders for goods and/or services
C. Technology utilization

7. Marketing Plan
A. Pricing
B. Distribution
C. Promotion
D. Product of forecasts
E. Controls

8. Organizational Plan
 A. Form of Ownership
B. Identification of partners or principal shareholders
C. Authority of principals
D. Management team background
E. Roles and responsibilities of members of organization
9. Assessment of Risks
A. Evaluate weakness(es) of business
B. New Technologies
C. Contingency plans

10. Financial Plan

A. Assumptions
B. Pro forma Invoice statement
C. Cash flow projections
D. Pro forma balance sheets
E. Break even analysis
F. Sources and applications of funds

11. Appendix(contain back up material)

A. Letters
B. Market research data
C. Leases or contracts
D. Price lists from suppliers
!. Executive Summary

Financial Summary
Example:

A.Steam Team Car Wash. We have raised $1,000,000 in financing to get our car wash in business. That
consists of a $250,000 equity investment from Jennifer Hong, our founder; a $500,000 line of credit at 8%
APR from a local credit union, using the business property as collateral; and $250,000 in financing from
the seller of the land we are buying. He agreed to carry a 15-year loan at 6% interest and to charge no
interest for the first six months.

We will be using that financing to cover demolition and groundwork at our new site, which has an
unneeded building on it now, and the installation of a commercial steam car wash station. We found a
turnkey provider who will manufacture, ship, and assemble the entire facility for $330,000. We plan to
spend an additional $50,000 on landscaping and site preparation. Jennifer has agreed not to draw a
salary for the first six months, so we can minimize our use of the credit line.

B. The Star-Liner Food Truck. We are financing our business ourselves with $5,000 in investment from
each of our co-founders and a $30,000 interest-free loan from Angie’s parents. No loan payments are due
for the first year, so we have time to get up and running. We are keeping our salaries low, so our startup
funds are being used primarily for the truck purchase ($16,000), kitchen retrofits ($4,000), initial
advertising ($2,000), permits and licensing ($1,000), initial food supplies ($1,000), and cash reserves as
we ramp up ($16,000).

1. OPPORTUNITY
Problem

Nigeria is a large Egg consuming country

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.

Note that we strongly recommend writing the executive summary last, after you’ve had a chance to work out the
details in the rest of the plan.

Example:

The Star-Liner Food Truck. Downtown office workers and students on campus are hungry. Specifically, they are
hungry for new lunch options that are fast, healthy, interesting, and reasonably priced. Traditional Caribbean food
would be a great fit, but no one in the area is offering it yet.

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?

Example
The Star-Liner Food Truck. Our new food truck offers delicious, inexpensive Caribbean roast sandwiches and
other regional favorites based on recipes that our award-winning chef adapted from his own Jamaican roots. We
have secured a popular location in front of the Harrison Theater, which is within easy walking distance of both
downtown and the local university.

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?
Example
The Star-Liner Food Truck. With our midtown location, we are well situated to serve three core
groups: downtown office workers, students on campus, and the weekend crowd out for evening
entertainment. Our research suggests that those segments together represent a pool of more than
15,000 potential customers per day. Factor in the broad decline of the fast-food industry, the
complementary rising popularity of fast-casual options, the cool factor attached to innovative food
trucks, and the city’s strong population growth, and we see a great opportunity here.

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?

Example
The Star-Liner Food Truck. We have a unique offering, since no other eateries in our area serve
Caribbean food, but there are plenty of other food providers nearby. These include local fast-casual
eateries, chain locations for Panera Bread and Chipotle, fast-food places, and the upscale restaurants
downtown. We differentiate ourselves by offering local ownership, healthier food than the nearby
burger joint and fast-food places, more interesting food than the chain locations, and a faster, less
expensive experience than the sit-down restaurants downtown.

Why Us
Summarize what you wrote in the Company chapter. What is it about your company — your skills,
experience, subject-matter expertise, business acumen, team, innovations, industry connections, key
advisors, and so on — that makes you the right ones to take advantage of this market opportunity?

Example
The Star-Liner Food Truck. Our co-founder team is a great one-two punch of fantastic food and savvy
business sense. Mark Powell, our chef, trained at the Culinary Institute of America and worked at
several top New York restaurants before moving here. For the Star-Liner menu, he drew on his family’s
Jamaican heritage to create dishes that have won prizes at cooking competitions and received rave
reviews in our taste testing. Angie Johnson has an MBA from the local university, experience working
for Madison Avenue advertising firms, and a strong reputation as a business consultant here in town.
Together we have come up with a fresh concept, a popular menu, and an ambitious but achievable plan
to build it into a thriving new business.
2. Management Team
Instruction:
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.

Example: 1.The Star-Liner Food Truck. Our business is collaboration between two good friends: Mark
Powell and Angie Johnson. We haven’t bothered with job titles, but Mark basically runs the food side of
the business, and Angie does almost everything else. Angie graduated three years ago with a master’s
degree in business from the local university. She has experience in the marketing department at a large
accounting firm here in town and has consulted with several area businesses. She also interned for two
summers with a major advertising agency in New York City, so she has strong sales and marketing skills.

Mark is a rising star among local chefs. He attended the Culinary Institute of America for two years before
going to work for a series of well-regarded restaurants in New York and here in town. He is a fantastic
cook, but more than that, he understands how to run a commercial kitchen to produce consistently high-
quality food. We met at a local cooking competition last year and became fast friends. Our initially only
semi-serious brainstorming on potential opportunities to work together resulted, after a couple of false
starts, in the initial plan for this business.

Example 2: Chapman Ciderworks. The executive team at Chapman Ciderworks is the same as the
lineup of the Odds and Ends String Band: Chris Henry (CEO, vocals), Charlie Jackson-Stearns
(brewmaster, drums), Annie Meredith (sales and marketing, fiddle), and Adam Henry (operations, tub
bass, accordion). Just like on stage, though, all four of us have a hand in pretty much everything. We all
contribute marketing ideas, we all taste and tweak the brews, we all haggle with fruit sellers and make
trips to new orchards to sample their latest batches of apples.

As we scale up, it’s going to be an interesting challenge to figure out how to incorporate new team
members without losing the chemistry that has gotten us to where we are today. We are ready for that
challenge, though. To get where we want to go, we are going to need a much bigger band.

3. Advisor

Instruction: Describe any mentors, investors, former professors, industry or subject-matter experts, knowledgeable
friends or family members, small-business counselors, or others who can help you as a business owner. If you have
an important question or a new business challenge, who will you turn to for advice? What makes them a good
resource for you and your company?

Example: 1

Chapman Ciderworks. Outside of our management team, the opinion we trust the most belongs to Leon
Henry, the father of two of our executives and the original investor in our business. Leon is a semi-retired
consultant in the music industry today, but over the course of his 30-year career he worked as an agent
for a chart-topping country singer, managed the road crews for several other touring music acts, and
started, grew, and sold his own record label. His business advice and strategic mind has been a huge
help to us from day 1.

On the industry side, we are fortunate to have close relationships with several experienced brewmasters
in the area, most notably Chris Kinney, who started his own microbrewery back in the 1990s and built it
into a regional best-seller before it was acquired by Anheuser-Busch. He only brews for fun these days,
but his industry knowledge and familiarity with both growth and acquisition scenarios makes him a great
informal advisory resource for us going forward.
Example 2:

The Star-Liner Food Truck. The food truck business can be tough to figure out, especially in the early
days when you are wading through all of the licensing and permit requirements. Luckily for us, there is a
great community of food truck owners in town. Technically these people seem like they should be our
competitors, but the business is so fragmented and hyperlocal that truck owners who set up in different
areas of town or who focus on events, catering, and so on have been openly supportive from the start
and a huge help to us.

On the business side, Angie is getting regular advice and counseling from her mother, who has decades
of experience in the food industry and currently holds a vice-president role at a Fortune 1000 corporation
that manages produce distribution in the grocery channel.

For now, Angie is keeping the books herself, using QuickBooks Online. Before tax time, though, we’d like
to find a good accountant with a strong background in small-business consulting.

2.7 Product and Services

Problem & Solution

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?

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, describe them all here. You may want to rename the
topic to be plural: "Problems Worth Solving."

4. Marketing Plan
Instructions

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.

If you plan on advertising, talk about your messaging. What is the unique value proposition or selling point — your
pitch — that you expect to resonate with potential customers? Talk about how that pitch positions you relative to
your competitors. Are you the no-frills, low-cost option for budget-conscious shoppers? Or a premium product that
is superior to the others in a key way? Or are you differentiating yourself in another way — being faster, more
convenient, better for the environment, locally sourced? Make sure this is aligned with the competitive advantages
that you described in the Competition section.

Describe your distribution and pricing plans. How will your customers buy your products or services? Will they pay
you directly, either in your store or out in the field? Will they buy what they want on your website? Or through other
retailers, distributors, or resellers? Are your customers the people actually using your products or services, or are
you selling to other companies who are incorporating your solution into their own? What will your customers pay,
and will those payments be one-time purchases or an ongoing arrangement?

As you can see, there is a lot to talk about here. Depending on the size and complexity of your business, you may
want add additional topics to this section. Then you can just hit the high points here and refer to the other topics for
more detail. For many small businesses, though, you can cover the major points well enough here.

Example:

The Star-Liner Food Truck. Although we are already getting good business in our opening weeks, our
co-founder and business lead Angie Johnson is working hard to get the word out. We have solid
followings on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Our Yelp score is above four stars, and we
are asking repeat customers to post reviews if they are frequent Yelp users. We have an email signup
form at the truck and on our social media pages, and so far we have more than 500 subscribers and are
adding about 50 per week.

Next month, we should be featured in the local version of a popular street-food app, and we are testing a
local service that hands out coupons on the streets downtown and in the lobbies of several of the key
office buildings. We are also working with the design lab at the university on a custom website, which will
include the ability to order in advance from a smartphone or desktop computer. That project should be
live by the start of the new year.
We based our product pricing on a close study of all of our competitors in the downtown and campus
areas. Our sandwiches and other entrees are currently $7 to $9 each, with side dishes ranging from $3 to
$5. Those prices appear to be going over well, but we will continue to gather feedback and are open to
price changes as we get to know our market better.

Example 2: Steam Team Car Wash. We don’t have a dedicated marketing person yet, but we’ve had
good success so far with our do-it-yourself strategy of "try everything and see what sticks." High-visibility
signage is key to gaining local attention, and we made a good decision to invest heavily there to establish
a premium position around both our steam technology and our hands-on "Steam Team" for customer
service.

Beyond that, marketing tactics that have worked well include loyalty cards (we switched from our own
paper punch cards to a multi-vendor swipe card program), encouraging Yelp reviews, and offering
discounts to followers on social media. Print ads in the newspaper and one attempt at billboard
advertising did not do well, and we have no immediate plans to try those again. Experimenting with
Google search advertising and sponsoring vintage auto shows had more mixed results, but we still think
there are good opportunities there.

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.

The sizing component here is critical. Think about how many of the prospects in each segment are likely to buy
from you, and what they will typically spend on this sort of solution over the course of a year. If the market
opportunity is small, it will limit how big and successful your business can become, and may even be too small to
support a successful business at all.
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.

3.0 Strategy & Implementation

3.1 Marketing & Sales

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.

If you plan on advertising, talk about your messaging. What is the unique value proposition or selling point —
your pitch — that you expect to resonate with potential customers? Talk about how that pitch positions you
relative to your competitors. Are you the no-frills, low-cost option for budget-conscious shoppers? Or a premium
product that is superior to the others in a key way? Or are you differentiating yourself in another way — being
faster, more convenient, better for the environment, locally sourced? Make sure this is aligned with the
competitive advantages that you described in the Competition section.

Describe your distribution and pricing plans. How will your customers buy your products or services? Will they
pay you directly, either in your store or out in the field? Will they buy what they want on your website? Or
through other retailers, distributors, or resellers? Are your customers the people actually using your products or
services, or are you selling to other companies who are incorporating your solution into their own? What will
your customers pay, and will those payments be one-time purchases or an ongoing arrangement?
As you can see, there is a lot to talk about here. Depending on the size and complexity of your business, you may
want add additional topics to this section. Then you can just hit the high points here and refer to the other topics
for more detail. For many small businesses, though, you can cover the major points well enough here.

5. Operations

Instruction: 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?
Examples: The Star-Liner Food Truck. We recently signed a one-year lease for a commercially zoned
space in front of the Harrison Theater. Our truck has a reserved place and can be locked and boarded
securely overnight, which saves us the time and fuel cost of driving it home each night. The Harrison is a
popular entertainment space on evenings and weekends, hosting live music and showings of classic
35mm films. The theater does not have a restaurant, though, so we have been able to establish ourselves
as its on-site food provider. This location is conveniently located in a safe neighborhood near both the
downtown district and the university, so it is easy for us to attract customers from both of those areas.

As noted earlier, we hope to expand in the future to offer two food trucks — one directly downtown and
one on campus — and potentially to sell our fare from a concession stand at local major-league baseball
games. Those are more ideas than plans at this point, but we do think they are strong opportunities to
explore when the time is right.

Example 2: Chapman Ciderworks. Our company currently operates out of a 15,000-square-foot industrial
space in the city’s historic railway district. After several decades of no-frills industrial use, the area has
grown of late into a hip and desirable neighborhood, and the market value of our facility is up an
estimated 10-15% since we bought it. The better news is that it has good room for expansion, so we
should be able to grow in place at least through year 3 of our plan.

If we decide to explore adding a public tasting room, we have the option to build that as an expansion of
our current facility, sacrificing extra parking lot space. Several other microbreweries in our neighborhood
have take that path already and seem to be faring well.

7. FINANCIAL PLAN

A. FORECAST: 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?

Examples:
 1. The Star-Liner Food Truck. We expect to serve an average of 20 customers per hour during
year 1 and then increase that to 25 per hour in year 2. We craft our food by hand, so the small
kitchen does have some constraints. We want our dishes to be as fresh as possible, so we’ll
figure out the best mix of preparing food on demand and preparing ahead of time. The weekend
evenings should be slightly less busy than lunch, so we are assuming 15 weekend customers per
hour in year 1 and 20 in year 2. The average customer order value should be around $11 for year
1 and $13 for year 2. In year 2, we will be adding daily drink specials and are working to obtain
our liquor license, so we can sell local craft beer on the weekends.

In our first two years, we are projecting $331,000 and then $500,000 in revenue with a 15% profit margin.
We expect food supplies to be our top expense. The first-year payroll costs will be minimal as Mark will be
doing most of the cooking. As things ramp up, we will bring on a couple of employees to help out. Fuel
expenses should be minimal as we plan on leaving the truck onsite and have minimal need to travel. We
will have a modest advertising budget — much of our marketing will be word of mouth and no-cost social
media — as well as a small maintenance and repair budget for the truck. The equipment is new and
shouldn’t cost more than $1,000 annually to maintain and repair for the first two years.

2. Steam Team Car Wash. We are expecting to be able to process 250 cars daily through the
drive-through steam tunnel. Our basic wash will be $10 with the option to steam the
undercarriage and wheels for an additional $5. We are assuming 75% of our customers will
choose the basic wash and 25% will upgrade. Those assumptions suggest an average charge of
$11.25 per customer. We expect the first three months of operations to be slower, starting at 50
cars per day for the first month, followed by 150 and 200 cars daily for the next two months. By
month 4 we should be operating at capacity. We plan to have 6-12 customers per day taking
advantage of our detailing service. The average price for that service will be $150, with list prices
ranging from $130 to $250. Detailing will include interior, engine, carpet, upholstery, and trunk
cleaning. The price will vary based on the make and model, condition of the vehicle, special
requirements (pets, cigarette smoke), and range of services being performed. While the retail
sales will not be the primary focus our business we are assuming $200 daily in sales from retail
starting in month 4.

Using these assumptions, we are projecting $949,000 in sales in year 1 and $1,085,000 in sales
in year 2.

B. FINANCING: 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.

Examples: The Star-Liner Food Truck. The biggest expense will be the purchase and
retrofitting of the truck itself. We paid $16,000 for a used truck and an additional $4,000 to fix up
the kitchen to meet our needs. City permits and licensing cost another $1,000. We have budgeted
$2,000 for the first two months of marketing and advertising and $1,000 for our initial food
supplies. The remaining $16,000 will be used as reserves until our sales ramp up. We don’t plan
on paying ourselves salaries until month 3, and even then we will keep them low so we can invest
as much as we can back into the business.

Example 2: Stream Team Car Wash. Our land has an existing building on it that will need to be demolished
before the new facility can be constructed. We were able to find a turnkey supplier of commercial steam car washes
who will manufacture, ship, and assemble the entire facility for $330,000. It will take approximately two months to
complete the construction process, during which time we will start executing our marketing plan to create buzz
about the new concept.

We have $50,000 budgeted for landscaping and site preparation. We are using native, drought-tolerant plants both to
minimize future water usage and to appeal to our target customers’ desire to minimize our impact on the
environment. Our founder will not take a salary during the first six months, so we can minimize the amount we need
to use from our line of credit.