Even if you have a great idea for your startup, it doesn’t mean that your business will start to thrive immediately. First, you should think through your business plan that will help you lead your startup to success.
And if it may seem something unnecessary, we would like to remind you that plan will never be redundant. It helps you organize your ideas and steps.
Let’s figure out the main steps in detail to create a startup business plan wisely.
#1: Describe your project
This very important step includes 4 substeps. If you plan to find investors, you should give this information and it should be short and clear. Check it out.
1.1. Single out the main challenges
You should specify all challenges users face today in the area you plan to occupy. What solutions are available on the market that can deal with these challenges.
Also, you should single out shortcomings of existing solutions to avoid their integration into your new software.
1.2 Describe your solution
Tell investors how you can solve a challenge. Describe the way your new app will be a magic wand for users and it will help bring profit for you and your investors. Thus, you will be able to increase the interest in your plan.
1.3. Prove the value of your project
You should understand that if you copy an existing solution – you will gain nothing. That is why you have to show the unique value of your project, why it is better than other ones and why it is more beneficial for customers. But the real advantage of your product will be clear only after its launch, mind it.
1.4. Specify your specific goals
Investors will be more interested in funds investment if they see the specific point where the successful part of your software begins. That is, you should indicate how much approximately you need to let your project thrive, you can show some metrics or other graphics. And specify what you plan to achieve, what is your end result? Specific goals will likely be attractive to potential investors.
#2. Tell more about your company
You should make a short description of your company, general information, when it was founded, etc.
2.1. Start from the general info
Specify the main information about your company, how it works, the corporate entity of your company whether it is LLC, PLC, etc. Start by learning how to get an llc from Startmyllc website. Tell how long your company exists, the country and city your company works in, the number of employees, where your office is located, and other info.
2.2. Introduce your managers
Your team is the foundation of your success. That is why you can describe your staff and single out a team leader of each department, tell about him or her, how you have gathered all these professionals together, how experienced they are, and so on.
2.3. Show how you plan to monetize your startup
You create a product to make a profit, right? So potential investors should see particular monetization ways and how much money your startup may bring after a certain period of time. Even if it is an approximate estimation, investors like to see real figures. So once you will tell the cost to create an app or website, you should immediately specify how it will be able to monetize a software to pay off.
#3. Conduct research
You should know as much as possible about a niche you plan to occupy. You should keep up with a few points that are mandatory to let your new business thrive.
3.1. Define your target market
If you think that your product will disrupt a market, you may make a big mistake. Your product may be interesting only for you, but you will think otherwise. That is why you should study a target market to find out the potential of your new product.
You can choose your country and specify basic categories to find your audience. Basic categories in our case is geographic, demographic, area, gender, age, income level, and so on.
It will help you find out how viable your idea is.
3.2. Analyze your competitors
Who is your competitor and why? Answer these questions first. Make a list of your potential competitors in your region, describe the benefits and drawbacks of their product, explain to yourself how you can compete with them wisely. If you conduct a detailed analysis of your competitors – you will be able to get around them.
3.3. Mind adding charts and market analysis
To convince your investors that your niche is really profitable, provide them with market analysis in charts and schemes to show them everything clearly. But make sure that you use data from trusted market research companies that already gained their reputation.
#4. Build a marketing plan
During this step, you will have to explain more in detail how you will attract customers and how you will promote it.
4.1. Add a strategy for customers’ engagement
Your marketing plan should include a strategy to acquire new customers and ways to retain them as well. Describe all the steps you plan to undertake to attract new customers and approximate results you plan to achieve in a month, half a year, year, and so on.
Service businesses will likely have a different method of getting new clients, so be sure to review the channels best suited to your audience.
4.2. Define the way to make sales grow
If you don’t know how to increase sales, you should think about some marketing and advertising campaigns that will help you attract more users and let them buy more. If customers see a profit for them – you will see your profit as well.
4.3. Draw up required metrics
Indicate required metrics in your business plan to show how you will calculate growths and drops, the number of new customers, generation of leads, and so on. Different metrics can be applied in your specific case, choose those you really need.
#5. Outline your financial plan
The last but not the least section you just cannot ignore – drawing up of a financial plan. Your investors should know what they will finance.
5.1. Estimate expenses for startup
It is highly recommended to consider all expected costs that may appear apart from the development of the software itself. For example, you need to include expenses on equipment, office rent (if necessary), salaries, insurance, and so on. Also, if you plan to create a mobile app for iOS and Android together with a web version, you should ask software development companies to make an estimation.
5.2. Draw up a summary of your financial requirements
At the end of a financial plan, investors should see a detailed summary – how much money they will need in sum. Also, indicate the percent investors will get from a profit (don’t forget that this percent should be disputable), periods of tranches – when you need to receive each investment round, and other info.
We hope that this article will be useful for you and it will help you build a really thought-out business plan that will satisfy your investors and interest them. May the success be with you!
About the author:
Sergey Lypchenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad. It is a web and mobile app development company located in Eastern Europe. Our main goal is to develop first-rate and competitive software for our customers. My mission is to provide people with interesting material about innovations in the world of IT.