How to Prepare a Business Plan in 10 Steps?

7 min readAug 27, 2022

When preparing your business plan, be careful not to take it too long. You can prepare a template and design according to the people or institutions you will present your business plan to. Make sure that the business plan you have prepared is between 15 and 20 pages in total. It is also very important that the business plan comes from a single person. In this way, the language you use in the texts does not change and becomes more understandable.

1. Write intro text

First, prepare an introduction. You can include the following elements in your introduction text:

Recipient’s address
History
Your address
Dear … (Name of the person concerned)
After this, in a paragraph or two, indicate why you reached this person, what your company does, and what you will find in this file.
Include a statement that you expect a response from them. Also include a phone number where they can reach you.

After you have prepared your introductory text, you should show on the next page which company the reader will find information about in this presentation. You should keep this page as simple as possible and you can think of it as the cover of your presentation. Avoid distracting items. Your introductory text and the following page are very important as they will leave the first impression on the person in front of you. You can mention the following items on this page:

Logo
Company name
The names of the founders and founding partners (This part is not required)
Highlight your words “Business Plan” on the cover-History

Finally, prepare the “contents” part. In this way, the person reading this presentation can see which content they can access on which pages.

2. Business executive summary

This will be one of the most important areas of your business plan. This section determines whether the person reading the presentation will continue to read, as this section will cover how your business will be managed. Although it is the part at the beginning of the presentation, it is recommended to prepare this part after you have finished all the details. Because you will include a summary of all the details about the company in this section. You can include the following items in this section:

Business concept. (Write briefly what you did)
Your business goals and vision. (What do you want to do)
Description of your product and its difference from other products
Your target audience
Your marketing plan
Your current financial situation. (your current profit)
Your future profitability status
How much do you want for the investment?
Your team

3. Summary about the company

In section 3, you need to specify some details about your company. How long have you been planning this business? Have you started this business or have you been doing it for a while? How many team members do you have? How many partners are there? Are you also involved in the physical field?

First of all, you can give answers to these questions in this section. Next, you should state why your company and product are different from other brands.

What do you have that other brands do not have? What features does your product stand out with? What opportunities do you offer to consumers? What consumer problems do you solve? What will consumers gain by choosing you? You can also include answers to these questions in this section.

4. Market research and competitors

In this section, you need to reflect your market analysis well. While preparing this part, you can focus on the following items:

How big is the market you are entering or entering? Is this market continuing to grow?
What kind of gap will there be in this market in the future? Are you sure there will be such a gap? Can you prove these?
What is the demographic structure of the market? What are the gender, age, occupations and interests of consumers? (Identification of these helps you when preparing marketing strategies.)
Have you sold any products yet? If you did, who bought these products and why?

In addition to these, you also need to write a competitor analysis. When writing your competitor analysis, consider the following:

Pros and cons of your competitor’s products. How can you develop your own product in line with this information?
What is the state of competition in the market?
Indicate how you can make more profit in the future by taking advantage of the shortcomings of your competitors.
What are the features that set you apart from your competitors? Why are you better than them?

5. Marketing and sales strategy

The marketing and sales strategy of your business is also very important. You need to prepare a detailed study on this subject as well. You should not make the mistake of concentrating on sales by skipping marketing. With the right marketing strategies, the company’s sales increase. You must not forget this. In this part of the presentation, you can include the following items:

How do your products and service meet the needs of consumers?
Are there any other companies that follow the same strategy as you did?
If there are companies that do this, why will consumers prefer your product?
Price of your product and/or service
The quality of your product and/or service
How will your after-sales service and support be?

After including these, you should also talk about your marketing strategy.

Your Google Adwords plan and budget
How will you do SEO work and how much budget will you allocate?
What will your social media marketing strategy be like?
Will you benefit from banner ads?
Will you be advertising on offline channels? If so, how much will you budget?
Will you get PR support?
What will your email marketing strategy be like?

6. Team and team management

In this section you should gather details about your team. These details can be:

How many people in your team?
How many people are in the founding team? How many partners does the company have?
What are your team’s strengths and weaknesses?
How is your team’s past experiences and background information?
How relevant are these experiences to your current job?
Do you know other people in the same industry and doing the same job? Can you seek advice or mentorship from these people?

7. Operation

Although it is not very complicated, you should also include the details of your operations in your presentation. In this section, you can mention the following points:

Have you set up your website? Do you have the infrastructure to sell through your website?
How secure is your infrastructure? Are alternative payment systems available on your site?
Do you need a warehouse for your products? Do you currently have a warehouse?
What kind of devices, tools or software does your company need?
Is your team competent to manage your operations? If not enough, how much do you plan to grow your team? How many team will you need?

8. Sales report

If your company has started to make sales or will do so in the near future, you should also prepare a report. Here are the items you should mention in this section:

Have you started selling your products?
Are your products ready for sale or do they need to be produced or supplied from scratch? How soon can these products be ready for sale?
How do you reach or aim to reach your potential customers?
What are the average prices of your products in different categories?
How often do you think your products will be sold? (Some items can be repurchased in a short time, while others can be used for several years. Therefore, you should specify which items you will sell more often.)
Can your products be marketed and sold on the internet in a short time? Or do consumers’ shopping habits need to change?

9. Financial foresight

This is one of the sections that people or institutions that will invest in you will be most interested in. Here you should indicate your current financial situation and your future financial forecasts. You can focus on the following items:

What will your monthly income be? You can include the highest and lowest odds.
What will your cash flow be like? How much money will go in and out of the company?
Does your company currently have sufficient capital to support itself? What will your worst case scenario be?
How much money will the company have left after expenses such as marketing, sales and company management?
Will the remaining money be enough for the company to turn itself around and how long will the company survive?
You can also add your profit and loss estimates here.

In addition to these reports, you can also include how much financial support you will need in this section.

How much investment does your company need? Is it a one-time investment or do you want to invest in the company periodically?
What will this investment be used for? In which areas will you make improvements?
How do you intend to pay back this money and how long will it take? (Investors may want to know how long it takes to get their money back.)

10. Risks

People who will invest in your company will also want to know the risks in the business. Therefore, you should also tell them about the risks of the job.

What would your worst-case scenarios be?
If your worst-case scenarios come true, do you have a certain financial plan to get out of this situation?

It’s time to reach investors. You can follow multiple paths to reach investors. But as Piladya Startup, we offer you more than 1000 angel investors and venture capital connections for each stage. You can find the details here.