Brown University Entrepreneurship Program | Resources

Business Plans

Writing a business plan is an essential part of starting a successful entrepreneurial endeavor. A business plan should define your business, explain your goals, and act as the entrepreneurial endeavor’s resume. Just as a builder should not begin constructing a home without a blueprint, eager business owners should not jump into starting a new venture without a business plan. When writing a business plan, you should include the following information (all of the information listed below is not necessarily important for all businesses):

Cover Sheet

Executive Summary
The Business

Description of business
Marketing
Competition
Operating procedures
Personnel
Business insurance

Financial Data

Loan applications
Capital equipment and supply list
Balance sheet
Breakeven analysis
Pro-forma income projections (profit & loss statements)
Three-year summary
Detail by month, first year
Detail by quarters, second and third years
Assumptions upon which projections were based
Pro-forma cash flow

Supporting Documents

Tax returns of principals for last three years
Personal financial statement (all banks have these forms)
For franchised businesses, a copy of franchise contract and all supporting documents provided by the franchisor
Copy of proposed lease or purchase agreement for building space
Copy of licenses and other legal documents
Copy of resumes of all principals
Copies of letters of intent from suppliers, etc.

Source:
http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/writingplan.html

Other important information you may want to include in your business plan include:

What is the product?
- Features?
- Applications and uses?
- Benefits delivered?
Market analysis and requirements?
- Competition
- Pricing
- Who is the user?
- Who makes/influences the purchase?
- What are likely sales channels?
- Marketing communications and public relations literature
- Distribution channels
Product requirements
- Competitive positioning
- Target production costs
- Who installs the product?
- Training and field support requirements
- Customer support requirements
- Warranty policy
- Upgrade policy
- User, reference, installation manuals
- Product packaging
- Copy protection policy (for software)
- Maintenance considerations
- Expected product life
- Release schedule (alpha, beta testing, first release, etc.)
- Future product enhancements and extensions
Functional requirements
- Performance requirements (responsiveness, accuracy, reliability, mean time between failure, etc.)
- Systems requirements
- Human factors
External requirements
- Environmental requirements
- Office, factory, etc.
Other requirements
- Regulatory requirements
- International and export considerations