What is a Startup Business Plan?
A startup business plan is a written document that outlines the company’s different strategies for launching, managing, and eventually scaling the new venture as per the current market scenarios. Writing a business plan for your company gives the executives and stakeholders an opportunity to think through every important step of starting a new venture and prepare themselves for any unforeseen risks. A startup business plan sample PDF document is a well-structured business plan that is crucial to the success of any business’s journey in this highly competitive world.
As you see, a startup business plan model is essential for the overall growth of a startup as it provides a company with a vision for the future and plans out a clear strategy for how they can pitch their business model to a prospective investor or understand different risk factors. Writing a startup business plan can seem a little daunting, but if one knows the elements of a lean startup business plan template, one can easily come up with a document pertaining to all the important details regarding their startup business plan.
Elements of a Startup Business Plan include:
- Executive Summary
- Company Description
- Product & Services
- Marketing Plan
- Operational Plan
- Management & Organizational
- Startup Expenses & Capitalization
- Financial Plan
- Appendices
When to use a Startup Business Plan Template?
Business planning or creating business plans for a startup is very important as it allows new founders to break down its elements into different pieces that are easier for them to understand and comprehend. Using a startup business plan sample PDF document, founders can easily understand the expense budget, milestones, tasks & responsibilities, and roadmap to the overall growth of the startup.
There are several important scenarios when a startup business should start using a startup business plan template, like:
- Raise Funds: The primary concern for any startup business is how it will raise funds. By using a startup business plan template, they can create a good pitch that they can share with different venture capitalists and try to raise funds.
- Analyze Growth: By using a startup business plan template, the company’s executives can analyze the overall performance of the company and create a roadmap to achieve their pre-decided targets.
- Analyze Resources: Every startup has limited resources, and those resources often come with conditions. When a startup works on a business plan template, they ensure that they use all the resources in the best possible ways.
Why is a Startup Business Plan Template Important?
As a new business owner, you must be wondering, ‘Why should I create a startup business plan?’ or ‘why a lean startup business template is of any use to me?’ Nevertheless, did you know that, as per business research, your business will fold 3X if you have worked on a startup business plan in the early days of inception?
A startup needs a business plan because:
- A startup business plan provides valuable insights as to what resources and efforts are needed to achieve the desired result.
- A startup business plan template establishes a clear timeline or a roadmap that illustrates when a new business can expect to see some substantial results.
- With the help of a business plan, a startup can track progress and determine the steps they need to take to scale its business model.
- A well-structured startup business plan allows potential investors to see the viability of a new business.
- By creating a startup business plan, new founders can predict and find solutions for potential risks.
Some of the importance of creating a startup business plan template is:
- With a pre-designed startup business plan template, you will quickly make the changes and present a new document if it is required.
- From a previously used startup business plan template, you know what works to scale the business and how your startup can overall increase its efficiency.
- Showing a startup business plan template to your business partners presents your business idea more professionally.
How to Create a Startup Business Plan Sample PDF?
Now that you have understood the importance of a startup plan let us help you understand the important elements that go as we create a startup business plan sample PDF document for professional endeavors.
It should be noted here that a startup business plan sample can vary from business to business. However, the following business plan elements remain similar in all cases. Depending upon your business model and expectations, you can make changes to the startup business plan templates.
Executive Summary of Startup Business Plan:
In any startup business model, the executive summary is an outline of the entire business and the prospective plans. Usually, this segment comes right at the beginning of your business plan template and covers the highlights of your detailed plan. A well-structured executive summary of your business plan includes a particular problem that your company (service or product) intends to solve. It also consists of a detailed description of your Hero product and services. Some of the key factors that you should include in your executive summary are:
- Your company’s entire detail
- The products and services that you offer
- Your sales projection, along with your buyer’s persona
- A detailed summary of your financials, including your funding requirements.
It is often seen that at the time of investor meetings, potential investors only ask to see the executive summary to evaluate the business model. Once they like the executive summary, the chances of you pitching the idea rise exponentially.
Company Description of Startup Business Plan:
While working on your startup business plan template, create a detailed company description page that outlines all the key information about your company. A company description also includes:
- The details of the founders (education, experience, clientele)
- Company’s short-term and long-term goals
- Company’s mission statement and vision.
When you work on a startup business plan, ensure that you also list out the details of different companies or customers you plan to serve. It is considered a good practice to explain the competitive advantages that ensure why your business model is going to be different from other similar businesses and how many experts you have employed in your team. If you have found a location of your company, ensure that you add the details of the same in your company description section.
Market Analysis of Startup Business Plan:
The Market Analysis section in the startup business plan will include all the information pertaining to your potential customers and a target market that you need to tap. While working on the market analysis part, you can add the competitive research that you must have conducted to understand the trends and themes of your business.
When you work on your market analysis documentation, start by describing your target audience or potential market. It is considered good advice to be as specific as possible. In the subsequent sections, you can provide a detailed description of the market analysis and research conducted by your team. In this market analysis part, you would have to explain how your business-model market is expanding and how your service or product has the right potential to tap into the market.
In your market analysis part, you can also include:
- Details of your competitors as to what works for them and which areas they failed to tap into the market.
- Elaborate on terms outlining how you can make this business better than your competitors.
Organizational & Management of Startup Business Plan:
Investors want to see whom they are investing in -- and here, they intend to look for the details of the team members, including the founders, management, and executive team members, and their relevant experience. It is very important to make a case for why a particular team member is important and how they have contributed towards achieving the business goals.
In this business plan sample section, you should also include a brief bio of the key members along with the relevant industry experience and background. If some of the key members have already worked on successful ventures, try to add them at the beginning itself. This section helps potential investors learn more about the company they plan to invest in.
In this section, you can also include the important business structure of your company. The most common business structures are:
- LLC: Limited Liability Company takes advantage of other business structure corporations.
- Sole Proprietorship: A company or a firm owned by an individual.
- Partnership Firm: A company co-owned by two or more different partners.
If your startup model is a partnership firm, investors would like to know the equity of each partner or how the entire business prospect is divided between different key members.
Service or Product Line of Startup Business Plan:
The services or product line section is the most important section of any startup business model. This is the place that lets you explore opportunities in the market. The service and product line section include information about the problem that your service or product is solving. You can also include the details about your product in a way that fits into the current competitive landscape.
As a business owner, you should start this section by mentioning the problems that your product or service is solving. Now, talk about your competitors and how they fail to live up to the customer’s requirements and how your product line solves those issues as well. If you happen to have any competitive advantage (patent, a key team member, an untapped market), you can add about those in this section as well.
Marketing & Sales Strategies of Startup Business Plan:
The marketing and sales section of your startup business plan document helps the investors understand how you plan to reach your target market and how you intend to sell your product in this competitive world. Most of the time, the marketing and sales strategies also include the cost of manufacturing or sustaining the business, along with the pricing model.
Most businesses use different distribution channels to reach their potential businesses or customers. Some sell their products on Amazon, and some create their respective websites from where users or businesses can either use the services or buy the products. In this marketing and sales strategies section, mention how you intend to sell your product. The plan should also cover the potential hurdles that your business might face and the prospective solution that you should follow in order to resolve them.
Most startups also add different marketing and business charts in this section to make your case more effective. Some of the most common business charts that you can add to this section are:
- SWOT Analysis Chart
- PERT Chart
- Venn Diagrams
Funding Request of Startup Business Plan:
One of the core reasons behind creating a startup business plan sample in PDF format is to see if the investors can fulfill the funding requirements. While creating the startup business plan document, the goal is to explain to prospective investors how much funding you require over the next five years and how your marketing, development, and operation team intends to use it.
When creating the funding request section in the startup business plan segment, always specify whether the company needs debt (something that they will repay along with interest after a particular time) or equity (partnership). In funding requests, ensure that you also add details about pay salaries, equipment details, and other financial services that your company might require to increase the overall revenue.
While creating the funding request document, also include:
- Financial plans
- Financial strategies
- Potential Risks
Financial Projections of Startup Business Plan:
How are you going to invest your earnings or the funding amount? Are you going to scale the business or hire new employees? Or are you going to bring our new marketing or sales technique to accelerate the growth? Include similar answers in your financial projections document. Most of the time, business owners supplement their funding requests by adding:
- Forecasted income statements
- Balance Sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Capital Expenditure budgets.
In order to have more clarity, you can describe the first year in detail. For example, you can be more specific about how your company’s quarterly report will look or what are your monthly projections? Try to clearly explain your monthly projections, as it would be useful for your investors to understand them and make a concrete decision based on your findings.
If you are up for making graphs and charts, you can use this opportunity to create them. Most investors prefer looking at pie charts or graphical representations of the projections.
Appendix:
Every startup business plan document has an appendix page that provides supporting documents and other important documents that are requested from the investor. Some of the most common documents that you can include in this section are:
- Credit history
- Resumes of key members
- Product Pictures
- Statement of Purposes
- Permits
- Licenses
- Legal Documents
- Contracts
FAQ about the Startup Business Plan Template
1. What is a lean startup business plan template?
A lean startup business plan template is a business method where a new company introduces a new product on behalf of a well-established company. The lean startup business plan template will outline all the related information about the existing market and how the new product can make it work.
2. Can I convert the PDF template to a startup business plan template in Excel & Word?
Yes, with the help of PDF Agile, you can easily convert the startup business plan sample PDF template to a startup business template in both Excel and Word format.
3. Should I use Business Plan Template software?
Yes, with PDF Agile, you can easily create any startup business template sample PDF format to better share it with your colleagues. You do not need software to create a business plan, but with PDF Agile, you can easily convert the document into multiple different formats.
Printable Startup Business Plan Template
You can easily download a sample startup business plan template that you can edit on PDF Agile. With this software, you can quickly edit PDF documents and transform any startup business plan sample PDF to and from Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without losing any fonts and formatting.
