startup brand business plan

How to Write a Startup Business Plan (10 Effective Steps)

Learn how to create an effective business plan in 10 easy steps and discover the transformative power of mentorship to elevate your startup's strategy.

Robin Waite

5 minute read

Short answer

What should an effective business plan include?

An effective business plan should include the following elements:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Your products or services
• Marketing and sales strategies
• Organization and management
• Financial projections
• Funding requirements
• Risk assessment
• Conclusion and Call to Action

You need a strategic business plan to successfully navigate the startup world

Diving into the startup world without a clear plan is like setting sail without a compass ; you might drift aimlessly or even crash.

A solid business plan isn't just a piece of paper—it's your roadmap to success. It attracts the right investors, guides your decisions, and sets you on a clear path to victory.

In this article, I’ll walk you through 10 essential steps to craft that perfect plan. Plus, I’ll touch on the invaluable insights a business mentor can offer.

So, if you want to avoid common pitfalls and boost your chances of success, keep reading. Your startup's future might just depend on it.

Step 1: Executive summary

Think of the executive summary as the elevator pitch for your startup. It's a quick snapshot that captures the heart of your business idea, mission, and goals.

In this brief section, make sure to highlight who your target audience is, what sets you apart in the market, and your unique selling points.

And don't forget to give a glimpse of your financial outlook and any funding needs—it sets the stage for the details that follow.

Here's an example of an executive summary slide:

Step 2: Company description

Here's where you tell your startup's story. It's not just a list of facts or a timeline. It's about painting a picture that connects with your readers.

Clearly outline your vision, mission, and the values that drive you. Share key milestones you've hit and where you currently stand in your business journey. This section gives depth to your startup, showing both where you've been and where you're headed.

Here's an example of a company introduction slide:

Step 3: Market analysis

To thrive, you've got to know the lay of the land. That's where market analysis comes in. Start by zeroing in on your target audience and truly understanding what they're looking for.

Dive deep into industry trends, the overall market size, and where it's headed. And don't just know your competitors—understand what makes you stand out from the crowd.

Here's what a market analysis slide should look like:

Step 4: Products or services

Here's your chance to shine a spotlight on what you're offering. What problems are your products or services solving? What makes them special? Whether it's a unique feature, a patent, or some groundbreaking tech, make it clear why your offerings are game-changers.

Here's an example of a solution slide:

Step 5: Marketing and sales strategies

In today's crowded market, standing out is crucial. This step is all about your game plan to grab attention and win customers. Detail how you'll sell, where you'll promote, and how you'll get your products or services into the hands of those who need them.

Here's what a go-to-market slide should look like:

Step 6: Organization and management

Behind every great startup is a team of passionate people. Here, introduce your squad. Highlight their expertise, define their roles, and show the structure that keeps everything running smoothly.

If you've got advisors or partners in your corner, mention them—it shows you're serious about growing in every direction.

Here’s a full guide on how to create the perfect team slide for your startup . And here's a great example of one:

Step 7: Financial projections

Numbers don't lie, and in this step, they sketch out your startup's potential future. Dive into the financials, projecting where you see your revenue, expenses, and profits heading over the next few years.

By breaking down your initial costs and where you expect to get your funding, you give a clear view of how you're setting up for success.

Here's an example of a financials slide:

Step 8: Funding requirements

Every startup needs fuel to get off the ground, and that fuel is capital. Here, be clear about how much you need to launch and keep things running.

Break down where every dollar will go, whether that's marketing, product development, or daily operations.

If you've already got some backers or have your eye on potential investors, mention them—it adds weight to your pitch.

Here's what a use of funds slide should look like:

Step 9: Risk assessment

Every venture has its bumps in the road. Here, show that you're not just aware of potential challenges but that you've got a plan to tackle them. In assessing risks, it's crucial to choose the right business structure at the beginning. For examples, the formation of an LLC as a strategic measure not only protects your personal assets from business liabilities but also mitigates financial risks for stakeholders. By laying out your strategies for handling risks, you prove you're not just optimistic—you're realistic and ready.

Here's an example of a risk assessment slide:

Step 10: Conclusion and Call to Action

Time to wrap it up and rally your readers. Summarize the key points of your plan, driving home why your startup is a solid bet.

But remember, this isn't just a conclusion—it's a launchpad. Encourage readers to get involved, whether that's investing, partnering, or simply supporting your vision. Let's get this journey started!

And, if you need more information, check out our comprehensive guide on how to write a business plan .

Here's an example of a next step slide:

Seek guidance from a business mentor

While a solid business plan is your startup's compass, adding guidance from a business mentor to your journey is like having a seasoned captain on board.

They bring a treasure trove of insights, lessons from past experiences, and a network of industry contacts. Their tailored advice doesn't just polish your plan—it also boosts your confidence and resilience, two must-haves for the unpredictable startup seas.

By embracing mentorship, you're signaling that you're all in on growth, ready to soak up wisdom and accelerate your path to success.

Why is a business plan crucial for startups?

Think of a business plan as your startup's GPS. It helps you navigate the twists and turns, pointing out both the challenges and the golden opportunities ahead. It's your master blueprint, detailing everything from your big-picture goals to your financial forecasts .

What role does a business mentor play in this process?

A business mentor serves as a seasoned guide in the startup journey. Drawing from their wealth of experience, they offer invaluable insights, helping startups navigate challenges and optimize their strategies. Their guidance is instrumental in making informed, strategic decisions.

How can a mentor enhance my market analysis?

Mentors have their finger on the pulse of the industry. They can help you get a clearer picture of market trends, spot who you're really up against, and gauge where the opportunities lie. With their insights, your market analysis won't just be good—it'll be top-notch.

Can a mentor assist in financial projections?

Absolutely. If your mentor has a financial background, they can be a goldmine. They'll help you craft projections that are both ambitious and grounded in reality. From revenue estimates to potential expenses, they'll ensure your numbers make sense.

How can you incorporate mentorship into the business plan?

Consider adding a dedicated section in your business plan to highlight the mentorship aspect. By detailing the insights and guidance you've received, or intend to seek, you underscore your commitment to informed growth. This proactive approach can resonate well with potential investors and stakeholders.

Business plan templates

Starting your business plan can feel like staring at a blank canvas—it's full of potential, but where do you begin? That's where interactive business plan templates come into play.

These templates serve as a structured guide, ensuring you don't miss any crucial details while allowing for flexibility and customization. They're designed to streamline the process, making it easier to organize your thoughts and present your vision in a coherent manner.

Ready to dive in? Grab a template from the library below and give your business plan a head start.

Robin Waite is a business coach based in the UK, bestselling author, and also regular business speaker. Robin's Fearless Business Accelerator covers pricing, productising services, and sales for coaches, consultants, and freelancers. Robin's passion is content marketing and blogging and he enjoys finding creative ways to make complex business topics simple for his readers.

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Free Startup Business Plan Templates and Examples

By Joe Weller | May 6, 2020

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In this article, we’ve rounded up a variety of the top, professionally designed startup business plan templates, all of which are free to download in PDF, Word, and Excel formats.

Included on this page, you’ll find a one-page startup business plan template , a business plan outline template for startups , a startup business planning template with a timeline , and a sample startup business plan .

Startup Business Plan Template

Download Startup Business Plan Template - Word

Word | Smartsheet

This startup business plan template contains the essential components you need to convey your business idea and strategy to investors and stakeholders, but you can customize this template to fit your needs. The template provides room to include an executive summary, a financial overview, a marketing strategy, details on product or service offerings, and more.

One-Page Startup Business Plan Template

Download One-Page Startup Business Plan Template

Excel | Word | PDF

This one-page business plan is ideal for startup companies that want to document and organize key business concepts. The template offers an easy-to-scan layout that’s ideal for investors and stakeholders. Use this plan to create a high-level view of your business idea and as a reference as you flesh out a more detailed roadmap for your business.

For additional resources, visit " Free One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide ."

Simple Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Template for Startups

Download Simple Fill-in-the-Blank Business Plan Template for Startups

This comprehensive fill-in-the-blank business plan template is designed to guide entrepreneurs through the process of building a startup business plan. This template comes with a customizable cover page and table of contents, and each section includes sample content that you can modify to fit the needs of your business. For more fill-in business templates, read our  "Free Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Templates"  article.

Lean Business Plan Template for Startups

Download Lean Business Plan Template for Startups

This Lean business plan template takes a traditional business plan outline and extracts the most essential elements. Use this template to outline your company and industry overview, convey the problem you are solving, identify customer segments, highlight key performance metrics, and list a timeline of key activities.

Business Plan Outline Template for Startups

Download Business Plan Outline Template for Startups

You can use this business plan outline as a basis to create your own business plan. This template contains all the elements of a traditional business plan, including a title page, a table of contents, and information on what to include in each section. Simplify or expand this outline based on the size and needs of your startup business.

Startup Business Planning Template with Timeline

Download Startup Business Planning Template with Timeline

Excel | Smartsheet

As you create your business plan, this business planning template doubles as a schedule and timeline to track the progress of key activities. This template enables you to break down your plan into phases and provides space to include key tasks and dates for each task. For a visual timeline, shade in the cells according to each task’s start and end dates. The timeline ensures that your plan stays on track.

Business Plan Rubric Template for Startups

Download Business Plan Rubric Template for Startups

Excel | Word | PDF | Smartsheet

If you’re starting a business and want to keep all your ducks in a row, use this rubric to evaluate and score each aspect of your startup business plan. You can tailor this template to the needs of your specific business, and can also highlight areas of your plan that require improvement or expansion. Use this template as a tool to make sure your plan is clear, articulate, and organized. A sharp, insightful, well thought-out plan will definitely get the attention of potential investors and partners.

For additional resources to help support your business planning efforts, check out “Free Startup Plan, Budget, and Cost Templates.”

What’s the Best Business Plan Template for Startups?

The template you choose for your startup business depends on a number of factors, including the size and specific needs of your company. Moreover, as your business grows and your objectives change, you will need to adjust your plan (and possibly your choice of template) accordingly. 

Some entrepreneurs find it useful to use a Lean business plan template design in order to jot down a business concept and see if it’s feasible before pursuing it further. Typically one to three pages, a Lean business plan template encourages you to highlight core ideas and strategic activities and remain focused on key points.

Other entrepreneurs prefer a template with a more traditional business plan design, which allows you to go into greater detail and ensure you include every detail. A traditional plan can range from 10 to 100 pages and cover both the high-level and granular particulars of your overall concept, objectives, and strategy.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the following section outlines the minimum that your business plan template should include in order to gain buy-in from potential investors.

What to Include in a Startup Business Plan

Whether you choose to use a template to develop your startup business plan or decide to write one from scratch, you need to include the following elements:

• An overview of your company and the industry in which it operates
• The problem you are solving and the proposed solution
• A description of your product or service offerings, including key features
• The existing alternatives that customers use and your competitive advantage
• The target customer segments and the channels you will use to reach them
• The cost structure and revenue streams associated with your business
• A financial plan, including sales and revenue projections (ideally 3-5 years)
• If applicable, the financial requirements to get your business running, including how you will source and allocate funds

Each of the following sections provides an example of a business plan that you can use for reference as you develop your own.

One-Page Lean Business Plan Example

This Lean business plan example displays a visually appealing and scannable one-page illustration of a business plan. It conveys the key strategies you need to meet your main objectives. Each element of this concise plan provides stakeholders and potential investors with links to resources that support and expand upon the plan’s details, and it can also serve as an investor pitch deck.

Startup Business Plan Sample

This business plan sample contains all the aspects of a standard business plan. Using a fictional food truck business as the basis for a startup business plan, this sample will give you all the ideas you need to make your plan outstanding.

Download Startup Business Plan Sample - PDF

When the time comes that you need more space to lay out your goals and strategies, choose from our variety of  free simple business plan templates . You can learn how to write a successful simple business plan  here . 

Visit this  free non-profit business plan template roundup  or of you are looking for a business plan template by file type, visit our pages dedicated specifically to  Microsoft Excel ,  Microsoft Word , and  Adobe PDF  business plan templates. Read our articles offering  free 30-60-90-day business plan templates  to find more tailored options.

Top 10 Tips to Create a Startup Business Plan

Putting together a business plan can be overwhelming and time consuming, especially if you aren’t sure where to begin. Below, we share tips you can use to help simplify the process of developing a startup business plan of your own. 

• Use a business plan template, or begin with a business plan outline that provides all the elements of a standard plan to get your ideas down on paper in a structured manner. (You can choose from the selection of templates above.)  
• Remove sections from your outline that aren’t relevant or that aren’t necessary to launch and operate your business.
• Compile the data you have gathered on your business and industry, including research on your target market and product or service offerings, details on the competitive landscape, and a financial plan that anticipates the next three to five years. Use that information to fill in the sections of your plan outline. 
• Get input and feedback from team members (e.g., finance, marketing, sales) and subject matter experts to ensure that the information you’ve included in the plan is accurate.
• Make certain that the objectives of your plan align with marketing, sales, and financial goals to ensure that all team members are moving in the same direction.
• Although this section of the plan comes first, write the executive summary last to provide an overview of the key points in your business plan.
• Prepare a pitch deck for potential clients, partners, or investors with whom you plan to meet in order to share vital information about your business, including what sets you apart and the direction you are headed. 
• Who are the founders and management executives, and what relevant experience do they bring to the table?
• What is the problem you are solving, and how is your solution better than what currently exists? 
• What’s the size of the market, and how much market share do you plan to capture?
• What are the trends in your market, and how are you applying them to your business?
• Who are your direct competitors, and what is your competitive advantage?
• What are the key features of your product or service that set it apart from alternative offerings, and what features do you plan to add in the future?
• What are the potential risks associated with your business, and how do you plan to address them?
• How much money do you need to get your business running, and how do you plan to source it?
• With the money you source, how do you plan to use it to scale your business?
• What are the key performance metrics associated with your business, and how will you know when you’re successful?
• Revisit and modify your plan on a regular basis as your goals and strategies evolve.
• Use a work collaboration tool that keeps key information across teams in one place, allows you to track plan progress, and captures updates in real time.

Successfully Implement Your Startup Business Plan with Real-Time Work Management in Smartsheet

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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Small Business Trends

How to create a business plan: examples & free template.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Business Plan

Executive summary, overview and business objectives, company description, define your target market, market analysis, swot analysis, competitive analysis, organization and management team, products and services offered, marketing and sales strategy, logistics and operations plan, financial projections plan, income statement, cash flow statement.

Tips on Writing a Business Plan

Free business plan template, what is a business plan, why you should write a business plan, what are the different types of business plans.

Using Business Plan Software

Business Plan FAQs

What is a good business plan, what are the 3 main purposes of a business plan, can i write a business plan by myself, is it possible to create a one-page business plan, how long should a business plan be, what is a business plan outline, what are the 5 most common business plan mistakes, what questions should be asked in a business plan, what’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan, how is business planning for a nonprofit different.

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Blog Feature Updates Startup Business Plans 101: Your Path to Success

Startup Business Plans 101: Your Path to Success

Written by: Jay Nair Jul 24, 2023

It’s time — you’ve got a promising idea and you’re now prepared to invest the necessary effort to turn it into reality. Startup business plans are vital hack tools that will guide you through your entrepreneurial journey and a business venture with clarity and purpose.

Though vital, business planning doesn’t have to be a chore. Business plans for lean startups and solopreneurs can simply outline the business concept, sales proposition, target customers and sketch out a plan of action to bring the product or service to market. These plans will serve as strategic documents outlining your company’s vision, mission statements, business objectives, target market, financial forecasts and growth strategies.

To simplify the creation of a robust business plan as an entrepreneur, you can harness the power of a business plan maker . This invaluable tool streamlines the process and ensures a polished and well-organized presentation.  Startup business plan templates provide pre-designed frameworks that can be customized to suit your specific industry needs, saving valuable time and effort while preserving the essential structure of a comprehensive business plan.

Ready to begin? Let’s go!

Just so you know, some of our business plan templates are free to use and some require a small monthly fee. Sign-up is always free, as is access to Venngage’s online drag-and-drop editor.

Click to jump ahead:

• Laying the foundation of your startup business plan
• Business plan executive summary
• Writing your business description
• Marketing & sales strategies
• Startup operational plans
• Financial plans – forecasting and projections
• Team and management
• Appendix and supporting documents

FAQs on startup business plans

• Use Venngage to create your startup business plan

Preparation and research: 6 steps to laying the foundation of your startup business plan

• What problem does your product or service solve? 
• Who are your target customers? 
• What differentiates your offering from existing solutions in the market? 

This self-reflection will help you establish a clear direction for your startup.

• Next, conduct market research to gather valuable insights about your target market , including demographics, preferences, and purchasing behavior . This data will enable you to tailor your product or service to meet the specific needs of your customers. Identify trends, industry growth projections, and any potential barriers or challenges you may encounter.
• Competitive analysis is another critical aspect of preparation and research. Study your competitors to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. Analyze their pricing, marketing tactics, customer experience, and product/service features. This analysis will allow you to identify gaps in the market and position your startup to offer a unique value proposition .
• Financial research is equally important during this phase. Calculate the costs associated with starting and operating your business , including overhead expenses, production costs, marketing expenses, and employee salaries. Assess potential revenue streams and estimate your expected sales. This financial analysis will help you determine the feasibility of your business idea and outline a realistic financial plan.
• Additionally, gather information about legal and regulatory requirements that apply to your industry and location . Understand the necessary permits, licenses, and certifications you need to operate legally. Complying with these regulations from the outset will prevent potential setbacks or legal issues in the future.
• Finally, organize your findings and insights into a coherent business plan. Create your business plan outline , list your business plan goals, strategies, target market, competitive analysis, marketing plan, financial projections and any other relevant information. This compilation will serve as a roadmap for your startup, guiding your decisions and actions moving forward.

You’ve just encountered a wealth of information and are well on your way to becoming a seasoned business owner! This can sometimes feel overwhelming. But don’t worry, take a moment to breathe deeply and remember how far you’ve come. You’ve got this!

To help you condense and organize your essential points, I have brilliant one-page samples of business plan layouts and templates that will capture everything in a concise format.

Knowing when to use a one-page business plan versus a more comprehensive plan depends on various factors. A one-page business plan is ideal for providing a quick overview, saving time, and internal planning. However, it may not suffice for detailed information, complex business models, or meeting external stakeholders’ expectations.

Ultimately, consider the purpose, audience, and complexity of your business when deciding whether to utilize a one-page business plan or opt for a more detailed approach.

Executive Summary: Your Startup’s Elevator Pitch

First impressions are crucial, and a concise yet comprehensive executive summary is your chance to grab potential investors’ attention.

To create a compelling elevator pitch, consider the following key elements:

Problem Statement : Clearly articulate the problem or pain point that your startup addresses. Emphasize the significance of the problem and the potential market size

Solution : Concisely describe your innovative solution or product that solves the identified problem. Highlight its unique features or benefits that differentiate it from existing alternatives.

Target Market : Define your ideal customer segment and outline the market potential. Demonstrate a deep understanding of your target audience’s needs, preferences, and behavior.

Competitive Advantage : Showcase the competitive edge that sets your startup apart from competitors. This could include intellectual property, strategic partnerships, cost advantages, or disruptive technology.

Business Model : Briefly explain how your startup generates revenue and sustains profitability. Outline your monetization strategy, pricing model, and any recurring revenue streams .

Traction and Milestones : Highlight any significant achievements or milestones reached by your startup. This could include customer acquisitions, partnerships, product development progress, or market validation.

Team : Showcase the expertise and qualifications of your founding team or business partners. Highlight key members and their relevant experiences demonstrating their ability to execute the business plan.

I can sense your eagerness to dive right in! To expedite your progress, I’m excited to present you with a collection of meticulously crafted executive summary templates. These templates have been thoughtfully designed and structured by Venngage designers, ensuring seamless integration into your thorough business plan. All you need to do is infuse them with your brilliant startup ideas, and you’ll be well on your way to success!

Now, remember that there’s still a ton of work to be done. Let’s take a moment to regroup and ensure we’re on the right track. Before diving into the process of writing your business plan , it’s imperative to gather a wealth of essential information. Conducting comprehensive research is key, and it should encompass the following aspects:

How to assess your target audience

To gain comprehensive insights into your potential user base, creating a user persona report is invaluable. This persona guide report will help you develop a detailed understanding of various user profiles, enabling you to tailor your products or services to meet their specific needs and preferences.

Understanding Your Market and Competition

Analyze your market and any trends relevant to your startup. Research your competitors, their strengths and weaknesses, and identify what differentiates your offering from the competition.

Developing a Unique Value Proposition

A business Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a concise statement that communicates the unique advantage a product or service offers over competitors, addressing a specific problem or need. It highlights the distinctive value and benefits customers can expect, helping businesses attract and retain customers by differentiating themselves in the market.

Your unique value proposition (UVP) is the cornerstone of your startup, defining what sets you apart from your competitors. A strong UVP focuses on the specific benefits and solutions your startup offers to customers.

Company Description: Painting the Picture

Your company description allows you to showcase your startup’s unique features and provide more in-depth details about your business. This section should include:

The Purpose of the Company Description

Clarify the purpose of your business, your goals and how your startup is uniquely positioned to achieve them.

Essential Information to Include

Include details such as your company’s legal structure, location and a brief history of any founders or key personnel.

Showcase Your Company’s Unique Features

Emphasize the unique aspects of your startup, explaining how these features translate into a competitive advantage.

Allow me to provide you with a dash of inspiration to ignite the momentum for your startup business plan:

When it comes to showcasing your company’s unique features, keep in mind that it is essential to emphasize and highlight the distinctive aspects of your startup . Clearly articulate how these features set your company apart from competitors and translate into a tangible competitive advantage . 

Whether it’s through cutting-edge technology, innovative business models, exceptional customer service, or a combination of factors, conveying the value and impact of these unique features is crucial. By effectively communicating the benefits they bring to customers, investors, and partners, you can demonstrate the significance of your offerings and differentiate yourself in the market.

Product/Service Line: What You’re Bringing to the Table

This section highlights the finer details of your product or service offerings:

Detailing Your Product/Service Offerings

Provide a thorough description of your products/services, highlighting key features and their intended use.

Highlighting Features, Benefits, and Solutions

Demonstrate how your startup’s offerings solve specific problems or address customer needs through an analysis of product features and associated benefits.

Defining Your Pricing and Revenue Model

Outline your startup’s pricing strategy and how it aligns with the overall business model. Detail any plans for scaling or expanding your revenue sources in the future.

Presenting Your Market Research Findings

Share insights from your market research, including target customer demographics, market size, and growth potential.

Identifying Market Trends and Opportunities

Discuss current trends, emerging opportunities, and how your startup will capitalize on these developments.

Marketing and Sales Strategies: Spreading the Word

Developing a robust marketing and sales strategy plan aligns with your overall business strategy and ensures steady growth. Marketing planning will be an essential part of your journey once you’ve got your business plan tight-knit! Also, creating a marketing strategy can be the most fun part of your business plan!

Developing a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy & Plan

• Outline Specific Marketing Goals : Clearly define your marketing objectives, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales . Set measurable targets to track progress.
• Identify Target Audience : Conduct thorough market research to identify your ideal customer profiles. Understand their demographics, behaviors, preferences, and pain points. Tailor your marketing messages to resonate with their needs.
• Select Effective Marketing Channels : Consider both digital and traditional channels that align with your target audience and marketing goals. This may include online advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email campaigns, print media, events, or partnerships.
• Craft Compelling Messages : Develop persuasive and consistent messaging that highlights the unique value proposition of your products or services. Clearly communicate how your offerings solve customer problems or improve their lives.

5 Tips for Effective Sales Techniques and Growth Strategies + free templates

• Define Your Sales Strategy : Outline the approach and tactics your sales team will use to reach and convert customers. This may involve direct sales, channel partnerships , online sales, or a combination of strategies. Specify your sales process, including lead generation, qualification, nurturing, and closing.
• Expand Your Customer Base : Identify opportunities to expand your customer reach. Consider targeting new customer segments, entering new geographic markets, or exploring untapped market niches. Develop strategies to attract and engage these potential customers.
• Penetrate New Markets : Assess the feasibility of expanding into new markets or verticals. Market research will help you understand the dynamics, competition, and customer needs in these markets. Adapt your marketing and sales strategies accordingly to effectively penetrate and capture market share.
• Innovate Products/Services : Continuously evaluate and enhance your product or service offerings to meet evolving customer demands. Identify areas for innovation or improvement and develop a roadmap for launching new features, versions, or complementary offerings.
• Perform a SWOT analysis : By conducting a sales SWOT analysis , you will gather valuable insights to enhance your department’s performance. This analysis involves evaluating your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and capitalize on advantageous factors in the market.

Here’s a hack to get you organized – Get right into it with the help of these growth strategy templates and strategic planning templates :

Operational Plan: How Your Startup Will Run

Define an efficient and scalable operational plan, keeping in mind the following points:

Defining an Efficient and Scalable Plan

Outline the day-to-day operations, including processes, timelines, and necessary resources.

Legal Considerations for Your Startup Business

Identify any legal requirements or considerations, such as licenses, permits, or regulations that may apply to your startup.

Key Elements of Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Discuss supply chain and logistical aspects relevant to your business. Include details on how you plan to manage and scale these processes.

Here’s a kickstart on how you can structure your operating plans:

Financial Projections: Crunching the Numbers

A startup’s financial projections are vital in securing investor buy-in. This section should address:

The Importance of Financial Forecasting and Budgeting

Explain the significance of accurate financial forecasting, budgeting, and the assumptions made in your projections.

Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Highlight the KPIs used to gauge your business’s financial health and growth trajectory.

Outlining Funding Requirements

Detail the amount and type of funding your startup requires , including how the funds will be allocated and how this investment positions the company for growth.

Team and Management Structure: Building Your Dream Team

Your startup’s success depends on the people behind it. This section should cover:

Tips for Building the Right Team

Share your strategy for assembling a skilled team that supports your startup’s vision and growth trajectory.

Founders’ Background and Roles

Provide an overview of the founders’ backgrounds, their roles within the company, and how their skills contribute to the startup’s success.

Organizational Structure and Key Management Personnel

Outline your startup’s organizational structure, including any key management personnel who play a pivotal role in day-to-day operations.

Appendices and Supporting Documents: Backing Up Your Plan

Include any other relevant supporting documents, such as:

• Research data, market analysis, or competitor analyses.
• Financial statements, budgeting or forecasting data, and other financial documentation.
• Legal documents, agreements or contracts, and any patent or trademark information.

Finally, remember to review and update your business plan regularly as the industry, market, and competitive landscape evolve!

1. Why is a business plan essential for a startup?

A startup business plan is crucial for a startup because it provides a framework for strategic decision-making, facilitates financial planning, helps assess risks, aligns teams, communicates your vision, and ensures effective resource allocation. 

2. What should a startup business plan include?

A startup business plan should include:

• Vision and Direction : Set clear goals and objectives, and outline strategies to achieve them. With a well-defined plan, you will stay focused, make informed decisions, and ensure alignment with your vision.
• Market Analysis : A business plan necessitates thorough market research to understand your target market, identify competition, and assess product/service demand. These insights enable you to tailor offerings, meet customer needs, and gain a competitive edge.
• Financial Planning : By constructing a financial roadmap through projected statements such as income, cash flow, and balance sheets, a business plan unveils the expected revenues, expenses, and profitability. This comprehensive planning not only anticipates challenges and sets realistic goals but also serves as a magnet for attracting investors and securing funding.
• Risk Assessment : Devise strategies for risk mitigation and contingency planning. By proactively doing this, you can significantly enhance the likelihood of success by anticipating and effectively addressing potential obstacles.
• Communication and Team Alignment : From fostering effective communication with both internal and external stakeholders to aligning team members and showcasing your startup’s unique value proposition, a business plan plays a crucial role. It enables you to articulate target market insights, competitive advantages, and growth strategies to potential investors, partners, and employees.
• Resource Allocation : A business plan helps you identify the resources required to launch and operate your startup successfully. It includes an assessment of your human resources, technology needs, infrastructure requirements, and other key resources. By understanding your resource needs, you can allocate them effectively, ensuring that you have the necessary assets to execute your business strategy.
• Adaptability and Flexibility : Your business plan should be flexible enough to accommodate changes and adapt to new circumstances. Startups operate in dynamic environments, and a well-designed plan allows you to monitor progress, evaluate outcomes, and make adjustments as needed. This agility enables you to seize new opportunities and navigate challenges effectively.

3. What is the ideal length for a startup business plan?

The optimal length for a startup business plan typically depends on the specific requirements and intended audience, but a concise and focused plan of around 20 to 30 pages is often recommended.

4. How to write a good startup business plan?

To write a good and effective startup plan, include an executive summary, company description, market analysis, detailed products/services description and a clear marketing and sales strategy. Also incorporate a comprehensive financial plan, outline your organizational structure, and demonstrates your team’s expertise and capabilities. Your plan should be well-researched, concise, and compelling, with a focus on your company’s unique value proposition and market opportunity, making it attractive to investors and stakeholders.

Utilizing Venngage templates & other tools for success

A visually appealing and professional business plan needn’t be a daunting task. Leverage tools like Venngage Business Plan Maker for effective templates that cater to various industries and streamline the process. 

• Leveraging Venngage for Visually Appealing and Professional Business Plans

Venngage offers a range of templates designed specifically for business plans, allowing you to craft a polished and visually engaging plan without any design experience. Simply choose a template, customize it to suit your startup’s branding, and populate it with your content.

• Exploring Additional Resources and Tools for Entrepreneurs. In addition to Venngage, several other resources and tools can assist entrepreneurs in crafting the perfect business plan. Examples include:
• Small Business Administration (SBA) – Offers guidance on writing business plans and provides templates and resources for each section.
• SCORE – A nonprofit organization providing mentorship, workshops, and other resources for entrepreneurs.
• Industry-specific resources – Research relevant professional organizations, industry publications, and blogs to stay up to date on industry trends and insights.

Embarking on the entrepreneurial path may present formidable challenges, yet it offers abundant rewards in various aspects. Embrace the art of continuous learning, delving not only into the essence of your business idea but also immersing yourself in the vast world that surrounds it. Cultivate a genuine passion for understanding every facet of your enterprise, for it is through this journey of exploration that you will uncover invaluable insights and experience the true fulfillment of entrepreneurship.

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Home > Business > Business Startup

How To Write a Business Plan

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Starting a business is a wild ride, and a solid business plan can be the key to keeping you on track. A business plan is essentially a roadmap for your business — outlining your goals, strategies, market analysis and financial projections. Not only will it guide your decision-making, a business plan can help you secure funding with a loan or from investors .

Writing a business plan can seem like a huge task, but taking it one step at a time can break the plan down into manageable milestones. Here is our step-by-step guide on how to write a business plan.

Table of contents

• Write your executive summary
• Do your market research homework
• Set your business goals and objectives
• Plan your business strategy
• Describe your product or service
• Crunch the numbers
• Finalize your business plan

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Step 1: Write your executive summary

Though this will be the first page of your business plan , we recommend you actually write the executive summary last. That’s because an executive summary highlights what’s to come in the business plan but in a more condensed fashion.

An executive summary gives stakeholders who are reading your business plan the key points quickly without having to comb through pages and pages. Be sure to cover each successive point in a concise manner, and include as much data as necessary to support your claims.

You’ll cover other things too, but answer these basic questions in your executive summary:

• Idea: What’s your business concept? What problem does your business solve? What are your business goals?
• Product: What’s your product/service and how is it different?
• Market: Who’s your audience? How will you reach customers?
• Finance: How much will your idea cost? And if you’re seeking funding, how much money do you need? How much do you expect to earn? If you’ve already started, where is your revenue at now?

Step 2: Do your market research homework

The next step in writing a business plan is to conduct market research . This involves gathering information about your target market (or customer persona), your competition, and the industry as a whole. You can use a variety of research methods such as surveys, focus groups, and online research to gather this information. Your method may be formal or more casual, just make sure that you’re getting good data back.

This research will help you to understand the needs of your target market and the potential demand for your product or service—essential aspects of starting and growing a successful business.

Step 3: Set your business goals and objectives

Once you’ve completed your market research, you can begin to define your business goals and objectives. What is the problem you want to solve? What’s your vision for the future? Where do you want to be in a year from now?

Use this step to decide what you want to achieve with your business, both in the short and long term. Try to set SMART goals—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound benchmarks—that will help you to stay focused and motivated as you build your business.

Step 4: Plan your business strategy

Your business strategy is how you plan to reach your goals and objectives. This includes details on positioning your product or service, marketing and sales strategies, operational plans, and the organizational structure of your small business.

Make sure to include key roles and responsibilities for each team member if you’re in a business entity with multiple people.

Step 5: Describe your product or service

In this section, get into the nitty-gritty of your product or service. Go into depth regarding the features, benefits, target market, and any patents or proprietary tech you have. Make sure to paint a clear picture of what sets your product apart from the competition—and don’t forget to highlight any customer benefits.

Step 6: Crunch the numbers

Financial analysis is an essential part of your business plan. If you’re already in business that includes your profit and loss statement , cash flow statement and balance sheet .

These financial projections will give investors and lenders an understanding of the financial health of your business and the potential return on investment.

You may want to work with a financial professional to ensure your financial projections are realistic and accurate.

Step 7: Finalize your business plan

Once you’ve completed everything, it's time to finalize your business plan. This involves reviewing and editing your plan to ensure that it is clear, concise, and easy to understand.

You should also have someone else review your plan to get a fresh perspective and identify any areas that may need improvement. You could even work with a free SCORE mentor on your business plan or use a SCORE business plan template for more detailed guidance.

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The takeaway

Writing a business plan is an essential process for any forward-thinking entrepreneur or business owner. A business plan requires a lot of up-front research, planning, and attention to detail, but it’s worthwhile. Creating a comprehensive business plan can help you achieve your business goals and secure the funding you need.

Related content

• 5 Best Business Plan Software and Tools in 2023 for Your Small Business
• How to Get a Business License: What You Need to Know
• What Is a Cash Flow Statement?

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How To Write A Business Plan: A Comprehensive Guide

The Startups Team

How To Write A Business Plan: A Comprehensive Guide

A comprehensive, step-by-step guide - complete with real examples - on writing business plans with just the right amount of panache to catch an investor's attention and serve as a guiding star for your business.

Introduction to Business Plans

So you've got a killer startup idea. Now you need to write a business plan that is equally killer.

You fire up your computer, open a Google doc, and stare at the blank page for several minutes before it suddenly dawns on you that,  Hm…maybe I have no idea how to write a business plan from scratch after all.

Don't let it get you down. After all, why would you know anything about business planning? For that very reason we have  4 amazing business plan samples  to share with you as inspiration.

For most founders,  writing a business plan  feels like the startup equivalent of homework. It's the thing you know you have to do, but nobody actually wants to do.

Here's the good news: writing a business plan doesn't have to be this daunting, cumbersome chore.

Once you understand the fundamental questions that your business plan should answer for your readers and how to position everything in a way that compels your them to take action, writing a business plan becomes way more approachable.

Before you set fingers to the keyboard to turn your business idea into written documentation of your organizational structure and business goals, we're going to walk you through the most important things to keep in mind (like company description, financials, and market analysis, etc.) and to help you tackle the writing process confidently — with plenty of real life business plan examples along the way to get you writing a business plan to be proud of!

Keep It Short and Simple.

There's this old-school idea that business plans need to be ultra-dense, complex documents the size of a doorstop because that's how you convey how serious you are about your company.

Not so much.

Complexity and length for complexity and length's sake is almost never a good idea, especially when it comes to writing a business plan. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. Investors Are Short On Time

If your chief goal is using your business plan to secure funding, then it means you intend on getting it in front of an investor. And if there's one thing investors are, it's busy. So keep this in mind throughout writing a business plan.

Investors wade through hundreds of business plans a year. There's no version of you presenting an 80-page business plan to an investor and they enthusiastically dive in and take hours out of their day to pour over the thing front to back.

Instead, they're looking for you to get your point across as quickly and clearly as possible so they can skim your business plan and get to the most salient parts to determine whether or not they think your opportunity is worth pursuing (or at the very least initiating further discussions).

You should be able to refine all of the key value points that investors look for to 15-20 pages (not including appendices where you will detail your financials). If you find yourself writing beyond that, then it's probably a case of either over explaining, repeating information, or including irrelevant details in your business plan (you don't need to devote 10 pages to how you're going to set up your website, for example).

Bottom line: always be on the lookout for opportunities to “trim the fat" while writing a business plan (and pay special attention to the executive summary section below), and you'll be more likely to secure funding.

2. Know Your Audience

If you fill your business plan with buzzwords, industry-specific jargon or acronyms, and long complicated sentences, it might make sense to a handful of people familiar with your niche and those with superhuman attention spans (not many), but it alienates the vast majority of readers who aren't experts in your particular industry. And if no one can understand so much as your company overview, they won't make it through the rest of your business plan.

Your best bet here is to use simple, straightforward language that's easily understood by anyone — from the most savvy of investor to your Great Aunt Bertha who still uses a landline.

How To Format Your Business Plan

You might be a prodigy in quantum mechanics, but if you show up to your interview rocking cargo shorts and lime green Crocs, you can probably guess what the hiring manager is going to notice first.

In the same way,  how  you present your business plan to your readers equally as important as what you present to them. So don't go over the top with an extensive executive summary, or get lazy with endless bullet points on your marketing strategy.

If your business plan is laden with inconsistent margins, multiple font types and sizes, missing headings and page numbers, and lacks a table of contents, it's going to create a far less digestible reading experience (and totally take away from your amazing idea and hours of work writing a business plan!)

While there's no one  right  way to format your business plan, the idea here is to ensure that it presents professionally. Here's some easy formatting tips to help you do just that.

If your margins are too narrow, it makes the page look super cluttered and more difficult to read.

A good rule of thumb is sticking to standard one-inch margins all around.

Your business plan is made up of several key sections, like chapters in a book.

Whenever you begin a section (“Traction” for example) you'll want to signify it using a header so that your reader immediately knows what to expect from the content that follows.

This also helps break up your content and keep everything nice and organized in your business plan.

Subheadings

Subheadings are mini versions of headings meant to break up content within each individual section and capture the attention of your readers to keep them moving down the page.

In fact, we're using sub-headers right now in this section for that very purpose!

Limit your business plan to two typefaces (one for headings and one for body copy and subheadings, for example) that you can find in a standard text editor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Only pick fonts that are easy to read and contain both capital and lowercase letters.

Avoid script-style or jarring fonts that distract from the actual content. Modern, sans-serif fonts like Helvetica, Arial, and Proxima Nova are a good way to go.

Keep your body copy between 11 and 12-point font size to ensure readability (some fonts are more squint-inducing than others).

You can offset your headings from your body copy by simply upping the font size and by bolding your subheadings.

Sometimes it's better to show instead of just tell.

Assume that your readers are going to skim your plan rather than read it word-for-word and treat it as an opportunity to grab their attention with color graphics, tables, and charts (especially with financial forecasts), as well as product images, if applicable.

This will also help your reader better visualize what your business model is all about.

Need some help with this?

Our  business planning wizard  comes pre-loaded with a modular business plan template that you can complete in any order and makes it ridiculously easy to generate everything you need from your value proposition, mission statement, financial projections, competitive advantage, sales strategy, market research, target market, financial statements, marketing strategy, in a way that clearly communicates your business idea.

Refine Your Business Plans. Then Refine Them Some More.

Your business isn't static, so why should your business plan be?

Your business strategy is always evolving, and so are good business plans. This means that the early versions of your business plans probably won't (and shouldn't be) your last. The details of even even the best business plans are only as good as their last update.

As your business progresses and your ideas about it shift, it's important revisit your business plan from time to time to make sure it reflects those changes, keeping everything as accurate and up-to-date as possible. What good is market analysis if the market has shifted and you have an entirely different set of potential customers? And what good would the business model be if you've recently pivoted? A revised business plan is a solid business plan. It doesn't ensure business success, but it certainly helps to support it.

This rule especially holds true when you go about your market research and learn something that goes against your initial assumptions, impacting everything from your sales strategy to your financial projections.

At the same time, before you begin shopping your business plan around to potential investors or bankers, it's imperative to get a second pair of eyes on it after you've put the final period on your first draft.

After you run your spell check, have someone with strong “English teacher skills” run a fine-tooth comb over your plan for any spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors you may have glossed over. An updated, detailed business plan (without errors!) should be constantly in your business goals.

More than that, your trusty business plan critic can also give you valuable feedback on how it reads from a stylistic perspective. While different investors prefer different styles, the key here is to remain consistent with your audience and business.

Writing Your Business Plan: A Section-By-Section Breakdown

We devoted an entire article carefully breaking down the  key components of a business plan  which takes a comprehensive look of what each section entails and why.

If you haven't already, you should check that out, as it will act as the perfect companion piece to what we're about to dive into in a moment.

For our purposes here, we're going to look at a few real world business plan examples (as well as one of our own self-penned “dummy” plans) to give you an inside look at how to position key information on a section-by-section basis.

1. Executive Summary

Quick overview.

After your Title Page — which includes your company name, slogan (if applicable), and contact information — and your Table of Contents, the Executive Summary will be the first section of actual content about your business.

The primary goal of your Executive Summary is to provide your readers with a high level overview of your business plan as a whole by summarizing the most important aspects in a few short sentences. Think of your Executive Summary as a kind of “teaser” for your business concept and the information to follow — information which you will explain in greater detail throughout your plan. This isn't the place for your a deep dive on your competitive advantages, or cash flow statement. It is an appropriate place to share your mission statement and value proposition.

Executive Summary Example

Here's an example of an Executive Summary taken from a sample business plan written by the Startups.com team for a fictional company called Culina. Here, we'll see how the Executive Summary offers brief overviews of the  Product ,  Market Opportunity ,  Traction , and  Next Steps .

Culina Tech specializes in home automation and IoT technology products designed to create the ultimate smart kitchen for modern homeowners.

Our flagship product, the Culina Smart Plug, enables users to make any kitchen appliance or cooking device intelligent. Compatible with all existing brands that plug into standard two or three-prong wall outlets, Culina creates an entire network of Wi-Fi-connected kitchen devices that can be controlled and monitored remotely right from your smartphone.

The majority of US households now spend roughly 35% of their energy consumption on appliances, electronics, and lighting.  With the ability to set energy usage caps on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, Culina helps homeowners stay within their monthly utility budget through more efficient use of the dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, stove, and other common kitchen appliances.

Additionally, 50.8% of house fires are caused in the kitchen — more than any other room in the home — translating to over $5 billion in property damage costs per year.  Culina provides the preventative intelligence necessary to dramatically reduce kitchen-related disasters and their associated costs and risk of personal harm.

Our team has already completed the product development and design phase, and we are now ready to begin mass manufacturing. We've also gained a major foothold among consumers and investors alike, with 10,000 pre-ordered units sold and $5 million in investment capital secured to date.

We're currently seeking a $15M Series B capital investment that will give us the financial flexibility to ramp up hardware manufacturing, improve software UX and UI, expand our sales and marketing efforts, and fulfill pre-orders in time for the 2018 holiday season.

2. Company Synopsis

Your Company Synopsis section answers two critically important questions for your readers: What painful  PROBLEM  are you solving for your customers? And what is your elegant  SOLUTION  to that problem? The combination of these two components form your value proposition.

Company Synopsis Example

Let's look at a real-life company description example from  HolliBlu * — a mobile app that connects healthcare facilities with local skilled nurses — to see how they successfully address both of these key aspects.  *Note: Full disclosure; Our team worked directly with this company on their business plan via Fundable.

Notice how we get a crystal clear understanding of why the company exists to begin with when they set up the  problem  — that traditional nurse recruitment methods are costly, inconvenient, and time-consuming, creating significant barriers to providing quality nursing to patients in need.

Once we understand the painful problem that HolliBlu's customers face, we're then directly told how their  solution  links back directly to that problem — by creating an entire community of qualified nurses and directly connecting them with local employers more cost-effectively and more efficiently than traditional methods.

3. Market Overview

Your Market Overview provides color around the industry that you will be competing in as it relates to your product/service.

This will include statistics about industry size, [growth](https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/the-case-for-growing-slowly) rate, trends, and overall outlook. If this part of your business plan can be summed up in one word, it's  research .

The idea is to gather as much raw data as you can to make the case for your readers that:

This is a market big enough to get excited about.

You can capture a big enough share of this market to get excited about.

Target Market Overview Example

Here's an example from HolliBlu's business plan:

HolliBlu's Market Overview hits all of the marks — clearly laying out the industry size ($74.8 billion), the Total Addressable Market or TAM (3 million registered nurses), industry growth rate (581,500 new RN jobs through 2018; $355 billion by 2020), and industry trends (movement toward federally-mandated compliance with nurse/patient ratios, companies offering sign-on bonuses to secure qualified nurses, increasing popularity of home-based healthcare).

4. Product (How it Works)

Where your Company Synopsis is meant to shed light on why the company exists by demonstrating the problem you're setting out to solve and then bolstering that with an impactful solution, your Product or How it Works section allows you to get into the nitty gritty of how it actually delivers that value, and any competitive advantage it provides you.

Product (How it Works) Example

In the below example from our team's Culina sample plan, we've divided the section up using subheadings to call attention to product's  key features  and how it actually works from a user perspective.

This approach is particularly effective if your product or service has several unique features that you want to highlight.

5. Revenue Model

Quite simply, your Revenue Model gives your readers a framework for how you plan on making money. It identifies which revenue channels you're leveraging, how you're pricing your product or service, and why.

Revenue Model Example

Let's take a look at another real world business plan example with brewpub startup  Magic Waters Brewpub .*

It can be easy to get hung up on the financial aspect here, especially if you haven't fully developed your product yet. And that's okay. *Note: Full disclosure; Our team worked directly with this company on their business plan via Fundable.

The thing to remember is that investors will want to see that you've at least made some basic assumptions about your monetization strategy.

6. Operating Model

Your Operating Model quite simply refers to how your company actually runs itself. It's the detailed breakdown of the processes, technologies, and physical requirements (assets) that allow you to deliver the value to your customers that your product or service promises.

Operating Model Example

Let's say you were opening up a local coffee shop, for example. Your Operating Model might detail the following:

Information about your facility (location, indoor and outdoor space features, lease amount, utility costs, etc.)

The equipment you need to purchase (coffee and espresso machines, appliances, shelving and storage, etc.) and their respective costs.

The inventory you plan to order regularly (product, supplies, etc.), how you plan to order it (an online supplier) and how often it gets delivered (Mon-Fri).

Your staffing requirements (including how many part or full time employees you'll need, at what wages, their job descriptions, etc.)

In addition, you can also use your Operating Model to lay out the ways you intend to manage the costs and efficiencies associated with your business, including:

The  Critical Costs  that make or break your business. In the case of our coffee shop example, you might say something like,

“We're estimating the marketing cost to acquire a customer is going to be $25.  Our average sale is $45.  So long as we can keep our customer acquisition costs below $25 we will have enough margin to grow with.”

Cost Maturation & Milestones  that show how your Critical Costs might fluctuate over time.

“If we sell 50 coffees a day, our average unit cost will be $8 on a sale of $10.  At that point we're barely breaking even. However as we scale up to 200 coffees a day, our unit costs drop significantly to $4, creating a 100% increase in net income.”

Investment Costs  that highlight strategic uses of capital that will have a big Return on Investment (ROI) later.

“We're investing $100,000 into a revolutionary new coffee brewing system that will allow us to brew twice the amount our current output with the same amount of space and staff.”

Operating Efficiencies  explaining your capability of delivering your product or service in the most cost effective manner possible while maintaining the highest standards of quality.

“By using energy efficient Ecoboilers, we're able to keep our water hot while minimizing the amount of energy required. Our machines also feature an energy saving mode. Both of these allow us to dramatically cut energy costs.”

7. Competitive Analysis

Like the Market Overview section, you want to show your readers that you've done your homework and have a crazy high level of awareness about your current competitors or any potential competitors that may crop up down the line for your given business model.

When writing your Competitive Analysis, your overview should cover  who  your closest competitors are, the chief  strengths  they bring to the table, and their biggest  weaknesses .

You'll want to identify at least 3 competitors — either direct, indirect, or a combination of the two. It's an extremely important aspect of the business planning process.

Competition Analysis Example

Here's an example of how HolliBlu lays out their Competitive Analysis section for just one of their competitors, implementing each of the criteria noted above:

8. Customer Definition

Your Customer Definition section allows you to note which customer segment(s) you're going after, what characteristics and habits each customer segment embodies, how each segment uniquely benefits from your product or service, and how all of this ties together to create the ideal portrait of an actual paying customer, and how you'll cultivate and manage customer relationships.

Customer Definition Example

HolliBlu's Customer Definition section is effective for several reasons. Let's deconstruct their first target market segment, hospitals.

What's particularly successful here is that we are explained why hospitals are optimal buyers.

They accomplish this by harkening back to the central problem at the core of the opportunity (when hospitals can't supply enough staff to meet patient demands, they have to resort on costly staffing agencies).

On top of that, we are also told how  big  of an opportunity going after this customer segment represents (5,534 hospitals in the US).

This template is followed for each of the company's 3 core customer segments. This provides consistency, but more than that, it emphasizes how diligent research reinforces their assumptions about who their customers are and why they'd open their wallets. Keep all of this in mind when you are write your own business plan.

9. Customer Acquisition

Now that you've defined who your customers are for your readers, your Customer Acquisition section will tell them what marketing and sales strategy and tactics you plan to leverage to actually reach the target market (or target markets) and ultimately convert them into paying customers.

marketing Strategy Example

Similar to the exercise you will go through with your Revenue Model, in addition to identifying  which  channels you're pursuing, you'll also want to detail all of relevant costs associated with your customer acquisition channels.

Let's say you spent $100 on your marketing plan to acquire 100 customers during 2018. To get your CAC, you simply divide the number of customers acquired by your spend, giving you a $1.00 CAC.

10. Traction

This one's huge. Traction tells investors one important thing: that you're business has momentum. It's evidence that you're making forward progress and hitting milestones. That things are happening. It's one of the most critical components of a successful business plan.

Why is this so important? Financial projections are great and all, but if you can prove to investors that your company's got legs before they've even put a dime into it, then it will get them thinking about all the great things you'll be able to accomplish when they do bankroll you.

Traction Example

In our Culina Traction section, we've called attention to several forms of traction, touching on some of the biggest ones that you'll want to consider when writing your own plan.

Have I built or launched my product or service yet?

Have I reached any customers yet?

Have I generated any revenue yet?

Have I forged any strategic industry relationships that will be instrumental in driving growth?

The key takeaway here: the more traction you can show, the more credibility you build with investors. After all, you can't leave it all on market analysis alone.

11. Management Team

Here's what your Management Team section isn't: it's not an exhaustive rundown of each and every position your team members have held over the course of their lives.

Instead, you should tell investors which aspects of your team's experience and expertise directly translates to the success of  this  company and  this  industry.

In other words, what applicable, relevant background do they bring to the table?

Management Team Example

Let's be real. The vast majority of startup teams probably aren't stacked with Harvard and Stanford grads. But the thing to home in on is how the prior experience listed speaks directly to how it qualifies that team member's current position.

The word of the day here is relevancy. If it's not relevant, you probably don't need to include it in your typical business plan.

12. Funding

Funding overview.

The ask! This is where you come out and, you guessed it,  ask  your investors point blank how much money you need to move your business forward, what specific milestones their investment will allow you to reach, how you'll allocate the capital you secure, and what the investor will get in exchange for their investment.

You can also include information about your  exit strategy  (IPO, acquisition, merger?).

Funding Example

While we've preached against redundancy in your business plan, an exception to the rule is using the Funding section to offer up a very brief recap that essentially says, “here are the biggest reasons you should invest in my company and why it will ultimately benefit you.”

13. Financials

Spreadsheets and numbers and charts, oh my! Yes, it's everybody's “favorite” business plan section: Financials.

Your Financials section will come last and contain all of the forecasted numbers that say to investors that this is a sound investment. This will include things like your sales forecast, expense budget, and break-even analysis. A lot of this will be assumptions, or estimates.

The key here is keeping those estimates as realistic as humanly possible by breaking your figures into components and looking at each one individually.

Financials Example

The balance sheet above illustrates the business' estimated net worth over a three-year period by summarizing its assets (tangible objects owned by the company), liabilities (debt owed to a creditor of the company), and shareholders' equity (source of financing used to fund the assets).

In plain words, the balance sheet is basically a snapshot of your business' financial status by laying out what you own and owe, helping investors determine the level of risk involved and giving them a good understanding of the financial health of the business.

If you're looking to up your game from those outdated Excel-style spreadsheets,  our business planning software  will help you create clean, sleek, modern financial reports the modern way. Plus, it's as easy to use as it is attractive to look at. You might even find yourself enjoying financial projections, building a cash flow statement, and business planning overall.

You've Got This!

You've committed to writing your business plan and now you've got some tricks of the trade to help you out along the way. Whether you're applying for a business loan or seeking investors, your well-crafted business plan will act as your Holy Grail in helping take your business goals to the next plateau.

This is a ton of work. It's not a few hours and a free business plan template. It's not just a business plan software. We've been there before. Writing your [business plan](https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/top-4-business-plan-examples) is just one small step in startup journey. There's a whole long road ahead of you filled with a marketing plan, investor outreach, chasing venture capitalists, actually getting funded, and growing your business into a successful company.

And guess what? We've got helpful information on all of it — and all at your disposal! We hope this guides you confidently on how to write a business plan worth bragging about.

Ronald Calderon

Great info for feedback my current business plan!

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How to Write a Business Plan: Beginner’s Guide (& Templates)

Written by: Chloe West

Thinking about starting a business? One of the first steps you’ll need to take is to write a business plan. A business plan can help guide you through your financial planning, marketing strategy, unique selling point and more.

Making sure you start your new business off on the right foot is key, and we’re here to help. We’ve put together this guide to help you write your first business plan. Or, you can skip the guide and dive right into a business plan template .

Ready to get started?

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit business plan templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

8-Step Process for Writing a Business Plan

What is a business plan, why is a business plan important, step #1: write your executive summary, step #2: put together your company description, step #3: conduct your market analysis, step #4: research your competition, step #5: outline your products or services, step #6: summarize your financial plan, step #7: determine your marketing strategy, step #8: showcase your organizational chart, 14 business plan templates to help you get started.

A business plan is a document that helps potential new business owners flesh out their business idea and put together a bird’s eye view of their business. Writing a business plan is an essential step in any startup’s ideation process.

Business plans help determine demographics, market analysis, competitive analysis, financial projections, new products or services, and so much more.

Each of these bits of information are important to have on hand when you’re trying to start a business or pitching investors for funds.

Here’s an example of a business plan that you can customize to incorporate your own business information.

We’re going to walk you through some of the most important parts of your business plan as well as how to write your own business plan in 8 easy steps.

If you’re in the beginning stages of starting a business , you might be wondering if it’s really worth your time to write out your business plan. 

We’re here to tell you that it is.

A business plan is important for a number of reasons, but mostly because it helps to set you up for success right from the start.

Here are four reasons to prove to you why you need to start your business off on the right foot with a plan.

Reason #1: Set Realistic Goals and Milestones

Putting together a business plan helps you to set your objectives for growth and make realistic goals while you begin your business. 

By laying out each of the steps you need to take in order to build a successful business, you’re able to be more reasonable about what your timeline is for achieving everything as well as what your financial projections are.

The best way to set goals is using the SMART goals guidelines, outlined below.

Reason #2: Grow Your Business Faster

Having a business plan helps you be more organized and strategic, improving the overall performance of your business as you start out. In fact, one study found that businesses with a plan grow 30% faster than businesses that don’t.

Doesn’t that sound reason enough alone to start out your business venture with a solidified plan? We thought so too, but we’ve still got two more reasons.

Reason #3: Minimize Risk

Starting a new business is uncharted territory. However, when you start with a roadmap for your journey, it makes it easier to see success and minimize the risks that come with startups.

Minimize risk and maximize profitability by documenting the most important parts of your business planning.

Reason #4: Secure Funding

And finally, our last reason that business plans are so important is that if you plan to pitch investors for funding for your new venture, they’re almost always going to want to see a detailed business plan before deciding whether or not to invest.

You can easily create your business plan and investor pitch deck right here with Visme. Just sign up for a free account below to get started. 

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• Spend less time on presentations and more time strategizing
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The executive summary is a brief overview of your entire business plan, giving anyone who reads through your document a quick understanding of what they’re going to learn about your business idea.

However, you need to remember that some of the people who are going to read your business plan don’t want to or have time to read the entire thing. So your executive summary needs to incorporate all of the most important aspects of your plan.

Here’s an example of an executive summary from a business plan template you can customize and turn into your own.

Your executive summary should include:

• Key objective(s)
• Market research
• Competitor information
• Products/services
• Value proposition
• Overview of your financial plan
• How you’re going to actually start your business

One thing to note is that you should actually write your executive summary after the rest of your business plan so that you can properly summarize everything you’ve already created.

So at this point, simply leave a page blank for your executive summary so you can come back to it at the end of your business plan.

The next step is to write out a full description of your business and its core offerings. This section of your business plan should include your mission statement and objectives, along with your company history or overview.

In this section, you may also briefly describe your business formation details from a legal perspective.

Mission Statement

Don’t spend too much time trying to craft this. Your mission statement is a simple “why” you started this business. What are you trying to achieve? Or what does your business solve?

This can be anything from one single quote or a paragraph, but it doesn’t need to be much longer than that. In fact, this could be very similar to your value proposition.

What are your goals? What do you plan to achieve in the first 90 days or one year of your business? What kind of impact do you hope to make on the market?

These are all good points to include in your objectives section so anyone reading your business plan knows upfront what you hope to achieve.

History or Overview

If you’re not launching a brand new business or if you’ve previously worked on another iteration of this business, let potential investors know the history of your company.

If not, simply provide an overview of your business, sharing what it does or what it will do.

Your third step is to conduct a market analysis so you know how your business will fit into its target market. This page in your business plan is simply meant to summarize your findings. Most of your time should be spent actually doing the research.

Your market analysis needs to look at things like:

• Market size, and if it’s grown in recent years or shrinking
• The segment of the market you plan to target
• Demographics and behavior of your target audience
• The demand for your product or service
• Your competitive advantage or differentiation strategy
• The average price of your product or service

Put together a summary of your market analysis and industry research in a 1-2 page format, like we see below.

Your next step is to conduct a competitive analysis. While you likely touched on this briefly during your market analysis, now is the time to do a deep dive so that you have a good grasp on what your competitors are doing and how they are generating customers.

Start by creating a profile of all your existing competitors, or at the very least, your closest competitors – the ones who are offering very similar products or services to you, or are in a similar vicinity (if you’re opening a brick and mortar store).

Focus on their strengths and what they’re doing really well so that you can emulate their best qualities in your own way. Then, look at their weaknesses and what your business can do better.

Take note of their current marketing strategy, including the outlets you see a presence, whether it’s on social media, you hear a radio ad, you see a TV ad, etc. You won’t always find all of their marketing channels, but see what you can find online and on their website.

After this, take a minute to identify potential competitors based on markets you might try out in the future, products or services you plan to add to your offerings, and more.

Then put together a page or two in your business plan that highlights your competitive advantage and how you’ll be successful breaking into the market.

Step five is to dedicate a page to the products or services that your business plans to offer.

Put together a quick list and explanation of what each of the initial product or service offerings will be, but steer clear of industry jargon or buzzwords. This should be written in plain language so anyone reading has a full understanding of what your business will do.

You can have a simple list like we see in the sample page above, or you can dive a little deeper. Depending on your type of business, it might be a good idea to provide additional information about what each product or service entails.

The next step is to work on the financial data of your new business. What will your overhead be? How will your business make money? What are your estimated expenses and profits over the first few months to a year? The expenses should cover all the spending whether they are recurring costs or just one-time LLC filing fees .

There is so much that goes into your financial plan for a new business, so this is going to take some time to compile. Especially because this section of your business plan helps potential cofounders or investors understand if the idea is even viable.

Your financial plan should include at least five major sections:

• Sales Forecast: The first thing you want to include is a forecast or financial projection of how much you think your business can sell over the next year or so. Break this down into the different products, services or facets of your business.
• Balance Sheet: This section is essentially a statement of your company’s financial position. It includes existing assets, liabilities and equity to demonstrate the company’s overall financial health.
• Income Statement: Also known as a profit and loss statement (P&L), this covers your projected expenses and revenue, showcasing whether your business will be profitable or not.
• Operating Budget: A detailed outline of your business’s income and expenses. This should showcase that your business is bringing in more than it’s spending.
• Cash Flow Statements: This tracks how much cash your business has at any given point, regardless of whether customers or clients have paid their bills or have 30-60+ days to do so.

While these are the most common financial statements, you may discover that there are other sections that you want to include or that lenders may want to see from you.

You can automate the process of looking through your documents with an OCR API , which will collect the data from all your financial statements and invoices.

The next step is coming up with a successful marketing plan so that you can actually get the word out about your business. 

Throughout your business plan, you’ve already researched your competitors and your target market, both of which are major components of a good marketing strategy. You need to know who you’re marketing to, and you want to do it better than your competition.

On this page or throughout this section of your business plan, you need to focus on your chosen marketing channels and the types of marketing content you plan to create.

Start by taking a look at the channels that your competitors are on and make sure you have a good understanding of the demographics of each channel as well. You don’t want to waste time on a marketing channel that your target audience doesn’t use.

Then, create a list of each of your planned marketing avenues. It might look something like:

• Social media ( Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)
• Email newsletter
• Digital ads

Depending on the type of business you’re starting, this list could change quite a bit — and that’s okay. There is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy, and you need to find the one that brings in the highest number of potential customers.

Your last section will be all about your leadership and management team members. Showcasing that you have a solid team right from the start can make potential investors feel better about funding your venture.

You can easily put together an organizational chart like the one below, with the founder/CEO at the top and each of your team leaders underneath alongside the department they’re in charge of.

Simply add an organizational chart like this as a page into your overall business plan and make sure it matches the rest of your design to create a cohesive document.

If you want to create a good business plan that sets your new business up for success and attracts new investors, it’s a good idea to start with a template. 

We’ve got 14 options below from a variety of different industries for you to choose from. You can customize every aspect of each template to fit your business branding and design preferences.

If you're pressed for time, Visme's AI business plan generator can churn out compelling business plans in minutes. Just input a detailed prompt, choose the design, and watch the tool generate your plan in a few seconds.

Template #1: Photography Business Plan Template

This feminine and minimalistic business plan template is perfect for getting started with any kind of creative business. Utilize this template to help outline the step-by-step process of getting your new business idea up and running.

Template #2: Real Estate Business Plan Template

Looking for a more modern business plan design? This template is perfect for plainly laying out each of your business plans in an easy-to-understand format. Adjust the red accents with your business’s colors to personalize this template.

Template #3: Nonprofit Business Plan Template

Creating a business and marketing plan for your nonprofit is still an essential step when you’re just starting out. You need to get the word out to increase donations and awareness for your cause.

Template #4: Restaurant Business Plan Template

If your business plan needs to rely heavily on showcasing photos of your products (like food), this template is perfect for you. Get potential investors salivating at the sight of your business plan, and they’re sure to provide the capital you need.

Template #5: Fashion Business Plan Template

Serifs are in. Utilize this template with stunning serif as all the headers to create a contemporary and trendy business plan design that fits your business. Adjust the colors to match your brand and easily input your own content.

Template #6: Daycare Business Plan Template

Creating a more kid-friendly or playful business? This business plan template has bold colors and design elements that will perfectly represent your business and its mission. 

Use the pages you need, and remove any that you don’t. You can also duplicate pages and move the elements around to add even more content to your business plan.

Template #7: Consulting Business Plan Template

This classic business plan template is perfect for a consulting business that wants to use a stunning visual design to talk about its services.

Template #8: Coffee Shop Business Plan Template

Customize this coffee shop business plan template to match your own business idea. Adjust the colors to fit your brand or industry, replace photos with your own photography or stock photos that represent your business, and insert your own logo, fonts and colors throughout.

Template #9: SaaS Business Plan Template

A SaaS or service-based company also needs a solid business plan that lays out its financials, list of services, target market and more. This template is the perfect starting point.

Template #10: Small Business Plan Template

Every startup or small business needs to start out with a strong business plan in order to start off on the right foot and set yourself up for success. This template is an excellent starting point for any small business.

Template #11: Ecommerce Business Plan Template

An ecommerce business plan is ideal for planning out your pricing strategy of all of your online products, as well as the site you plan to use for setting up your store, whether WordPress, Shopify, Wix or something else.

Template #12: Startup Business Plan Template

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download  

This is another generic business plan template for any type of startup to customize. Switch out the content, fonts and colors to match your startup branding and increase brand equity.

Template #13: One-Page Business Plan Template

Want just a quick business plan to get your idea going before you bite the bullet and map out your entire plan? This one-page template is perfect for those just starting to flesh out a new business idea.

Template #14: Salon Business Plan Template

This salon business plan template is easy on the design and utilizes a light color scheme to put more focus on the actual content. You can use the design as is or keep it as a basis for your own design elements.

Create Your Own Business Plan Today

Ready to write your business plan? Once you’ve created all of the most important sections, get started with a business plan template to really wow your investors and organize your startup plan.

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

• Foundations

The Definitive Guide to Writing a Business Plan

| Written by

This free step-by-step guide to writing a business plan was built just for you, if you aren’t really sure what planning a business is all about. To save time, stress and energy we’ll walk you through everything you need to know without fluff or heavy brain work.

Instead, we’re focusing on the basics. If you’re looking to create a super-dense collegiate 40-page plan, then you should probably take a business planning course at the nearest college.

This guide just covers what your average startup needs to dramatically increase chances of follow-through and success. Enjoy!

Note: Business planning software  can help you write a professional business plan that will lead you to success.

Step 1) Create A Business Plan Shortcut

For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re the most gifted cat burglar on earth– a real savvy savant of the steal. Put yourself in the mindset where strategy and planning are time-erasing pleasures, delicious treats that reward you with immense prosperity– not complex tasks that can be skipped or shelved.

Too many entrepreneurs perceive putting a business plan together as some kind of chore. It’s not. When the product or service is something you believe in, it’s as awesome as it is for those cat burglars in the movies, except you’re plotting honest work.

Fact : It’s possible to create your initial business plan in less than an hour!

Let’s build a “lean plan” that’s simple to create and helps you identify core assets. You start with a pitch, a single page overview which can become your executive summary later on. It’s your business strategy all on one page that’s easy to update as you evolve.

You may be thinking,

“ Wait a minute. If I’m not raising money from investors, why do I need a pitch? ”

Well, after years working with entrepreneurs we’ve found a pitch is really the ideal format to document your business idea , share it with others, and quickly adjust as you learn more about/analyze how you’re going to build your brand.

Furthermore, once you have your pitch done you can easily convert it into a presentation-ready business plan with massive clarity. To begin, follow the simple outline below or allow tools like LivePlan (what we used for Startup Savant) to walk you through the entire process with examples and video tutorials.

What To Include in Your Pitch

As you tackle your one-pager, mentally channel Twitter and try to keep each section as short/concise as possible– the size of a solid tweet.

• Mini-Pitch : Typically a refined sentence summarizing your USP (unique selling proposition).
• Market Need : The problem your business solves for your customers.
• Your Solution : How you’re solving the problem through your products and services.
• Primary Competition : The products and services your customers choose today instead of yours.
• Target Market : This is where you detail your ideal client and niche.
• Sales & Marketing : How you plan on marketing.
• Budget & Sales Goals : How much do you project/calculate you’ll sell and how much is it going to cost to make your product or deliver your service? Also, show other key expenses when your business is up and running.
• Milestones : What you’ve achieved so far and your major goals for the next few months and years.
• Team : Why you and your team are the right people to make your company successful.
• Partners & Resources : List primary companies/organizations needed to go the distance.
• Funding Needs : If you need to raise money, how much and where will this capital be going (channels)?

That might seem like a fair amount of work if you’ve never put together a real pitch before, but remember, that’s just one page of content. Another way to look at it is a one page resume for your business.

A Couple Writing Tips

First, you start with the putty. Don’t try to self-edit or curate, just barf everything out on paper as it flows from your brilliant mind. Format each section out and just let it go. That’s putting the basic shape together.

Now you need to let it dry, so walk away for a day (week) or two. After that, begin chipping away and condensing. Cut the fat and keep tightening the ideas until you’re down to one page. Be brutal! Stick to the facts. Numbers are easier, but when you’re tackling words remember the average person these days has a shorter attention span (if not compelled by your ideas) than a goldfish.

Taking Action on This Step

Create a pitch outline from the points mentioned above and refine down to one or two sentences. If you need help, check out LivePlan. It’s a solid tool that walks you through the entire process. Plus, they offer a 50% Discount .

Step 2) What To Include in Your Plan

Now that you have a running outline, it’s time to go deeper into the framework of your platform.

Perhaps you’re thinking the one-page pitch is all you’ll need? That would be like going on a road trip in unfamiliar territory with a map that only shows destinations– no routes, no roads, no other icons whatsoever. Even if you never plan on showing this to anyone, the process of creating a solid plan optimizes everything about you and your business! Here’s a quick overview of what you need to include in your business plan:

• Cover Page/Pitch
• Executive Summary
• Products & Services
• Target Market
• Marketing & Sales Plan
• Milestones & Metrics
• Company & Management Team
• Financial Plan

If you need extra space for product images, detailed financial forecasts, or general additional info, use the appendix. There are three layers of complexity here. First, your pitch with a very brief summary. Then, your Executive Summary that adds details and context. Then into the finer points of the overall business plan.

Not too shabby, right?

Taking Action on The Step

Please revisit your pitch and find a good way to optimize it just a smidgen. The better your pitch, the better the overall plan.

As you fill in the structure, first focus on providing “mental barf” data you can go through and optimize later. Remember, if you need help, LivePlan will walk you through the entire process with video tutorials and examples.

Step 3) Create a Unique Selling Proposition

When copywriters are given a business idea to optimize, they often begin by defining the USP (unique selling proposition) and mini-pitch. A USP can be just a couple words or an incomplete sentence, while the mini-pitch is usually one or two concise sentences.

Just in case you’re fuzzy on the whole copywriter thing, these folks are paid big bucks to write sales and marketing copy which often includes core slogans.

As an example, here’s what the USP and Pitch for Startup Savant sound like:

USP : “ Entrepreneurship Simplified “

Pitch : “ Startup Savant is a free website that shows you how to start a business and own your future .” Now let’s get past the “How to Write Your USP 101” stuff and dive straight into three core truths.

USPs & Pitches Evolve

The first thing a copywriter will tell you if you’re struggling with this is to relax. They know sales and branding copy optimizes (matures) over time, especially in the first 2-5 years in business.

If possible, avoid thinking your USP is set in stone, never to be altered. It’s more like a sculpture that the market chips away at. Your pitch evolves as you and your platform do. What matters is whether your USP & Pitch are as refined as they can be based on where you are now.

• USPs can be creative & full of personality, but they also need to make sense.
• Is your pitch wordy and confusing? Hazy or unclear?
• Sometimes you have the right words, they just need to be in an optimized order.

Always be ready to “kill your darlings” as copywriters would say. Meaning, get rid of any and all words,

“ That aren’t necessary for the idea or concept you’re conveying to make perfect sense within the context it’s delivered, and to whom it’s being written to. ”

You can begin with half a page, but systematically chisel down to a core concept like, Entrepreneurship Simplified.

Your Ideal Customers Will Do It For You

Copywriters care what you have to say as a business owner or marketing manager, but they know you’re not the ultimate authority in terms of advertising copy.

They’re writing for buyers. In any and all ways your business can optimize over the years, your customers, clients and users should steer the course as much as possible. Be on the lookout for their valuable signals and indications!

Hop at 20 Questions

Copywriters ask TONS of questions. They’re a bit like copy-detectives in how they search high and low for very precise data from their clients. Never fear giving your users, clients or customers a megaphone with which to bark their concerns.

We all love sharing our opinions, right? Yes we do. Let us. Prompt us. Ask us. Bribe us with incentives and discounts… then listen… carefully. Easily 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs are given the ultimate USPs on silver platters by their customers but fail to recognize when they see, read, or hear them.

• If you’ve been stressing on your USP, relax. If it doesn’t feel perfect right now, or 100% distilled, let it happen naturally.
• Your audience can and will steer the course if you choose to notice their cues. Ask three people you haven’t spoken to before how they feel about your product or service.
• Are there any indications out there waiting to be plucked? Blog or social media comments and reviews are primary starting points. It only takes one solid indicator for the magic “pivots” to cause your business or brand to see huge boosts.

Step 4) Crafting the Executive Summary

In brief, what exactly is an executive summary? An executive summary (ES) is an overview of your business and your vision. It comes first in formal/informal business plans and is ideally 1-2 pages.

The ES introduces your business to your reader. If you don’t nail it, no one’s going to read any further. And if an ES sucks, despite it being professionally crafted, then the business model itself needs work or isn’t worth your time. Every ES should include a brief overview of the following:

• The problem your business addresses.
• Your solution.
• Your target market.
• Why the timing’s right for your brand.
• Financial forecast highlights, along with initial/current customer acquisition costs (CAC) and lifetime customer value (LCV).

If you’re raising money or presenting to investors, you’ll also want to cover:

• Your existing team and partners.
• How much money you’re looking to raise and the type of exit strategies in place.

Ideally your ES should fit on one or two pages and be able to stand alone, apart from your business plan. A common strategy is to send your ES out to investors/family/friends and then the complete plan if more detail is requested.

Remember to try and position your writing for people who don’t know anything about your business before they start reading. Explain things simply so that anyone can understand your opportunity, whether they be an in-tune player, an 8th grader, or a grandma.

• Over the next couple weeks, refresh your ES!
• Who is the first person you’re going to send your ES to that has no real previous knowledge of what your business is? It helps having someone in mind when writing.
• Find one amazing ES to read over and see what you can learn from it. Here and here are two great examples.

Well done, in the next step we’ll help you explain your product or service and how it makes an impact on customers.

Step 5) Understanding Customers

Once upon a time there was this lovely, vibrant and ambitious entrepreneur who decided to sell organic breast enlargement cream. It sold well for a while, but then her numbers plateaued, and eventually began to decline.

She knew her business needed a makeover after years in the trenches. So, she created an automated incentive program, a 25% discount coupon code offer sent with every order in exchange for an anonymous review with a photograph. Just a simple before/after image showing the front of their body from neckline to belly button (to confirm usage).

They started rolling in and here are the gems she unearthed :

• A small portion of her customers were husbands buying a discreet gift for their wives/girlfriends, but most (85%) were transgender folks in transition.
• For the vast majority of her cis-female customers, larger breasts had more to do with enhancing self-esteem/identity and filling out clothes than attracting mates.
• Almost 100% really hammered down on the fact her cream was all-natural, organic and didn’t cause irritation or allergic reactions.

She went back and dusted off her original copy she put together years before.

From: “ A certified organic breast enlargement cream. ”

To something more along the lines of: “ Increase confidence and femininity through an organic non-allergenic breast enlargement cream. ”

When stuck in a rut, and we all get there as entrepreneurs, the quickest and most effective way out is to look at your predicament from different perspectives.

Begin with the fundamental question, “What problem does my product/service solve for customers?” then look deeper and from unique angles. Who are your buyers? They have the answer. And remember, actions speak louder than words.

Oftentimes we rationalize buying things for one reason, but in reality have a more potent ulterior motive. Sure, her customers want larger breasts, that’s what prompt initial sales. But the needs her product solves in their day-to-day lives are more interesting. It actually made her customers feel more confident, happy, and healthy.

Find one deeper way your product or service materializes in everyday life for your customers. Pay close attention to the simple verbiage you and others use to describe it, e.g. “Your earphones really get rid of all the noise on the bus.”

If possible, get hold of one fresh buyer perspective. Who and where are they? That woman in our example had spent years excluding nearly half her customer base in her advertorial copy. Do you use your own product or service? If so, find a way to record yourself explaining it in the most natural language possible. Use a smartphone or leave yourself a voicemail. Then, just listen.

But wait, what if you’re just starting out and don’t have much to draw on in terms of direct customer or user feedback? Glad you asked! In the next section we’re going to talk about competition, which is another valuable source of indicators.

Step 6) Leveraging Competition

What products and/or services are people choosing instead of yours?

Whether you’re new to the market or not, these so-called “competitors” are really the ideal source of optimization for your brand. And it’s not about being better per se. All things equal, it’s more about uniqueness.

Would you rather be a prettier, more flashy brand trying desperately to stand out, or develop intense brand-character that the right people notice? Once you’ve narrowed down your competitors, look at them from new angles to discover what makes you distinctive.

• Can they help you better define your target market/sub-markets?
• How effective are their social media marketing methods and website copy?
• What do you know about their buyers’ needs?
• What do they make “stand out” when shoulder to shoulder with your brand?

A common practice entrepreneurs use in pitch presentations to venture capitalists or investors is the Comparison Matrix.

You’ve seen these a zillion times. In short, list your competitors across the top of the page and your features and benefits along the side, then check the boxes for which company offers each. Don’t forget you can be creative here. You may even already use one of these on your website, or within some other marketing media.

• Could these features and benefits be communicated in different, more compelling ways?
• What real need-based copy is being left out?
• How can you simplify it? An easy way is to reduce the number of competitors, so shoot for less players with more interesting copy.

Got time to put something simple together? In reality what we’re looking for are the things about your competitors that help you stand out.

• Think about your biggest competitor: what do they make obvious about your brand?
• What are you doing with more personality from the perspective of ideal clients or customers?
• Could you take your primary competitor’s copy and make it clearer, or more optimized?

All in all, understanding your competition is an important part of the planning process. This is where you find your true competitive advantage.

For a more in-depth look at how you stand up to the competition, check out LivePlan’s Benchmark feature. You can see at-a-glance how you compare to companies just like yours. Tell LivePlan your industry and location, and it shows if/how you’re doing better or worse than your competition.

Now let’s talk about your unique marketing approach. This will help you stand out and connect with your customers on multiple levels.

Step 7) Create a Marketing Plan

Fred is a brand spanking new entrepreneur with a neat new fitness product he believes is going to make a big splash.

He knows exactly who his ideal customers are and his niche is carved out like a Renaissance marble sculpture. Fred’s also managed to get his hands on $100k in debt-free funding (don’t ask us how, this is hypothetical)…

• His product costs exactly $32 to source, make and package.
• To be competitive, and account for shipping/processing, he’s going live at $55.
• Initial margin is about $13 per sale.

Admittedly, that would be pretty amazing, but that’s because we’re coming from a standpoint of experience. Fred’s just showing up to the 21st-Century party. He’s never built, owned, or managed a business before, let alone an ecommerce platform.

He’s never outsourced a graphic artist or content writer before; never had to choose which analytic dashboard to use; never designed a conversion model or tangled with paid advertising platforms. Let’s say Fred called and begged us to lunch. We accepted. And so there we are, the three amigos with Fred sitting on a huge meal ticket drooling for answers.

“ How Do I Market My Product? ”

Once the table conch gets passed to us, we’re going to hit him hard with massive bombshells:

• Tight responsive funnels can be constructed in a couple months with the right designer, or design agency (website, landing pages, ecommerce setup, branding packages, etc.).
• Initial market testing and adjustment can be bootstrapped.
• There are a variety of intuitive and relatively simple software tools, apps, plugins, add-ons, and cloud-based solutions that range from free to expensive.
• It takes a savvy mix of highly-focused content, social exposure and paid advertising.
• It takes a team.

Question is, what advice would you give Fred? That’s what we’d like you to consider. And it needs to be marketing-based. The money’s there, the production system’s in place, it’s just a matter of reaching his fitness-based audience and selling.

Let’s imagine Fred’s offered you a lifetime, no questions asked, 5% share of his company from now till doomsday. All you have to do is provide valuable direction in these three areas:

• Content : What kind of content should he invest in? Blogs, video, infographics, imagery, etc.
• Social : How to handle social media if he a) doesn’t have the time, b) has no clue what works?
• Paid Advertising : AdWords? Facebook? TV? Magazine ads? How does he get to buyers?

Just let your mind wander, and don’t worry, in the next section we’ll talk about setting milestones for your business.

Step 8) Set Milestones

If there’s one specific part of the entrepreneurial journey that we get really nerdy about, it’s the way people verbally describe their trials and successes. We’re listening intently for clues as to how they set milestones and metrics and then track them.

Let’s spend some time pondering the way(s) you’re measuring your journey and how you approach KPIs (key performance indicators) in relation to both your marketing and your competition. Or, if you’re trying to figure out how viable a product idea is, how you’re calculating acceptable setbacks and struggle.

What have you achieved so far and what are your major goals for the next few months or years?

Sure, it’s cliché to talk about tracking milestones in an era of big data, but truth be told too many aspiring entrepreneurs either skip this part until much further down the road when it can’t be ignored anymore, or they only take it seriously in the beginning then fail to stick to the plan.

Avoid Drowning Out Customer Journey!

Of course there are folks who obsess on this part and try to manage a small army of analytic dashboards and amazing software solutions like FreshBooks or Xero.

Once it becomes too much they end up transforming their perspective of the customer journey from something organic into a mesh of math and graphs. Most of their day is spent pouring over dense numbers or marketing data and trying to figure out how to alter this metric or that.

• How many of your milestones are focused entirely on your customers instead of you and your business?
• Instead of views, likes, and shares, what about the amount of service calls you’re getting? How many people are actually reaching out with questions and concerns?
• How well do your metrics allow you to understand each part of their trek from initially discovering your business to making a purchase?

Find ways to do more with less data. It’s always within reach these days, especially when you’re tuned in to your customers!

• Find one way to streamline how you’re dealing with milestones/metrics, or how you intend to.
• Also, look for one single way to be more holistic in your approach to setting goals.
• Find a part of your customer journey/behavior and decide if current metrics help or hinder it.

Need help in this area? LivePlan has a really impressive dashboard  to help you set goals and stay accountable over the lifetime of your business. This dramatically increases your chances of success.

Step 9) Refine Aquisition Costs

Without question, failure to clearly know the cost of acquiring customers is a mighty new business demolisher. It’s crushed more entrepreneurial dreams than every economic collapse combined since the creation of fiat currency. To come to grips, or optimize your Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), begin by figuring out exactly how you’re reaching customers.

Or, if you’re building an initial business plan, how much will it cost to reach buyers on the platforms where they spend their time? Your financials should easily allow you to calculate CAC.

Now, in the simplest terms here’s how:

• Take (estimate) the entire cost of sales and marketing over whatever period of time you’re dealing with, for example when forecasting sales and financials. Make sure to include salaries and any other headcount-related costs.
• Divide that number by the amount of buying customers/clients/users that were acquired within this time.

If you happen to run a purely web-based business, headcount likely doesn’t need to grow as you scale customer acquisition, but it’s a useful metric to include nonetheless.

The second part of this is your Lifetime Customer Value, or LCV, because in most cases 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of overall customers and happen AFTER the initial sale. Never shortchange the follow-through!

If your CAC is too high, it must be able to come down through optimization. If LCV is horrid, then in the long run it’s an unsustainable business model. Or in other words, once CAC exceeds LCV, something needs to change or you’ll have to close shop.

• Begin looking at one stream of cost per lead. So for example, maybe a Google AdWords or Facebook advertising campaign.
• What’s one single way you could get more in touch with a hot-spot within your customers’ buyer experience?
• Let your mind stew a little on the level of ‘touch’ required to increase LCV. How can you up-sell or generate more revenue from each customer long term?

After you make these calculations three or four times, it starts becoming second nature. LivePlan’s forecasting  handles this pretty well. It walks you through creating expenses that are a certain percentage of sales.

Step 10) Forecast Sales

Smart entrepreneurs start forecasting sales early on.

And while ‘the numbers’ part of business planning can be intimidating, this exercise is definitely a small mountain worth karate chopping down.

Keep in mind that if you get stuck at any point, LivePlan’s Forecasting and Budgeting  feature is extremely helpful. Whether you’re starting a bakery, a subscription software business, or a manufacturing company, LivePlan walks you through the entire forecasting process within a few clicks.

How Detailed Does it Need to Be?

Don’t be too generic and just forecast sales for your entire business. But on the other hand, don’t go nuts and create a forecast for everything you sell if you’ve got a large assortment.

For example, if you’re starting a restaurant you don’t want to create forecasts for each item on the menu.

Instead, focus on broader categories like lunch, dinner, and drinks. Or if you’re starting a clothing brand, forecast key categories like outerwear, casual wear, and so on.

Top-Down or Bottom-up?

In our humble opinion, forecasting “from the top down” can be costly. What that means is figuring out the total size of the market you’re in and trying to capture a small percentage.

For example, in 2015, more than $1.4 billion smartphones were sold worldwide. It’s pretty tempting for a startup to say they’re going to get 1% of that total market. After all, 1% is such a tiny little sliver it’s got to be believable, right?

The problem is this kind of guessing isn’t based on reality. Sure, it looks like it might be credible on the surface, but you have to dig deeper.

• What’s driving those sales?
• How are people finding your new smartphone company?
• Of the people that find out, how many will buy?

Instead of “from the top down,” do a “bottom-up” forecast. Just like the name suggests, bottom-up starts at the bottom and works its way up to a forecast. Start by thinking about how many potential customers you might be able to make contact with.

This could be through advertising, sales calls, or other marketing methods. Of the people you can reach, how many do you think you’ll be able to bring in the door or get onto your website?

And finally, of the people that come in the door, get on the phone, or visit your site, how many will buy?

Here’s an example:

• 10,000 people see my company’s ad online,
• 1,000 people click from the ad to my website,
• 100 people end up making a purchase.

Obviously, these are all nice round numbers, but it should give you an idea of how bottom-up forecasting works. The last step of the bottom-up forecasting method is to think about the average amount that each of those 100 people in our example ends up spending (remember LCV).

On average, do they spend $20? $100? It’s fine to guess here, and the best way to refine your guess is to go out and talk to potential customers. You’ll be surprised how accurate a number you can get with a few simple interviews.

How Far to Forecast

Try forecasting monthly for a year into the future and then just annually for another three to five years.

The further your forecast into the future, the less you’re going to know and the less benefit it’s going to have for your company. After all, the world’s going to change, your business is going to change, and you’ll be updating your forecast to reflect them.

And don’t forget, all forecasts are wrong—that’s fine. Your forecast is just your best guess at what’s going to happen. As you learn more about your business and your customers, you’ll adjust. It’s not set in stone.

• First, remind yourself that ALL forecasts are wrong. Forecasting is more about learning and evolving.
• Without adding too much to your plate, take a look at your monthly sales chart and see what kinds of optimizations forecasting might bring to light. If you aren’t already charting sales, start today or begin planning how.
• Try two easy bottom-up projections with nice round numbers to get the feel for it.

Just remember that sales forecasting doesn’t have to be hard. Anyone can do it and you, as an entrepreneur, are the most qualified to do it for your business. You know your customers and you know your market, so you can forecast your sales.

But if you decide you’d appreciate help, we highly recommend forecasting your sales with LivePlan. LivePlan  automatically generates all the charts and graphs you need and automatically includes them in your plan.

Wrapping Up: Formatting Your Plan

The format of your business plan is critical. It goes a long way toward refining and achieving your goals: raising money, setting the strategy for your team and growing your platform. That being the case, let’s breeze through seven tips that can help you create, refine, and optimize your brilliant business plan.

1. Always Start with Your Executive Summary

An ES should be written for ideal readers, customers, potential investors or team members, or even just to help you ‘goal-map’ your way to where you need to be. Regardless, nailing the Executive Summary is critical in terms of understanding the potential behind your business idea.

2. End with Supporting Documents

The appendix is composed of key numbers and other details that support your plan. At a minimum, your appendix should include financial forecasts and budgets. Typically, it’s wise to include a Profit & Loss statement, Cash Flow forecast, and a Balance Sheet. With practice and a smidgen of savvy software like LivePlan these pages can take a couple hours or so.

You might also use your appendix to include product diagrams or detailed research findings, depending on your business, your industry, and how deep your business plan needs to go given the reader/purpose.

Quick Recap of the Lineup Pitch Executive Summary Products & Services Target Market Marketing & Sales Plan Milestones & Metrics Company & Management Team Financial Plan & Appendix

3. Keep it Short

Let’s face it: no one has time to read a 40-page business plan. If you’ve nailed your ES, you’ll want to follow up with 8 to 12 additional pages at most in support. Instead of trying to cram everything in using small fonts and tiny margins, focus on trimming down your writing (‘kill your darlings’). Use direct, simple language that gets to the point.

4. Get Visual

As the old adage goes, “ A picture is worth a thousand words. ” This is especially true when you’re formatting a business plan. Use charts and graphs to explain forecasts. Add pictures of your product(s). Again, there are plenty of software solutions that make it easy to do more showing and less telling. That said…

5. Don’t Obsess on Looks

It’s your ideas that matter. A beautiful plan that talks about an ill-conceived business with incomplete financial forecasts is never going to beat a plan that’s formatted poorly but discusses a great, clearly explained vision. Spending days making a beautiful plan isn’t going to make your business ideas better. Instead, focus on polishing the words. Trim extra content you don’t need, and make sure ideas are well-presented.

6. Keep Formatting Simple

• For general formatting use single spacing with an extra space between paragraphs.
• If you’re printing your plan, use a nice serif font like Garamond or Baskerville.
• If your plan will mostly be read on a computer screen, go with a sans serif font like Verdana or Arial.

Why choose different fonts for on-screen versus off-screen? Well, research shows readers have higher comprehension when they read a document with a serif font on paper, and higher comprehension reading with a sans serif font on a screen.

Don’t stress too much about this, though. Choose any one of the four fonts mentioned above and move forward.

• For font size, 10 to 12 point is usually ideal and readable for most people. If you need to reduce the font size to make your plan shorter, then you should be cutting content, not adjusting the font size.
• The same rule goes for margins: use typical one-inch margins to make the plan readable.

Cover pages are always a good idea, too. Use the cover page to show off your logo, tagline, and pitch.

Finally, make sure your plan document flows well and doesn’t have any “widows” or “orphans” when it prints out. A “widow” is when the last line of a paragraph appears alone at the top of a page, and an “orphan” is a single word that gets left behind at the bottom of a paragraph.

7. Get a Second Pair of Eyes

The last piece of advice is to get a second pair of eyes. When you’re the only one working on your plan, you can become blind to common errors. Recruit a friend or family member, or even hire a copy-editing professional to give it that last bit of polish. There’s nothing worse than a plan with grammatical or spelling errors. A second pair of eyes will go a long way toward catching the majority of those potential problems or holes.

• Who’s your second, third, and possibly fourth pair of eyes going to be?
• What’s one part of your business plan you could optimize today?
• What’s one piece of visual content you could add to your appendix?

Exclusive Bonus

If you’d like to try LivePlan yourself, here’s an exclusive 50% off LivePlan promo code  offered to our readers. You’ll have 60 days of risk free planning with their 100% money back guarantee. Enjoy!

Further Reading

• The 8 Best LLC Services of 2024 September 10, 2024
• How to Start an LLC in 7 Easy Steps (2024) September 13, 2024
• What Is an LLC? August 2, 2024

Topics to Explore

• Startup Ideas
• Startup Basics
• Startup Leadership
• Startup Marketing
• Startup Funding

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Template Highlights

• There are ten sections, including the executive summary, introduction to your company, a market analysis, the problem you want to solve, your innovative/disruptive/other -ive word solution, who's on your team, the sales & marketing strategy, your financial plan, your implementation plan, a conclusion, and any additional resources
• The instructions are specific and easy to follow, so all you have to do is fill in the blanks. Bonus: thinking about these things will prepare you for meetings with potential investors, customers, and employees as well
• Some of the sections don't apply to your startup? Delete 'em. Want to add a section that's not there? Add it. You can even customize the branding and color scheme
• Download it as a PDF or Word file
• Print it, email it, send it to your parents so they can frame it

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Startup Business Plan Template

The term “startup” has become a familiar part of the business lexicon and is often used to describe fast-growing, entrepreneur-led companies in the technology sector. Actually, a startup is any business enterprise that has recently been established. If you are in the early stages of starting a business, one of the first steps you will need to take is to create a business plan.

This simple template was designed to help someone new to the business world to easily put together a professional plan describing a new venture. Keep your startup plan short. As your business matures, you can adapt the plan to include additional detail.

You can create different iterations of it for different audiences. The bank will want more financial information, but a new employee might be more interested in your company’s mission statement and your plan for selling the product or service.

Executive Summary

An executive summary is a crucial part of any business plan. It should come first in your document. The executive summary gives the reader, who may be a very busy bank executive, a chance to understand your business in a quick, one-page read.

In no more than a short paragraph for each point, summarize the sections of your business plan:

• Give your elevator pitch and briefly describe your company

• Summarize the market research you have done

• Present the problem you are aiming to solve

• Describe how your product or service solves the problem

• Introduce key management

• Provide a synopsis of your sales and marketing plan

• Explain your financial plan

Close your executive summary with a clear explanation of your project, why it is needed, and how it will benefit future customers and investors.

HubSpot Tip: Write this section last, after you have written all of the other sections. It should summarize your entire business plan in about a page.

About the Company

Describe what makes your company different. This section should convince readers that your business idea is important and that the product or service that you will offer is needed.

Present your company’s name, location, type of business, ownership, and significant assets.

Describe your company’s mission: What is your reason for existence? Describe the values on which you are founding the company.

List the company’s goals and objectives and explain how you fit into the industry.

HubSpot Tip: Keep this section brief. The remainder of the document allows space for you to go into more detail about your business.

Market Analysis

Before writing your business plan, you need to conduct research on the market and industry you are planning to enter. Based on that research, you should describe your industry, the opportunities it offers, and the growth it is experiencing.

Describe the key environmental trends in your industry. What are the barriers to entry (e.g., high production or marketing costs, tariff barriers, regulatory challenges, extensive training)? How is the industry progressing? What is changing?

You should also define your target customers. Who will buy your product or service?

Who are your major competitors? Identify and describe them.

Identify what defines your product or service in the marketplace. What distinctive competencies or offerings do you provide that other companies do not?

HubSpot Tip: Note the key factors for success in this industry, and focus on proving that your company has them.

The Problem

Describe the need in the market that your business idea will fill. How did this need arise and why has it not been filled yet? Explain how you identified the need and how your product or service will meet it.

HubSpot Tip: Keep this section short, as the focus should be on your solution, which you will describe in the next part of the business plan.

Our Solution

Describe the products or services your business will provide. Include your value proposition - describe how your service/product is attractive to customers.

You should also include a description of the features and benefits of your product or service to your customer. Consider capturing this in a simple table like the one below.

Product/Service Feature

Benefit to the Customer

HubSpot Tip: You can include photos or brochures of your products, but consider putting them in an appendix so that they do not interrupt the message in your narrative.

Organizational Structure

Since your company is just starting, it is likely that you do not have many people on your staff. Describe the key operations and management roles in your company, and provide brief biographical sketches of your leadership. The aim is to show to readers that your team has the skills and qualifications to implement what you have outlined in the business plan.

If you receive advice from a board of directors or any high-level external advisors, mention them in this section.

HubSpot Tip: The biographical sketches should include the educational credentials, relevant experience, and related accomplishments of your leaders. Consider personalizing your plan by including headshots of your staff.

Sales and Marketing Strategy

In this section, you should describe how you will promote your new product or service. Begin by identifying challenges with entering the market and explain how you will overcome them. You can use a table like the one below to outline the barriers and your solutions.

Market Barrier/Challenge

Justify the following choices you have made:

• Location – Does it bring cost savings? Is it close to your customer base?

• Pricing Strategy – How will it entice customers to buy your products or services? How will it lead to profits for your business and investors?

• Promotion Plan - Will you use print, radio, television, or social media? Will you hire a marketing manager?

Note the budget for your marketing strategy and tell the reader how you will obtain the funding for this important aspect of your business. If you plan to use consultants or an advertising agency, include these costs in your budget.

HubSpot Tip: Consider including a few mockups of your company’s logos, branding, or marketing materials in an appendix.

Financial Plan

Describe the cost structure and financial aspects of the business. Explain the kind and amount of investment that you need, what you will use the money for, and how you envision your business becoming profitable.

To give readers a peek into your company’s projected financial future, you should include as much of the following financial information as possible. Remember, your business plan is a living document, so even if you do not have all of this information at the startup stage, you can add it as your business matures.

• Cash flow projection – An estimate of how much money you expect to flow in and out of your business.

• Capitalization plan – Lists the sources and uses of capital that your business plans to amass.

• Break-even analysis – A determination of what you need to sell in order to cover the costs of doing business.

• Income statement – Also known as a profit and loss statement (P&L), it shows the company’s revenues and expenses over a period of time.

• Balance sheet – A statement of the assets, liabilities, and capital of a business at a point in time.

Financial documentation is often long, so you should reference them here and include copies in an appendix.

HubSpot Tip: Not everyone is an expert in finance, but it plays an important role in starting a business. Unless you have an accounting background, consider seeking assistance on this section of your plan.

Implementation Plan

Tell the reader how you will implement your business plan. Consider including a timeline like the one below to illustrate the steps in the process to getting your business up and running. Customize it with your dates and the specific steps you will take.

HubSpot Tip: Set reasonable deadlines that you are able to meet, but that show your initiative and eagerness to realize your new venture.

In a few sentences, summarize the main point that you would like the reader to understand about your business. This can vary based on the target audience. For example, if you are presenting your plan to a bank to ask for a loan, this section should focus on your financial viability and why the bank should choose to finance your business.

Describe the next steps, and provide detailed contact information so that the reader can get in touch with you easily.

HubSpot Tip: Your conclusion should incite the reader to act. Make it easy for them by including all of the information they need to move forward.

Want to provide additional detail but need to avoid making your business plan too long? You can insert documents in the Appendices and reference them in the text. In this way, you can provide more information without breaking up the flow of your business plan text.

HubSpot Tip: Consider including examples of your marketing materials, a map of the business location, background research, images of your products, resumes of company leaders, or financial documents in the appendices of your business plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i write a startup business plan, is this template free, can i edit this template, related tags:.

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How to Write a Business Plan for Your Startup

Anyone can have a great idea. But turning an idea into a viable business is a different ballgame.

You may think you’re ready to launch a startup company . That’s great news, and you should be excited about it.

Before you start seeking legal advice, renting office space, or forming an LLC, you need to put your thoughts on paper. This will help you stay organized and focused.

You’ll also be able to share this plan with others to help you get valuable feedback. We don’t recommend starting a company without consulting people first.

A typical business plan consists of the following elements:

• An executive summary
• A company description
• Market research
• Descriptions of products and/or services
• The management and operational structure
• Marketing and sales strategy

Thoroughly writing out your plan accomplishes several things.

Save your business plan progress in one place across all the document apps you use.

First, it gives you a much better understanding of your business. You may think  you know what you’re talking about, but putting it on paper will truly make you an expert.

Writing a formal plan increases your chances of success  by 16%.

Having a business plan also gives you a better chance of raising capital for your startup  company. No banks or investors will give you a dollar if you don’t have a solid business plan.

Plus, companies with business plans also see higher growth rates  than those without a plan.

If you have an idea for a startup company but not sure how to get started with a business plan, we can help you out. We will show you how to write different elements of your business plan and provide some helpful tips along the way.

8 Steps to Write a Business Plan

Here’s what you need to know to get started.

• Make sure your company has a clear objective
• Identify your target market
• Analyze your competition 
• Budget accordingly
• Identify your goals and financial projections
• Clearly define the power structure
• Discuss your marketing plan
• Keep it short and professional

Step 1 – Make sure your company has a clear objective

When writing a company description, make sure it’s not ambiguous.

“We’re going to sell stuff”

isn’t going to cut it.

Instead, identify who you are and when you plan on going into business. State what kinds of products or services you’ll be offering and in what industry.

Where will this business operate? Be clear whether you’ll have a physical store, operate online, or both. Is your company local, regional, national, or international?

Your company description can also incorporate your mission statement.

This is an opportunity for you to gain a better understanding of your startup. The company summary forces you to set clear objectives. The type of company you have and how you will operate should be obvious to anyone who reads it.

Include the reasons for going into business. For example, let’s say you’re opening a restaurant. A reason for opening could be that you identified that no other restaurants in the area serve the cuisine you specialize in.

You can briefly discuss the vision and future of your startup company, but you don’t need to go into too much detail. You’ll cover that in greater depth as you write the rest of your business plan.

Keep in mind, this description is a summary, so there’s no reason for you to write a ton. This section should be pretty concise and no more than three or four paragraphs.

Step 2 – Identify your target market

Your business isn’t for everyone. Although you may think everyone will love your idea, that’s not a viable business strategy.

One of the first steps to launching a successful business is clearly identifying the target market of your startup .

But to find out whom you’ll target, you need to conduct market research .

This is arguably the most important part of launching a startup company. If there’s no market for your business, the company will fail. It’s as simple as that.

All too often we see entrepreneurs rush into a decision because they fall in love with an idea. Due to this tunnel vision, they don’t take the necessary steps to conduct the proper research.

Sadly, those businesses don’t last.

But if you take the time to write a business plan, you may discover there’s not a viable market for your startup before it’s too late. It’s much better to learn this information in these preliminary stages than after you’ve dumped a ton of money into your venture.

To figure out your target market, start with broad assumptions and slowly narrow it down. Typically, the best way to segment your audience is using these four categories:

• demographic
• psychographic

Start with things like:

• income level

As we said earlier, start broadly. For example, you may start by saying your target market lives in North America, and then narrow it down to the United States.

But as you continue going through your market research, you can get even more specific. You can target customers living in New England, for example.

By the time you’re finished, the target market could look something like this:

• ages 26 to 40
• living in the Boston area
• with an annual income of $55,000-$70,000
• who are into recycling

This profile encompasses all four demographic segments we mentioned earlier. Plus, it’s very specific.

Your business plan should talk about the research you conducted to identify this market. Talk about the data you collected from surveys and interviews .

You’ll use this target market in other sections of the business plan as well when you discuss future projections and your marketing strategy. We’ll cover both of those topics shortly.

Step 3 – Analyze your competition

In addition to researching your target market, you need to conduct a competitive analysis as well. You’ll use this information to create your brand differentiation strategy .

When you’re writing a business plan, your startup doesn’t exist yet. Nobody knows about you. Don’t expect to be successful if you’re planning to launch a competitor’s carbon copy.

Customers won’t have a reason to switch to your brand if it’s the same as the company they already know and trust.

How will you separate yourself from the crowd?

Your differentiation strategy could involve your price and quality. If your prices are significantly lower, that can be your niche in the industry. If you have superior quality, there is a market for that as well.

Competitive analysis should be conducted simultaneously with identifying your target audience. Both of these fall under the market research category of your business plan.

Once you figure out who your competitors are, it will be easier to determine how your company will be different from them. But this information will be based on your target market.

For example, let’s say you’re in the clothing industry. Your competitors will depend on your target market. If you’re planning to sell jeans for $50, you won’t be competing with designer brands selling jeans for $750.

Or you can base your price differentiation on what you learned about your target market. From there, you’ll be able to identify your competitors.

As you can see, the two go hand in hand.

Step 4 – Budget accordingly

You need to have all your numbers in order when you’re writing a business plan, especially if you’re planning on securing investment funding.

Figure out exactly how much money  you need to start the business and stay operational; otherwise, you’ll run out of money.

Running out of cash is one of the most common reasons why startup companies fail. Taking the time to sort your budget out before you launch will minimize that risk.

Consider everything. Start with the basics like:

• equipment costs
• property (buying or leasing)

Here’s an example  of what this will look like in your business plan:

These numbers need to be accurate. When in doubt, estimate higher. Things don’t always go according to plan.

In the example above, although the total startup expenses are less than $28k, it may not be a bad idea to raise $40k or even $50k. That way, you’d have some extra cash in the bank in case something comes up.

You don’t want poor budgeting to be the reason for your startup’s failure.

Step 5 – Identify your goals and financial projections

Let’s continue talking about your financials. Obviously, you won’t have any income statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, or other accounting documents if you’re not fully operational.

However, you can still make projections. You can base these projections on the total population of the target market in your area and what percentage of that market you think you can penetrate.

If you have an expansion strategy in mind, this would also be outlined in your financial projections.

These projections should cover the first three to five years of your startup. Make sure they are reasonable. Don’t just say you’ll make $10 million in your first year. In fact, your company may not be even profitable for the first couple of years.

As long as you’re being honest with yourself and potential investors, your financial plan will cover your break-even analysis.

While it’s reasonable to expect your sales revenue to increase each year, you still need to take all factors into consideration.

For example, if you’re planning to expand to a new location in year four, your financial projections need to be adjusted accordingly.

You may not be profitable until your third year of operation, but if you’re opening a new facility in year four, that year may have a net loss as well. Again, this is completely fine as long as you’re planning and budgeting accordingly.

Another example of a goal could be launching an ecommerce store in addition to your brick-and-mortar locations. Just don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. Keep everything within reason.

Step 6 – Clearly define the power structure

Your business plan should also cover the organizational structure of your startup. If it’s a small company with just you and maybe one or two business partners, this should be easy.

But depending on how you’re planning to scale the company, it’s best to get this sorted out sooner rather than later. Here’s an example of what your organizational chart  may look like:

It’s really important to have this hierarchy in place before you get started. That way, there’s no debate over who reports to which position. It’s clear who is in charge of specific people and departments.

Don’t get too complex with this.

If you put too many layers of managers, directors, and supervisors between the top of the chart and the bottom of the chart, things can get confusing.

You don’t want any instructions or assignments to get lost in translation between levels. You also don’t want anyone to be confused about who is in charge.

This is an opportunity for you to outline how your company will operate in terms of board members and investors. Who has the final say in decisions?

While we understand you may need to give up some equity in your startup to get off the ground, we recommend keeping the power in your hands.

Step 7 – Discuss your marketing plan

Your marketing plan relies on everything else we’ve talked about so far.

How will you acquire customers based on the market research of your target audience and competitive analysis?

This strategy needs to be aligned with your budget and financial projections as well.

We could sit here and talk about different marketing strategies all day. But there’s no right or wrong way to approach this for your startup company.

Our recommendation would be to stay as cost-effective as possible. Be versatile and well-balanced too.

Acquiring customers is expensive. You don’t want to dump your entire marketing budget into one strategy. If it doesn’t work, you’ve got nothing to fall back on.

Take these categories into consideration when you’re coming up with a marketing plan:

Before you try anything too crazy, get the basics sorted out first:

• launch a website
• stay active on social media platforms
• start building an email subscriber list
• focus on customer retention
• come up with customer loyalty programs.

Don’t ease into this one step at a time. Come out fast. Even before your company officially launches, you can start building your website and social media profiles.

The last thing you want is for consumers to find out about your brand but then be unable to find your website or contact information. Or worse, get directed to a website that’s broken or unfinished.

Step 8 – Keep it short and professional

We’ve talked about many different components of your business plan. It may sound overwhelming, but don’t be alarmed.

This shouldn’t be a 100-page dissertation.

You definitely want it to be detailed and thorough, but don’t go overboard. There’s no exact number of pages it should be, but have at least one page per section.

It should also be written cleanly and professionally. Don’t use slang terminology.

Proofread it for grammatical and spelling errors.

Remember, you may need to use this to raise capital. People may be hesitant to give you money if you overlook the small stuff like proper grammar.

Launching a startup company is exciting. It’s easy to get so caught up in the moment that you rush into things.

If you want to set yourself up for success, you need to take a step back and plan things out.

Going through the process of writing a formal business plan will increase your chances of securing an investment and also improve your potential growth rate.

The market research you’ll need to conduct in order to write this plan will also help you determine whether this is a viable business venture to proceed with.

If you’ve never written a business plan, use this post as a guide for what you should include. Follow our tips for best practices.

Writing a business plan may seem like a tedious task right now, but we promise it will keep you organized and save you lots of headaches down the road.

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9 Business Plan Examples to Inspire Your Own (2024)

Need support creating your business plan? Check out these business plan examples for inspiration and guidance.

Any aspiring entrepreneur researching how to start a business will likely be advised to write a business plan. But few resources provide business plan examples to really guide you through writing one of your own.

Here are some real-world and illustrative business plan examples to help you craft your business plan .

Business plan format: 9 examples

The business plan examples in this article follow this template:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Products and services
• Marketing plan
• Logistics and operations plan
• Financial plan
• Customer segmentation

1. Executive summary

Your executive summary is a page that gives a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. While it appears at the beginning, it’s easiest to write this section last, as there are details further in the report you’ll need to include here.

In this free business plan template , the executive summary is four paragraphs and takes a little over half a page. It clearly and efficiently communicates what the business does and what it plans to do, including its business model and target customers.

2. Company description

You might repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page , social media profile pages, or other properties that require a boilerplate description of your small business.

Soap brand ORRIS has a blurb on its About page that could easily be repurposed for the company description section of its business plan.

You can also go more in-depth with your company overview and include the following sections, like in this business plan example for Paw Print Post:

Business structure

This section outlines how you registered your business —as an LLC , sole proprietorship, corporation, or other business type : “Paw Print Post will operate as a sole proprietorship run by the owner, Jane Matthews.”

Nature of the business

“Paw Print Post sells unique, one-of-a-kind digitally printed cards that are customized with a pet’s unique paw prints.”

“Paw Print Post operates primarily in the pet industry and sells goods that could also be categorized as part of the greeting card industry.”

Background information

“Jane Matthews, the founder of Paw Print Post, has a long history in the pet industry and working with animals, and was recently trained as a graphic designer. She’s combining those two loves to capture a niche in the market: unique greeting cards customized with a pet’s paw prints, without needing to resort to the traditional (and messy) options of casting your pet’s prints in plaster or using pet-safe ink to have them stamp their ’signature.’”

Business objectives

“Jane will have Paw Print Post ready to launch at the Big Important Pet Expo in Toronto to get the word out among industry players and consumers alike. After two years in business, Jane aims to drive $150,000 in annual revenue from the sale of Paw Print Post’s signature greeting cards and to have expanded into two new product categories.”

“Jane Matthews is the sole full-time employee of Paw Print Post but hires contractors as needed to support her workflow and fill gaps in her skill set. Notably, Paw Print Post has a standing contract for five hours a week of virtual assistant support with Virtual Assistants Pro.”

Your mission statement may also make an appearance here. Passionfruit shares its mission statement on its company website, and it would also work well in its example business plan.

3. Market analysis

The market analysis consists of research about supply and demand , your target demographics, industry trends, and the competitive landscape. You might run a SWOT analysis and include that in your business plan. 

Here’s an example SWOT analysis for an online tailored-shirt business:

You’ll also want to do a competitive analysis as part of the market research component of your business plan. This will tell you which businesses you’re up against and give you ideas on how to differentiate your brand. A broad competitive analysis might include:

• Target customers
• Unique value proposition , or what sets the products apart
• Sales pitch
• Price points for products
• Shipping policy

4. Products and services

This section of your business plan describes your offerings—which products and services do you sell to your customers? Here’s an example for Paw Print Post that explains its line of custom greeting cards, along with details on what makes its products unique.

5. Marketing plan

It’s always a good idea to develop a marketing plan before you launch your business. Your marketing plan shows how you’ll get the word out about your business, and it’s an essential component of your business plan as well.

The Paw Print Post focuses on four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. However, you can take a different approach with your marketing plan. Maybe you can pull from your existing marketing strategy , or maybe you break it down by the different marketing channels. Whatever approach you take, your marketing plan should describe how you intend to promote your business and offerings to potential customers.

6. Logistics and operations plan

The Paw Print Post example considered suppliers, production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory. This includes any raw materials needed to produce the products.

7. Financial plan

The financial plan provides a breakdown of sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and other relevant financial metrics related to funding and profiting from your business.

Ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy’s financial plan breaks down predicted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

It then dives deeper into the financials to include:

• Funding needs
• Projected profit-and-loss statement
• Projected balance sheet
• Projected cash-flow statement

You can use a financial plan spreadsheet to build your own financial statements, including income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement.

8. Customer segmentation

Customer segmentation means dividing your target market into groups based on specific characteristics. These characteristics can be demographics, psychographics, behavior, or geography. Your business plan will provide detailed information on each segment, like its size and growth potential, so you can show why they are valuable to your business. 

Airsign , an eco-friendly vacuum cleaner company, faced the challenge of building a sustainable business model in the competitive home appliance market. They identified three key customer personas to target:

• Design-oriented urban dwellers
• Millennials moving to suburbs
• Older consumers seeking high-quality appliances

The company utilized Shopify’s customer segmentation tools to gain insights and take action to target them. Airsign created targeted segments for specific marketing initiatives.

Put your customer data to work with Shopify’s customer segmentation

Shopify’s built-in segmentation tools help you discover insights about your customers, build segments as targeted as your marketing plans with filters based on your customers’ demographic and behavioral data, and drive sales with timely and personalized emails.

9. Appendix

The appendix provides in-depth data, research, or documentation that supports the claims and projections made in the main business plan. It includes things like market research, finance, résumés, product specs, and legal documents. 

Readers can access detailed info in the appendix, but the main plan stays focused and easy to read. Here’s an example from a fictional clothing brand called Bloom:

Appendix: Bloom Business Plan

Types of business plans, and what to include for each

This lean business plan is meant to be high level and easy to understand at a glance. You’ll want to include all of the same sections in one-page business plan, but make sure they’re truncated and summarized:

• Executive summary: truncated
• Market analysis: summarized
• Products and services: summarized
• Marketing plan: summarized
• Logistics and operations plan: summarized
• Financials: summarized

A startup business plan is for a new business. Typically, these plans are developed and shared to secure funding . As such, there’s a bigger focus on the financials, as well as on other sections that determine viability of your business idea—market research, for example:

• Market analysis: in-depth
• Financials: in-depth

Your internal business plan is meant to keep your team on the same page and aligned toward the same goal:

A strategic, or growth, business plan is a big-picture, long-term look at your business. As such, the forecasts tend to look further into the future, and growth and revenue goals may be higher. Essentially, you want to use all the sections you would in a normal business plan and build upon each:

• Market analysis: comprehensive outlook
• Products and services: for launch and expansion
• Marketing plan: comprehensive outlook
• Logistics and operations plan: comprehensive outlook
• Financials: comprehensive outlook

Feasibility

Your feasibility business plan is sort of a pre-business plan—many refer to it as simply a feasibility study. This plan essentially lays the groundwork and validates that it’s worth the effort to make a full business plan for your idea. As such, it’s mostly centered around research:

Nonprofit business plans are used to attract donors, grants, and partnerships. They focus on what their mission is, how they measure success, and how they get funded. You’ll want to include the following sections in addition to a traditional business plan:

• Organization description
• Need statement
• Programs and services
• Fundraising plan
• Partnerships and collaborations
• Impact measurement

Set yourself up for success as a business owner

Building a good business plan serves as a roadmap you can use for your ecommerce business at launch and as you reach each of your business goals. Business plans create accountability for entrepreneurs and synergy among teams, regardless of your business model .

Kickstart your ecommerce business and set yourself up for success with an intentional business planning process—and with the sample business plans above to guide your own path.

Business plan examples FAQ

How do i write a simple business plan.

To write a simple business plan, begin with an executive summary that outlines your business and your plans. Follow this with sections detailing your company description, market analysis, organization and management structure, product or service, marketing and sales strategy, and financial projections. Each section should be concise and clearly illustrate your strategies and goals.

What is the best format to write a business plan?

The best business plan format presents your plan in a clear, organized manner, making it easier for potential investors to understand your business model and goals. Always begin with the executive summary and end with financial information or appendices for any additional data.

What are the 4 key elements of a business plan?

• Executive summary: A concise overview of the company’s mission, goals, target audience, and financial objectives.
• Business description: A description of the company’s purpose, operations, products and services, target markets, and competitive landscape.
• Market analysis: An analysis of the industry, market trends, potential customers, and competitors.
• Financial plan: A detailed description of the company’s financial forecasts and strategies.

What are the 3 main points of a business plan?

• Concept: Your concept should explain the purpose of your business and provide an overall summary of what you intend to accomplish.
• Contents: Your content should include details about the products and services you provide, your target market, and your competition.
• Cash flow: Your cash flow section should include information about your expected cash inflows and outflows, such as capital investments, operating costs, and revenue projections.

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How to Start a Business: A Startup Guide for Entrepreneurs [Template]

Updated: August 27, 2024

Published: August 26, 2024

I started a local HVAC business in the summer of 2020, and since then, I’ve learned a lot about which steps are most important for getting a business venture off the ground. To help you make your business idea a reality, I've put together a complete guide that walks you through the steps of starting a business.

The guide covers every step I’ve discovered you need to start a business, from the paperwork and finances to creating your business plan and growing your business online. At the bottom, you’ll find a library of the best free tools and resources to start selling and marketing your products and services.

Let's get started.

Table of Contents

What do you need to start a business?

How to start a business, how to make a business plan, how to decide on a company name, how to choose an ownership structure, how to register your business, how to comply with legal requirements, how to find funding for your new business, how to create a brand identity for your new business, tips for starting a business, resources to start a business, how to start a business online, top tips from founders and entrepreneurs, next steps: getting ready to launch your business.

Free Business Startup kit

9 templates to help you brainstorm a business name, develop your business plan, and pitch your idea to investors.

• Business Name Brainstorming Workbook
• Business Plan Template
• Business Startup Cost Calculator

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Click this link to access this resource at any time.

• Business Plan: Your plan is a document that provides in-depth detail about your business and its short- and long-term strategies.
• Business Name: Your name is what you’ll call your company on all official documentation and licenses.
• Business Structure: Your structure refers to the type of leadership and ownership your business will operate under.
• Business Registration: Your registration is a credential with state authorities that allows your business to operate legally.
• Legal Requirements: Your other legal requirements include business licenses and permits beyond the initial registration.
• Funding: Your sources of funding refer to business grants, loans, and personal savings.
• Branding: Your branding refers to the unique identity and image you create for your business.

Every budding entrepreneur wants more visitors, more qualified leads, and more revenue. But starting a business isn’t one of those “if you build it, they will come” situations. So, if you’re one of the 26% of entrepreneurs who got started out of passion, know that you’ve still got to run the business side of the business.

So much of getting a startup off the ground has to do with timing, planning, and the market, so consider if the economic conditions are right to start a company and whether you can successfully penetrate the market with your solution.

In order to build and run a successful company , you’ll also need to create and fine-tune a business plan, assess your finances, complete all the legal paperwork, pick your partners, research apps for startup growth, choose the best tools and systems to help you get your marketing and sales off the ground … and a whole lot more.

When I first started my business, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of requirements, which is why I’ve summed up the process to make it easier for you.

In brief, the requirements for starting a business are:

• A business plan.
• A business name.
• An ownership or business structure.
• A business registration certificate.
• A legal license or seller’s permit (as well as other legal documents).
• A source of funding.
• A brand identity.

Without these elements in place, you unnecessarily risk your new business’s future. Now, let’s go over these basic steps for starting a business.

• Write a business plan.
• Choose a business name.
• Choose an ownership structure.
• Register your business.
• Review and comply with legal requirements.
• Apply for funding.
• Create a brand identity.

Having a great business idea is only part of the journey. In order to be successful, you’ll need to take a few steps to get it off the ground. In order to refine your business idea and set yourself up for success, consider doing the following:

1. Write a business plan .

Your business plan maps out the details of your business and how you plan to run it. Yet, with 70% of entrepreneurs starting their business out of a need for a lifestyle or career change and 26% out of passion or a great idea, many don’t take the time to create a business plan.

Below are the key elements in a business plan template, details about what goes into each of them, and example sections at the bottom. You’ll also learn tips for writing a business plan .

1. Use a business plan template .

Free Business Plan Template

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

• Outline your idea.
• Pitch to investors.
• Secure funding.
• Get to work!

2. Narrow down what makes you different.

Before you start whipping up a business plan, think carefully about what makes your business unique first. If you’re planning to start a new athletic clothing business, for example, then you’ll need to differentiate yourself from the numerous other athletic clothing brands out there.

You’ll want to answer questions like some I’ve identified below (keeping in mind to adapt them to your industry):

• What makes yours stand out from the others?
• Who are you planning to create clothing for?
• Are you planning to make clothing for specific sports or athletic activities, like yoga or hiking or tennis?
• Do you use environmentally friendly material?
• Does a certain percentage of your proceeds go to charity?
• Does your brand promote a positive body image?

Understanding your brand’s position in the market will help you generate awareness and sales.

Pro tip: Remember, you’re not just selling your product or service — you’re selling a combination of product, value, and brand experience. Think through these big questions and outline them before you dive into the nitty-gritty of your business plan research.

3. Keep it short.

Business plans are shorter and more concise nowadays than they used to be. While it might be tempting to include all the results of your market research , flesh out every single product you plan to sell, and outline exactly what your website will look like — that’s actually not helpful in the format of a business plan.

Know these details and keep them elsewhere, but exclude everything but the meat and potatoes from the business plan itself. Your business plan shouldn’t just be a quick(ish) read — it should be easy to skim, too, like the example below.

Pro tip: If someone who doesn’t know a lot about your service can easily digest your business plan, you’re doing it right.

The executive summary should be about a page long. It should cover:

• Overview . Briefly explain what the company is, where you’ll be located, what you’ll sell, and who you’ll sell to.
• Company profile. Briefly explain the business structure, who owns it, what prior experience/skills they’ll bring to the table, and who the first hires might be.
• Products or services . Briefly explain what you’ll sell.
• The market. Briefly explain the main findings from your market analysis and the product market fit .
• Financial considerations . Briefly explain how you plan to fund the business and what your financial projections are.

Featured Resource: Executive Summary Template

On the marketing side, you’ll want to cover answers to questions like:

• How do you plan to penetrate the market?
• How will you grow your business?
• Which channels will you focus on for distribution?
• How will you communicate with your customers?

Marketing trends change year after year, so be sure to keep up on the latest trends by subscribing to the Hubspot Marketing blog .

Pro tip: Samar Owais, Founder of Emails Done Right , shared her top advice: “Never stop marketing. You don‘t have to use every marketing strategy, tactic, or medium out there but you do have to market consistently. Pick 1-3 things that work and don’t stop doing them even when you're over capacity.”

On the sales side , you’ll need to cover answers to questions like:

• What’s your sales strategy ?
• What will your sales team look like, and how do you plan to grow it over time?
• How do you plan to scale for growth ?
• How many sales calls will you need to make to make a sale?
• What’s the average price per sale?

Speaking of average price per sale, you’ll want to go into your pricing strategy as well.

Featured Resource: Marketing & Sales Alignment Template

Questions to Determine If an LLC is Right For You

Would you prefer to be held minimally liable for the business and its financial outcomes?

• If so, an LLC is an excellent choice to protect your personal assets and finances. This is a good choice even if you’re starting a freelance business on your own.

Do you have the budget to pay LLC fees?

• LLC registration fees aren’t high, but they’re still an additional expense your business will need to budget for.

4. Corporation

What Is Entrepreneurship? The Ultimate Guide That I Live By

23 Data-Backed Tips for Running a Successful Business

How to Write a Business Proposal [Examples + Template]

11 Top Free Accounting & Bookkeeping Software Apps for 2022

Niche Markets: Examples, Benefits, Expert Insight, & How You (a Savvy Entrepreneur) Can Find Yours

The Straightforward Guide to Value Chain Analysis [+ Templates]

The 11 Best Crowdfunding Sites for Businesses (& Key Tips From Successfully Crowdfunded Entrepreneurs)

Powerful and easy-to-use sales software that drives productivity, enables customer connection, and supports growing sales orgs

How to Write a Business Plan for a Small Business

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated September 2, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of writing a business plan

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that writing a business plan helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your business plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After writing your business plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

When writing a business plan, the produces and services section is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

When writing a business plan, the operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

The last section of your business plan is your financial plan and forecasts. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI to write a business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of writing a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Writing a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of writing a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan

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How to Start a Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Starting a new small business? Find out where to begin and how to achieve success.

Table of Contents

• You should prepare thoroughly before starting a business, but realize that things will almost certainly go awry. To run a successful business, you must adapt to changing situations.
• Learning how to start your own business involves conducting in-depth market research on your field and the demographics of your potential clientele is an important part of crafting a business plan.
• In addition to selling your product or service, you need to build up your brand and get a following of people who are interested in what your business offers.
• This article is for anyone who wants to learn how to start a business.

Starting a business can be hard work, but if you break down the process of launching your new company into individual steps you can make it easier. Rather than spinning your wheels and guessing where to start, you can follow the tried and true methods of entrepreneurs who’ve done it successfully. If you want to learn how to start your own business, follow this 10-step checklist to transform your business from a lightbulb above your head into a real entity.

• 11 Things To Do Before Starting A Business
• Tax and Business Forms You'll Need To Start A Business
• 20 Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A Business

How to start a business

1. refine your idea..

If you’re thinking about starting a business, you likely already have an idea of what you want to sell online , or at least the market you want to enter. Do a quick search for existing companies in your chosen industry. Learn what current brand leaders are doing and figure out how you can do it better. If you think your business can deliver something other companies don’t (or deliver the same thing, only faster and cheaper), you’ve got a solid idea and are ready to create a business plan. 

Define your “why?”

“In the words of Simon Sinek, ‘always start with why,’” Glenn Gutek, CEO of Awake Consulting and Coaching, told Business News Daily. “It is good to know why you are launching your business. In this process, it may be wise to differentiate between [whether] the business serves a personal why or a marketplace why. When your why is focused on meeting a need in the marketplace, the scope of your business will always be larger than a business that is designed to serve a personal need.” 

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Consider franchising.

Another option is to open a franchise of an established company. The concept, brand following and business model are already in place; you only need a good location and the means to fund your operation.

Brainstorm your business name.

Regardless of which option you choose, it’s vital to understand the reasoning behind your idea. Stephanie Desaulniers, owner of Business by Dezign and former director of operations and women’s business programs at Covation Center, cautions entrepreneurs against writing a business plan or brainstorming a business name before nailing down the idea’s value.

Editor’s note: Looking for a small business loan? Fill out the questionnaire below to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.

Clarify your target customers.

Desaulniers said too often, people jump into launching their business without spending time to think about who their customers will be and why those customers would want to buy from them or hire them.

“You need to clarify why you want to work with these customers — do you have a passion for making people’s lives easier?” Desaulniers said. “Or enjoy creating art to bring color to their world? Identifying these answers helps clarify your mission. Third, you want to define how you will provide this value to your customers and how to communicate that value in a way that they are willing to pay.” 

During the ideation phase, you need to iron out the major details. If the idea isn’t something you’re passionate about or if there’s no market for your creation, it might be time to brainstorm other ideas.

Tip: To refine your business idea, identify your “why,” your target customers and your business name.

2. Write a business plan.

Once you have your idea in place, you need to ask yourself a few important questions: What is the purpose of your business? Who are you selling to? What are your end goals? How will you finance your startup costs? These questions can be answered in a well-written business plan . 

Fledgling business owners can make a lot of mistakes by rushing into things without pondering these aspects of the business. You need to find your target customer base. Who is going to buy your product or service? What would be the point if you can’t find evidence of a demand for your idea? 

Conduct market research.

Conducting thorough market research on your field and the demographics of your potential clientele is an important part of crafting a business plan. This involves conducting surveys, holding focus groups, and researching SEO and public data. 

Market research helps you understand your target customer — their needs, preferences and behavior — as well as your industry and competitors. Many small business professionals recommend gathering demographic information and conducting a competitive analysis to better understand opportunities and limitations within your market. 

The best small businesses have differentiated products or services from the competition. This significantly impacts your competitive landscape and allows you to convey unique value to potential customers.

Consider an exit strategy.

It’s also a good idea to consider an exit strategy as you compile your business plan. Generating some idea of how you’ll eventually exit the business forces you to look to the future. 

“Too often, new entrepreneurs are so excited about their business and so sure everyone everywhere will be a customer that they give very little, if any, time to show the plan on leaving the business,” said Josh Tolley, CEO of both Shyft Capital and Kavana. 

“When you board an airplane, what is the first thing they show you? How to get off of it. When you go to a movie, what do they point out before the feature begins to play? Where the exits are. During your first week of kindergarten, they line up all the kids and teach them fire drills to exit the building. Too many times I have witnessed business leaders that don’t have three or four predetermined exit routes. This has led to lower company value and even destroyed family relationships.” 

A business plan helps you figure out where your company is going, how it will overcome any potential difficulties, and what you need to sustain it. When you’re ready to put pen to paper, use a free template to help.

3. Assess your finances.

Starting any business has a price, so you need to determine how you will cover those costs. Do you have the means to fund your startup, or will you need to borrow money? If you’re planning to leave your current job to focus on your business, do you have savings to support yourself until you make a profit? Find out how much your startup costs will be. 

Many startups fail because they run out of money before turning a profit. It’s never a bad idea to overestimate the amount of startup capital you need, as it can take time before the business begins to bring in sustainable revenue. 

Perform a break-even analysis.

One way you can determine how much money you need is to perform a break-even analysis. This essential element of financial planning helps business owners determine when their company, product or service will be profitable. 

The formula is simple:

• Fixed Costs ÷ (Average Price Per Unit – Variable Costs) = Break-Even Point

Every entrepreneur should use this formula as a tool because it tells you the minimum performance your business must achieve to avoid losing money. Furthermore, it helps you understand exactly where your profits come from, so you can set production goals accordingly. 

Here are the three most common reasons to conduct a break-even analysis: 

Ask yourself: How much revenue do I need to generate to cover all my expenses? Which products or services turn a profit, and which ones are sold at a loss?

Ask yourself: What are the fixed rates, what are the variable costs, and what is the total cost? What is the cost of any physical goods? What is the cost of labor?

Ask yourself: How can I reduce my overall fixed costs? How can I reduce the variable costs per unit? How can I improve sales? 

Watch your expenses.

Don’t overspend when starting a business. Understand the types of purchases that make sense for your business and avoid overspending on fancy new equipment that won’t help you reach your business goals. Monitor your business expenses to ensure you are staying on track.

“A lot of startups tend to spend money on unnecessary things,” said Jean Paldan, founder and CEO of Rare Form New Media. “We worked with a startup with two employees but spent a huge amount on office space that would fit 20 people. They also leased a professional high-end printer that was more suited for a team of 100; it had key cards to track who was printing what and when. Spend as little as possible when you start, and only on the things essential for the business to grow and succeed. Luxuries can come when you’re established.”  

Consider your funding options.

Startup capital for your business can come from various means. The best way to acquire funding for your business depends on several factors, including creditworthiness, the amount needed and available options.

• Business loans. If you need financial assistance, a commercial loan through a bank is a good starting point, although these are often difficult to secure. If you cannot take out a bank loan, apply for a small business loan through the S. Small Business Administration (SBA) or an alternative lender. [Read related article: Best Business Loans ]
• Business grants. Business grants are similar to loans, but do not need to be paid back. Business grants are typically very competitive and come with stipulations that the business must meet to be considered. When securing a small business grant , look for ones specific to your situation. Options include minority-owned business grants, grants for women-owned businesses and government grants .
• Startups that require significant funding up front may want to bring on an angel investor . Investors can provide several million dollars or more to a fledgling company in exchange for a hands-on role in running your business.
• Alternatively, you can launch an equity crowdfunding campaign to raise smaller amounts of money from multiple backers. Crowdfunding has helped numerous companies in recent years, and dozens of reliable crowdfunding platforms are designed for different types of businesses. 

You can learn more about each of these capital sources and more in our guide to startup finance options . 

Choose the right business bank.

When you’re choosing a business bank , size matters. Marcus Anwar, co-founder of OhMy Canada, recommends smaller community banks because they are in tune with the local market conditions and will work with you based on your overall business profile and character. 

“They’re unlike big banks that look at your credit score and will be more selective to loan money to small businesses,” Anwar said. “Not only that, but small banks want to build a personal relationship with you and ultimately help you if you run into problems and miss a payment. Another good thing about smaller banks is that decisions are made at the branch level, which can be much quicker than big banks, where decisions are made at a higher level.” 

Anwar believes that you should ask yourself these questions when choosing a bank for your business: 

• What is important to me?
• Do I want to build a close relationship with a bank that’s willing to help me in any way possible?
• Do I want to be just another bank account, like big banks will view me as? 

Ultimately, the right bank for your business comes down to your needs. Writing down your banking needs can help narrow your focus to what you should be looking for. Schedule meetings with various banks and ask questions about how they work with small businesses to find the best bank for your business. [Read related article: Business Bank Account Checklist: Documents You’ll Need ]

4. Determine your legal business structure.

Before registering your company, you need to decide what kind of entity it is. Your business structure legally affects everything from how you file your taxes to your personal liability if something goes wrong. 

• Sole proprietorship: You can register for a sole proprietorship if you own the business independently and plan to be responsible for all debts and obligations. Be warned that this route can directly affect your personal credit.
• Partnership: Alternatively, as its name implies, a business partnership means that two or more people are held personally liable as business owners. You don’t have to go it alone if you can find a business partner with complementary skills to your own. It’s usually a good idea to add someone into the mix to help your business flourish.
• Corporation: If you want to separate your personal liability from your company’s liability, consider the pros and cons of corporations (e.g., an S corporation or C corporation ). Although each type of corporation is subject to different guidelines, this legal structure generally makes a business a separate entity from its owners. Therefore, corporations can own property, assume liability, pay taxes, enter contracts, sue and be sued like any other individual. “Corporations, especially C corporations, are especially suitable for new businesses that plan on ‘going public’ or seeking funding from venture capitalists in the near future,” said Deryck Jordan, managing attorney at Jordan Counsel.
• Limited liability company: One of the most common structures for small businesses is the limited liability company (LLC). This hybrid structure has the legal protections of a corporation while allowing for the tax benefits of a partnership. 

Ultimately, it is up to you to determine which type of entity is best for your current needs and future business goals. It’s important to learn about the various legal business structures available. If you’re struggling to make up your mind, discussing the decision with a business or legal advisor is a great idea.

Did you know? You need to choose a legal structure for your business, such as a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or LLC .

5. Register with the government and IRS.

You will need to acquire business licenses before you can legally operate your business. For example, you must register your business with federal, state and local governments. There are several documents you must prepare before registering.

Articles of incorporation and operating agreements

To become an officially recognized business entity, you must register with the government. Corporations need an articles of incorporation document, which includes your business name, business purpose, corporate structure, stock details and other information about your company. Similarly, some LLCs will need to create an operating agreement.

Doing business as (DBA)

If you don’t have articles of incorporation or an operating agreement, you will need to register your business name, which can be your legal name, a fictitious DBA name (if you are the sole proprietor), or the name you’ve come up with for your company. You may also want to take steps to trademark your business name for extra legal protection. 

Most states require you to get a DBA. You may need to apply for a DBA certificate if you’re in a general partnership or a sole proprietorship operating under a fictitious name. Contact or visit your local county clerk’s office to ask about specific requirements and fees. Generally, there is a registration fee involved. 

Employer identification number (EIN)

After you register your business, you may need to get an employer identification number from the IRS. While this is not required for sole proprietorships with no employees, you may want to apply for one anyway to keep your personal and business taxes separate, or to save yourself the trouble if you decide to hire someone later on. The IRS has provided a checklist to determine whether you will require an EIN to run your business. If you do need an EIN, you can register online for free. 

Income tax forms

You must file certain forms to fulfill your federal and state income tax obligations . Your business structure determines the forms you need. You will need to check your state’s website for information on state-specific and local tax obligations. Once you set this all up, the best online tax software can help you file and pay your taxes quarterly and annually.

“You might be tempted to wing it with a PayPal account and social media platform, but if you start with a proper foundation, your business will have fewer hiccups to worry about in the long run,” said Natalie Pierre-Louis, licensed attorney and owner of NPL Consulting. 

Federal, state, and local licenses and permits

Some businesses may also require federal, state or local licenses and permits to operate. Your local city hall is the best place to obtain a business license. You can then use the SBA’s database to search for state and business type licensing requirements. 

Businesses and independent contractors in certain trades are required to carry professional licenses. A commercial driver’s license (CDL) is one example of a professional business license. Individuals with a CDL can operate certain types of vehicles, such as buses, tank trucks and tractor-trailers. A CDL is divided into three classes: Class A, Class B and Class C. 

You should also check with your city and state to find out if you need a seller’s permit that authorizes your business to collect sales tax from your customers. A seller’s permit goes by numerous names, including resale permit, resell permit, permit license, reseller permit, resale ID, state tax ID number, reseller number, reseller license permit or certificate of authority. 

It’s important to note that these requirements and names vary from state to state. You can register for a seller’s permit through the state government website of the state(s) you’re doing business in. 

Jordan says that not all businesses need to collect sales tax (or obtain a seller’s permit).

“For example, New York sales tax generally is not required for the sale of most services (such as professional services, education, and capital improvements to real estate), medicine or food for home consumption,” Jordan said. “So, for example, if your business only sells medicine, you do not need a New York seller’s permit. But New York sales tax must be collected in conjunction with the sale of new tangible personal goods, utilities, telephone service, hotel stays, and food and beverages (in restaurants).”

6. Purchase an insurance policy.

It might slip your mind as something you intend to get around to eventually, but purchasing the right insurance for your business is an important step to take before you officially launch. Dealing with incidents such as property damage, theft or even a customer lawsuit can be costly, and you need to be sure that you’re properly protected. 

Although you should consider several types of business insurance , there are a few basic insurance plans that most small businesses can benefit from. For example, if your business will have employees, you will at least need to purchase workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.

You may also need other types of coverage, depending on your location and industry, but most small businesses are advised to purchase general liability (GL) insurance, or a business owner’s policy. GL covers property damage, bodily injury, and personal injury to yourself or a third party.

If your business provides a service, you may also want professional liability insurance. It covers you if you do something wrong or neglect to do something you should have done while operating your business.

7. Build your team.

Unless you’re planning to be your only employee, you’ll need to recruit and hire a great team to get your company off the ground. Joe Zawadzki, general partner at AperiamVentures, said entrepreneurs need to give the “people” element of their businesses the same attention they give their products. 

“People build your product,” Zawadzki said. “ Identifying your founding team , understanding what gaps exist, and [determining] how and when you will address them should be top priority. Figuring out how the team will work together … is equally important. Defining roles and responsibilities, division of labor, how to give feedback, or how to work together when not everyone is in the same room will save you a lot of headaches down the line.”

8. Choose your vendors.

Running a business can be overwhelming, and you and your team probably aren’t going to be able to do it all on your own. That’s where third-party vendors come in. Companies in every industry, whether that’s HR or business phone systems , exist to partner with you and help you run your business better. For example, with a business phone system, you can design an IVR system to automatically route your callers to the right representatives.

When you’re searching for B2B partners, choose carefully. These companies will have access to your most vital and potentially sensitive business data, so finding someone you can trust is critical. In our guide to choosing business partners , our expert sources recommended asking potential vendors about their experience in your industry, their track record with existing clients, and what kind of growth they’ve helped other clients achieve. 

Not every business will need the same type of vendors, but there are common products and services that almost every business will need. Consider the following functions that are a necessity for any type of business.

• Enabling multiple customer payment types: Offering multiple payment options will ensure you can make a sale in whatever format is easiest for the target customer. Compare options to find the best credit card processing provider to ensure you’re getting the best rate for your business. That’s because small business credit card processing is often a direct route to more revenue and a larger customer base.
• Taking customer payments: Set up a point-of-sale (POS) system so that you have a state-of-the-art interface for making sales. The best POS systems couple this payment technology — which largely overlaps with credit card processing — with inventory management and customer management features. As such, POS systems are especially important if you plan to sell products instead of offering services.
• Managing finances: Many business owners manage their own accounting functions when starting their business, but as your business grows, you can save time by hiring an accountant , or by choosing the right accounting software provider .

9. Brand yourself and advertise.

Before you start selling your product or service, you need to build up your brand and get a following of people who are ready to jump when you open your literal or figurative doors for business.

• Company website: Take your reputation online and build a company website . Many customers turn to the internet to learn about a business, and a website is a digital proof that your small business exists. It is also a great way to interact with current and potential customers.
• Social media: Use social media to spread the word about your new business, perhaps as a promotional tool to offer coupons and discounts to followers once you launch. The best social media platforms to use will depend on your target audience.
• CRM: The best CRM platforms allow you to store customer data to improve how you market to them. A well-thought-out email marketing campaign can do wonders for reaching customers and communicating with your audience. To be successful, you will want to strategically build your email marketing contact list .
• Logo: Create a logo to help people easily identify your brand, and use it across all of your platforms.

Keep your digital assets up to date with relevant, interesting content about your business and industry. According to Ruthann Bowen, chief marketing officer at EastCamp Creative, too many startups have the wrong mindset about their websites. 

“The issue is they see their website as a cost, not an investment,” Bowen said. “In today’s digital age, that’s a huge mistake. The small business owners who understand how critical it is to have a great online presence will have a leg up on starting out strong.” 

Creating a marketing plan that goes beyond your launch is essential to building a clientele because it should continually get the word out about your business. This process is just as important as providing a quality product or service, especially in the beginning. 

Ask customers to opt into your marketing communications.

As you build your brand, ask your customers and potential customers for permission to communicate with them. The easiest way to do this is by using opt-in forms of consent. These forms allow you to contact them with further information about your business, according to Dan Edmonson, founder and CEO of Dronegenuity. 

“These types of forms usually pertain to email communication and are often used in e-commerce to request permission to send newsletters, marketing material, product sales, etc. to customers,” Edmonson said. “Folks get so many throwaway emails and other messages these days that, by getting them to opt in to your services transparently, you begin to build trust with your customers.” 

Opt-in forms are a great starting point for building trust and respect with potential customers. Even more importantly, these forms are required by law. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 sets requirements for commercial email by the Federal Trade Commission. This law doesn’t just apply to bulk email; it covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” Each email violating this law is subject to fines of more than $40,000.

Tip: Create a strategic marketing campaign that combines various marketing channels, like a company website, social media, email newsletters and opt-in forms.

10. Grow your business.

Your launch and first sales are only the beginning of your task as an entrepreneur. To make a profit and stay afloat, you always need to be growing your business. That takes time and effort, but you’ll get out of your business what you put into it. 

Collaborating with more established brands in your industry is a great way to achieve growth. Reach out to other companies and ask for some promotion in exchange for a free product sample or service. Partner with a charity organization, and volunteer some of your time or products to get your name out there. 

While these tips will help launch your business and get you set to grow, there’s never a perfect plan. You want to ensure you prepare thoroughly for starting a business, but things will almost certainly go awry. To run a successful business, you must adapt to changing situations. 

FAQs about starting a business

What are the four basics for starting a business.

The four basics for starting a business are your business name, business structure, business registration certificate and all your other licenses. You must take the proper legal and regulatory steps in each of these four areas before you launch your business. Obtaining external funding and putting together a business plan are also smart moves, but they aren’t legal prerequisites.

How can I start my own business with no money?

You can launch a successful business without any startup funds. Work on a business idea that builds on your skill set to offer something new and innovative to the market. While developing a new business, keep working in your current position to reduce the financial risk.

Once you’ve developed your business idea and are ready to start on a business plan, you’ll need to get creative with funding. You can raise money through investments by pitching your idea to financial backers. You could also gather funding through crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter, or set aside a certain amount of money from your weekly earnings to put toward a new business. Finally, you can seek loan options from banks and other financial institutions to get your company up and running.

What is the easiest business to start?

The easiest business to start is one that requires little to no financial investment upfront, and no extensive training to learn the business. A dropshipping company, for example, is one of the easiest types of new business to launch. Dropshipping requires no inventory management, which saves you the hassle of buying, storing and tracking stock. 

Instead, another company fulfills your customer orders at your behest. This company manages the inventory, packages goods, and ships out your business orders. To start, create an online store by selecting curated products from the catalog available through partners.

Which types of businesses can I start from home?

In today’s world of remote work, you may be thinking of an online business idea . Any online-only business that doesn’t require inventory should be easy to start from home. Ideas that fall within this category include but aren’t limited to copywriting businesses, online tutoring operations and dropshipping businesses. Anything you’re good at or passionate about that you can do from home, and for which demand exists, can make for a great home business. 

When is the best time to start a business?

Each person’s ideal timeline for starting a new business will be different. Start a business only when you have enough time to devote your attention to the launch. If you have a seasonal product or service, then you should start your business one quarter before your predicted busy time of the year. Spring and fall are popular times of year to launch for nonseasonal companies. Winter is the least popular launch season because many new owners prefer to have their LLC or corporation approved for a new fiscal year.

Max Freedman and Skye Schooley also contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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65 Practical Startup Business Goals Examples To Craft Success in 2024

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

May 3, 2024

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Launching a startup is an exciting prospect but comes with its fair share of challenges. Unlike established businesses with access to several resources, startups operate in an environment of constraints. As a result, they have to adapt and innovate constantly to stay ahead of the curve.

Navigating challenges becomes easier if you have a goal in mind. It is a marker of success and lines the path to the overarching business objective. We’re about to share a blueprint of startup goal-setting, along with real-world startup business goals examples to inspire you and illustrate their application.

Are you ready to chart a clear course for your startup’s success?

What’s a Business Goal?

Gives a sense of direction, helps measure progress, creates accountability, sustains team motivation, guides resource allocation, aids in risk mitigation, attracts investors and partners, supports strategic planning.

• Define your mission and vision

Assess your current state

• Define and prioritize business goals
• Convert goals into actionable tasks

Track, monitor, and recalibrate progress

Celebrate milestones and achievements, learn and improve continuously, financial goals, employee retention goals, productivity goals, brand awareness and reputation goals, marketing strategy goals, sales and revenue goals, customer satisfaction and retention goals.

• Project management software

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform

• Process mapping tool

Marketing and sales analytics

• Financial management systems

ClickUp: Helping Startups Become Enterprises

Get, set, go(als), frequently asked questions (faq).

Every business kickstarts in the pursuit of success.

A business goal is a marker or milestone on the road to this success.

It is a specific target or an outcome that organizations aim to achieve. It reflects a company’s vision and understanding of “success” in the short or the long term.

Although the concept of business goals is common across enterprises, its definition varies significantly.

For instance, an eCommerce store may view success through metrics like average order value or sales revenue. On the other hand, a social enterprise dedicated to safe drinking water accessibility may view success as the number of water filtration plants installed.

You might argue that such variation is obvious since these startup business goal examples concern two highly diverse sectors. However, even businesses operating in the same sector may employ different scales to mark their business goals.

For example, an online retailer focuses on web traffic, while brick-and-mortar stores are busy counting footfall. A SaaS-based startup may define business goals regarding customer acquisition, while an established counterpart may analyze subscription renewals!

Even though business goals differ, their primary function remains consistent—to serve as a guiding principle for informed decision-making.

The Importance of Setting Startup Business Goals

Your business goal is a North Star to guide your startup journey. Here’s how it contributes to the overall success and sustainability of your startup:

The business goal or objective outlines the company’s aspirations. While the objective is more short-term, the long-term business goal governs every business decision and strategy so that you don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Naturally, the short-term objectives tie up to the overarching goal. For instance, increasing revenue through sales could help with long-term business objectives of growth and expansion.

Having such clarity of the short and long-term expectations offers a sense of direction to the team. Using this as their focus, they can plan key tasks or activities to realize such goals. It fuels concerted efforts through effective time, effort, and resource management.

Organizations can use SMART business goals as a measure of success. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. They convert goals from vague entities into quantifiable metrics to track progress.

Say your basic business goal is to increase website traffic. Then, as a SMART framework, it would read as ‘Increase organic website traffic by 30% within the next six months. ‘ Notice the difference? SMART business goals turn generic ideas into specific, measurable outcomes . They help you objectively assess your startup’s performance and tweak strategies using data-driven insights!

Given a startup’s dynamic environment, it is easier for priorities to shift. Similarly, daily tasks can eclipse the bigger picture and detract from the larger goal.

Startup business goals shield you from distractions and recenter your ideas, strategies, and actions. They cultivate a sense of accountability by acting as a yardstick for performance. At the same time, we’ve seen how they serve as quantifiable benchmarks to track progress toward achieving the broader vision. 

You may review your goals occasionally to get an idea of your startup’s growth while also identifying areas for improvement. Such a holistic overview allows you to prioritize impact-based activities and foster a greater sense of ownership and responsibility .

Business goals are a source of motivation for startup founders and team members. Having a clear shared objective to work towards and clarity on how it ties up with the larger goals drives collaboration and motivation. Plus, publicly shared goals promote transparency, which instills accountability . 

And when goals are reached, recognizing personal and organizational achievements improves team morale.

Setting business goals also involves task prioritization. Entrepreneurs may prioritize based on importance, impact, and urgency. Such weighted distribution of focus enables the smart allocation of limited resources , which is fairly common in a startup setup. 

With clearly articulated and prioritized business goals, you can effectively allocate resources like time, money, and staff to activate success.

This ensures that your startup can meet critical business objectives and launch minimum viable products (MVPs) that can kick-start growth while you secure funding for resource reinforcements!

Startups are highly vulnerable to risks. Identifying potential risks or challenges early on and addressing them or mitigating their impact is instrumental in a startup’s success.

To anticipate hurdles, goal-setting strategies often employ analytical tools and frameworks like SWOT analysis, risk matrices, etc. Knowing these beforehand allows entrepreneurs to prepare holistic risk management strategies and contingency plans that help navigate these challenges in a hands-on manner. This level of preparedness minimizes risks or, if not outright, eliminates them.

While a strong mission statement lays the foundation for your startup, the goals guide your journey. Goals transcend brand building and market positioning and illustrate your understanding of success. Well-defined goals showcase your understanding of the market, target audience, and value proposition.

Imagine two startups: one laser-focused on explosive business growth with a series of fast-paced goals. Another that prioritizes scalability and sustainability through long-term goals spaced out over a considerable duration. In both cases, clear goals paint a picture for investors and partners.

Partners can evaluate if your startup is a good fit for a strategic partnership , while investors can calculate their anticipated return on investment (ROI). They can also adjudge whether the startup’s mission, vision, and values align with theirs. This alignment will attract meaningful partnerships and investor relations for mutual benefit.

Clear startup goals are pillars of strategic planning. They define your desired outcomes , establish a roadmap for success, and help you navigate the journey. Use them to devise short-term and long-term strategic plans. The cumulative and concentrated result of individualistic strategic plans will enable your startup to take on big, hairy, audacious goals that may have felt unsurmountable at one point. 

How to Set Effective Startup Business Goals: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now that you understand the mission-critical role of business goals, especially in the context of startups, let’s learn how to set these. Below is a step-by-step guide to setting a business goal:

If you haven’t done it already, start by defining your startup’s mission and vision statement. 

The vision statement demonstrates the long-term aspirations of your business. On the other hand, the mission statement describes the driving force and guiding principles of your startup’s activities. The mission statement is a roadmap to the vision statement; think of the former as your business objectives and the latter as the goal.

Ensure that the two align with your company’s offerings and core values. 

For example, here’s how Amazon weaves its mission statement through its introduction:

Amazon’s goal of becoming the Earth’s most customer-centric company is evident from its trailblazing effort in personalizing the eCommerce sector and its expansive product range.

On the other hand, Apple showcases its workplace culture through personalized stories and anecdotes from its team members:

Apple’s mission statement, ‘We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it,’ will attract talent that aligns with this goal.

In this way, mission and vision statements reflect the company’s business model, aspirations, and culture.

Along these lines, articulate what stirs your passion and frame it as your mission and vision statements.

Once you’ve done the groundwork, analyze your current state. You may use any business analysis framework for a comprehensive and cross-sectional evaluation. We find the SWOT analysis to be a great starting point.

A SWOT analysis template highlights your startup’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It sheds light on your internal strengths and weaknesses, such as team collaboration, skill or talent gaps, resource availability, etc. At the same time, you can visualize external opportunities and threats, such as target market conditions, customer demands, competitors, etc. 

Keeping all of this in mind, the ClickUp Small Business SWOT Analysis template is designed to help you strategize, plan, and make informed decisions. Such a well-rounded and holistic analysis helps set realistic and attainable business goals. It also lets you divide your analysis into different categories, such as Marketing, Operations, Finance, etc., to assess each aspect of your business.

You now see your destination. You know where you currently stand. It’s time to bridge the two!

Identify the key focus areas to accelerate your journey to success. It could be through product innovation, brand recognition, operational efficiency, increasing market share, retaining customers, or a blend of all of these.

You might eventually come up with four or five desired goals. However, you may not have the resources and capacity to achieve these together. Hence, you should set priorities for your business goals and define them along SMART parameters.

Each goal must be clear, quantifiable, and time-bound to align with your startup’s business objectives. Be as specific as possible with your SMART goals, as granularity will improve your chances of achieving the goal.

To make this task easier, leverage readily available resources, such as goal-setting templates . 

The previous step may lead you to believe that your job is done. However, goal-setting is more than just documenting business goals—it is part planning and part implementation.

So, once you have your business goals ready, break them down into smaller, actionable steps. Continue this division until you reach the smallest task, activity, and timeline required to achieve each goal. Doing so will help you create a comprehensive and actionable roadmap for goal execution.

When the work breakdown structure is ready, assign these tasks to specific departments, managers, or team members. Clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and expectations will keep your team accountable and focused on goal achievement.

Business goals are your marker of success. So, use them for measuring progress.

Track the appropriate goals or their underlying metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). Most project management tools, including ClickUp, feature an interactive dashboard that helps you visualize progress in real time. Map all the metrics and KPIs you wish to track onto this dashboard and view their progress and any deviations so you can take action in a time-bound manner.

These dashboards also allow you to review your business goals and update them instantly. Your business goal may have changed due to evolving priorities, shifting market conditions, customer feedback, new opportunities, etc. Update them on the fly to run a highly responsive, adaptable, and resilient startup!

We’ve already discussed how celebrating milestones and achievements helps improve team morale. It is also a tangible indicator of success and motivates the team to move on to the next item on the checklist.

Acknowledging individual or team efforts contributing to business objective attainment promotes a sense of belonging and community. The resulting engagement improves team cohesiveness. Therefore, celebrating milestones and achievements should be a part of your goal-setting strategy.

Finally, business goal setting is not a ‘set it and forget it’ job. Embracing a culture of continuous learning and improvement will help startups refine the business model with each cycle.

So, treat goal setting as a continuous process that considers internal and external stakeholder feedback, product improvement and innovation, and experimentation to drive business growth.

This positive feedback loop will improve business goal-setting iteratively.

Setting goals for your startup:

• Assess the current state
• Track, monitor, recalibrate
• Celebrate milestones
• Learn and improve

65 Real-World Startup Business Goals Examples

This brings us to the end of all the theoretical aspects of business goal setting. Let’s now delve into some real-world examples to solidify your understanding of business goals and to inspire you. From financial to customer satisfaction goals, we’re about to discuss all the different types of business goals for startups, along with appropriate examples. And yes, we will describe each example as SMART goals as far as possible.

On that note, here’s a detailed list of business goals to add to your startup business plan template :

Financial business goals revolve around plans to boost revenue, improve profit margins, reduce costs, and acquire funding. They describe the desired financial performance or health of the company. Use this business objective to maximize revenue and minimize expenses to run a sustainable startup.

Here are some business goals examples to manage your finances better:

• Increase net profit margins by 10% through effective cost-cutting measures
• Improve cash flows by reducing outstanding AR (accounts receivable) by 30% in the next six months
• Increase shareholder value by achieving an ROI (return on investment) of 20%
• Secure funding of $1 billion from venture capital and angel investors in the next three months
• Renegotiate terms with vendors to increase profit margins by 25%
• Achieve financial stability with a 1:1 debt-to-equity ratio
• Get to your startup’s break-even point within the first two years of operations
• Reduce wasteful expenditure by 10% through smart, data-driven inventory management

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s financial goals using metrics like:

• Profit margins
• Cash outflow
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Quick ratio

As the name suggests, these business goals look to improve employee retention. Your employees are the target audience for these goals, so you should focus on driving employee satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty. Earning your employees’ goodwill reduces turnover rates and ensures continuity in workforce expertise.

Consider the following team goals to improve employee retention:

• Cut down employee turnover rates by 30% within the next year by introducing attractive benefits and incentives
• Employ regular feedback mechanisms and engagement initiatives to improve employee satisfaction rates by 20%
• Establish a 6-month buddy system after onboarding fresh hires to maintain engagement and clarify expectations from day one
• Offer 2 online skill development courses and 1 internal workshop per quarter
• Organize monthly team-building exercises with a focus on activities that have more than 70% enrollment and participation rates
• Launch a hybrid work policy in the next 2 months, allowing 3 days remote and 3 days in-office schedule post manager approval
• Increase paid time off (PTO) allowance by an additional 3 days per year across all employee levels
• Offer high-performing individuals a 40% appraisal by the end of the financial year
• Build a work environment imbibing the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) principles to foster a sense of belonging
• Conduct exit interviews to understand the main reasons behind employee churn
• Conduct regular performance reviews to identify areas of improvement and mentorship to employees

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s employee retention goals using metrics like:

• Employee turnover rate
• Employee satisfaction surveys
• Retention rate
• Time to Hire
• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
• Absenteeism Rate

While the employee retention goal aims to retain talent, productivity business goals seek to enhance operational efficiency and output. As such, they revolve around day-to-day activities that can streamline productivity levels. You may set targets to optimize workflows, reduce waste, eliminate inefficiency, and increase per-employee output across the company.

Here are some examples of business goals that help achieve success by nurturing a highly productive workforce:

• Introducing process optimization and automation to drive up productivity by 30% in a few months (3-6)
• Streamline product development processes to reduce time-to-market by 30% for new products and 70% for product enhancements
• Reducing server downtimes by 98% to improve the availability of online tools and resources
• Implement project management software to enhance team collaboration, task management, and deadline adherence
• Document SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) to standardize business workflows and processes to introduce consistency, eliminate errors, and minimize rework
• Share employee handbooks to define employee roles, responsibilities, and expectations clearly

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s employee productivity goals using metrics like:

• Sales quota attainment
• Tasks/projects completed
• Bug fixes or code commits
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Employee engagement
• Meeting durations
• Utilization rate

Remember to tweak this according to the employees’ department and expected deliverables.

Startups can grow by generating brand awareness and earning a solid reputation. This strategy focuses on forging a positive brand perception in the target audience’s minds. Businesses can achieve this by increasing brand visibility, earning trust and credibility, and running brand loyalty programs. 

Below are a few business goals examples to increase brand awareness and reputation:

• Conduct market research to assess brand perception and generate awareness by 20% within 3 months by tracking social media imprints
• Increase brand recognition and recall by 30% within a year among the target demographics
• Invest in brand storytelling to communicate the startup’s values and identity
• Obtain 20 positive customer testimonials and reviews on Google and G2 by Q2 to increase brand reputation
• Partner with 12 industry experts and influencers to expand brand reach by 40% across LinkedIn, Instagram, and X within 6 months
• Publish 8 blog posts on the company website to establish a reputable and credible digital presence
• Use social listening and reputation management strategies to monitor, manage, and mold brand narrative and online chatter
• Participate in 4 industry events, 8 conferences and webinars, and 2 trade shows to raise brand visibility and awareness in Q3 and Q4
• Establish and standardize brand guidelines for a consistent and branded customer experience across all touchpoints
• Launch a brand ambassador program with 40 loyal customers recruited as brand ambassadors in the first month to catalyze word-of-mouth marketing and increase advocacy by 12%

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s brand awareness and reputation goals using metrics like:

• Impressions
• Online traffic
• Search volume
• Customer reviews
• Sentiment analysis
• Brand mentions
• Social media chatter

Business goals about marketing strategies explore ways to promote products or services, generate more leads, drive customer engagement, and forward highly qualified leads to sales. They guide marketing efforts by specifying outcomes such as boosting conversion rates, increasing brand awareness, unlocking web traffic, etc., to match the larger business goals.

Some examples of marketing strategy goals include:

• Implement content marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) to drive website traffic by 50% in the next 12 months
• Generate 1,000 new leads per month through targeted paid advertising
• Boost email open and click-through rates by 20% and 15% by data-driven optimization of email marketing campaigns
• Increase social media engagement by 25% and earn 3000 new followers in a month through carefully curated content and social media community management
• Launch an attractive referral program to encourage existing customers and loyalists to refer new business
• Optimize your marketing strategies using automation to nurture leads and drive conversions
• Conduct focus group meetings and customer surveys to understand target audience preferences and needs
• Form strategic partnerships with complementary businesses to break into new audiences
• Increase marketing ROI by analyzing and optimizing marketing expenditure across various channels
• Use segmentation and targeted marketing campaigns for a personalized customer experience

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s marketing goals using metrics like:

• Website traffic
• Lead generation rate
• Conversion rate
• Social media follower growth
• Social media engagement rate
• Email open rate
• Click-Through Rate (CTR)
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Sales and revenue goals are an extension of the marketing goals. They focus on attracting more sales or revenue in a time-bound fashion. The sales team may work on acquiring new customers, upselling and cross-selling activities, and other revenue-generating initiatives to infuse sustainability and profitability into your startup’s growth.

Here are a few examples of sales goals to get more sales:

• Achieve $2 million in annual sales revenue by the end of the fiscal year
• Bump up AOV (average order value) by 15% using product bundling
• Drive conversion rates up by 20% through sales process optimization, automation, and training
• Increase your customer base by acquiring 1200 new customers in the next six months
• Improve customer lifetime value by 25% through upselling and cross-selling strategies
• Expand market share by 20% by entering a new geographic or demographic segment
• Launch an attractive sales incentive program to motivate and reward your sales team and their performance
• Accelerate sales cycle by reducing timelines by 20% through improved lead qualification, workflow automation, and timely follow-ups
• Enable the sales team with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool to track and quantify sales activities across various channels
• Leverage AI-powered predictive models to enhance sales forecasting accuracy, effective resource allocation, and sharp inventory management
• Introduce dynamic pricing to maximize profitability while also staying competitive

ClickUp Smart Tips : Track your startup’s sales and revenue goals using metrics like:

• Total revenue
• Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
• Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
• Sales cycle length
• Sales conversion rate

These business goals focus on enhancing customer satisfaction and delivering memorable customer experiences to cultivate long-term customer relationships. Startups may aim to improve customer retention through various strategies, from loyalty programs to exceptional customer service to improving product quality.

Here are some goals that you can set to improve customer satisfaction:

• Increase customer satisfaction scores by 30% through enhanced customer service and support
• Improve customer retention rates by 20% through personalized re-engagement strategies and customer loyalty programs
• Implement a customer feedback system to capture actionable first-hand insights and address customer pain points
• Leverage proactive communication across preferred channels to share updates and notifications to increase trust and transparency
• Address customer concerns and issues within a prescribed timeline and in the appropriate manner to improve customer satisfaction
• Measure and track NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score to get a realistic idea of customer satisfaction levels
• Identify the KPIs to measure customer satisfaction and measure progress goals using them
• Invest in training and development of customer-facing teams to improve service quality and add value to customer interactions
• Offer perks or value-added services to incentivize repeat purchases and customer loyalty

Pro Tip : Track your startup’s customer satisfaction and retention goals using metrics like:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR) 
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
• Customer churn rate
• Customer engagement

Digital Tools To Help Meet Your Startup’s Business Goals

They say a goal is just a wish without a plan. In other words, you must cement your business goals with actionable plans and strategies to make them work.

To develop and execute a solid business plan, you will require the right tools, platforms, software solutions, and systems. These add structure to your plan and help you reach your goals faster .

Here is an overview of the various solutions you can use to meet the different types of business goals:

The project management software is the Swiss Army Knife of setting business goals.

Project management software helps set attainable goals by acting as a centralized platform dedicated to the efficient planning, organization, and execution of projects. To meet this objective, these platforms offer features for task management, project scheduling, collaborative working, team communication, etc.

These enable startups to logically break down long-term business goals into smaller, manageable objectives so that teams can prioritize work tasks . Such hands-on project management improves transparency and accountability, helps track progress, and manages risks and resources to deliver results per specification, timeline, and budget.

We’ll talk more about how you can use ClickUp for Startups in the later section to grant you practical exposure.

CRM tools allow businesses to foster meaningful and enriching customer relationships to drive organizational growth.

CRM platforms centralize all customer data, communication channels, and interactions to offer you a well-rounded view of customer demands, preferences, and behaviors.

Using these insights, startups can curate personalized experiences to improve customer satisfaction and drive brand loyalty. Personalization could be achieved through unique marketing experiences, targeted sales campaigns, or improved customer service to delight customers throughout their journey.

Additionally, its pipeline management features allow startups to track leads, opportunities, and deals to enhance conversions and revenue.

ClickUp functions as both a project management software and CRM, an all-in-one platform designed to streamline various workflows. 

Visualize and manage sales pipelines with over 15+ ClickUp Views , benefit from email integrations, build a customer database, analyze customer data, and much more— all on ClickUp. 

So, if your business goals revolve around acquiring new customers or retaining existing ones, then investing in a CRM platform like ClickUp is a smart move.

Whether it is through the loss of employee productivity or by eating into revenues—inefficient processes cost businesses. While established businesses might be able to absorb some cost overheads, the same could be disastrous for startups. After all, they are often resource-strapped as it is!

Startups may turn to process mapping tools to mitigate risks . Use them to visualize, analyze, and optimize business processes and workflows. They allow you to conduct a thorough analysis of the current processes to identify bottlenecks, inefficiency, and areas of improvement. Understanding these hurdles helps formulate effective solutions and optimization initiatives . They also standardize processes to maintain consistency, quality, and compliance across teams and departments.

Pro Tip : Leverage ClickUp as your process mapping tool. ClickUp Whiteboards and mind maps help visualize business processes.

Such a dynamic approach to optimizing processes drives operational excellence and increases profit margins.

You will require a robust data analytics tool to analyze your marketing and sales performance.  They make these two mission-critical activities measurable and more accurate. Most importantly, they are compatible with high volumes of data to help you manage campaigns on the fly.

Leverage these tools to gain insights into market trends, campaign effectiveness, customer behavior, and conversion rates. Tracking these variables helps identify untapped opportunities, recalibrate strategies, and allocate resources effectively to achieve sales and marketing business goals. From personalizing business messaging to benchmarking performance, marketing and sales analytics tools help startups achieve their growth goals . 

Pro Tip : Use ClickUp Dashboards to track sales and marketing metrics in real time, implement strategies, and benchmark performance.

Financial management systems are crucial for startups to meet their financial goals. It helps startups manage budgets and finances effectively, improve shareholder value, maintain healthy profit margins, and ensure compliance. They may even come equipped with AI tools that help with revenue forecasting, demand-supply prediction, and budget utilization with heightened accuracy.

They help maintain accurate financial records and reports. Such well-documented insights fuel informed decisions while managing cash flows, tracking and controlling costs, and optimizing resources. Additionally, they help maintain legal and regulatory compliance by maintaining an auditable log of all financial decisions. 

By improving financial visibility , these systems maintain transparency and accountability while maintaining financial stability.

Pro Tip : Deploy ClickUp as your account and finance management software to stay ahead of your financial goals.

ClickUp is every startup’s friend. After all, we’re a startup ourselves, and we know how challenging—and exhilarating—the startup journey can be. ClickUp is our attempt to make this journey less stressful for innovative startups.

So, here’s a look at how ClickUp helps in setting business goals:

• Goal tracking : ClickUp Goals help create SMART goals that align with your project requirements. Apart from setting specific and measurable goals along a timeline, ClickUp allows you to track their progress in real time so that you always know where you stand

• Strategic task management : Achievable goals must be broken down into specific projects and tasks. Entrepreneurs can use ClickUp to organize, prioritize, and monitor these tasks. You can even dig in deeper to divide tasks into subtasks. Organize tasks in task lists, filter by priorities, owner, and due dates, set up reminders and notifications, and add task dependencies to ensure that every task is completed on time
• Dynamic resource allocation : ClickUp supports dynamic resource allocation by offering a one-stop view of all activities. Plus, you have workload management and time-tracking features to help you understand how resources are utilized. Having such an overview makes it easier for managers to assign or redistribute resources based on the priority, impact, and urgency of any task or activity

• Collaboration and communication : ClickUp is the ultimate hub for collaborative working. From an assortment of synchronous and asynchronous communication channels to live editing of shared documents—teams can use ClickUp to stay in touch and on track. Use the ClickUp Chat View to exchange messages in real time, assign comments to escalate issues or draw attention, and create, edit, and manage documents collaboratively using ClickUp Docs .  Share ideas, brainstorm, and work together to meet your business goals 
• Interactive dashboards : ClickUp Dashboards possess potent data analytics and reporting capabilities that allow startups to monitor KPIs, track progress, and analyze performance. These dashboards share data-driven insights on the current state of the project, which allows you to develop strategic plans, corrective measures, and informed decisions to get to your desired state 

• Integration ecosystem : Use ClickUp with various third-party tools, apps, and platforms to build a value-loaded interconnected network. Whether it is incorporating file storage platforms like Google Drive or customer support solutions like Zendesk, you can integrate these into the ClickUp ecosystem to build a comprehensive, one-stop platform for all your startup needs

• Rich templates : With ClickUp, you get a rich library of highly configurable templates to help you work smart. From detailed Standard Operating Procedures to the Business Plan Template on ClickUp ensures faster time-to-market as you don’t have to build things from scratch

One of ClickUp’s greatest USPs is that it is highly customizable to meet your specific needs. You can use it as a project management platform, a task management tool for HR and other teams, and a campaign and customer management platform for marketing and customer support—the possibilities are endless.

So, leverage its versatility to meet your different business goals without spreading them across multiple tools and platforms. As we often say, one is all you need!

Startup business goals are your compass for venturing into the seas of entrepreneurship.

 Goals give a sense of direction, act as a marker of progress, generate accountability, motivate teams, support strategic planning, and attract investors and partners. Each of these benefits propels your startup one step closer to success.

We highly recommend the startup business goal examples above, as they will inspire you to set SMART goals for your company. All that remains is to use suitable tools and platforms to execute and track these goals. You can choose from various solutions ranging from CRM to process mapping tools and beyond.

On the other hand, you can select ClickUp and replace the disparate tech stack with a centralized one. ClickUp promises flexibility and scalability that will grow along with your startup.

Sign up for free and explore!

How do I prioritize business goals?

Setting priorities for your business goals involves assessing the importance, urgency, and impact of these goals on your startup’s core objectives. Identify those that tightly couple with the mission, vision, and strategic priorities of your startup and place them first. Then, consider factors like potential risks or setbacks, dependencies, and resource availability to meet these goals. Finally, use prioritization techniques like the MoSCoW method or the Eisenhower matrix to assign weighted priorities to your goals.

How often should I review and update my startup’s business goals?

Review and update your startup’s business goals to keep up with evolving priorities, emerging opportunities, and shifting market conditions. Since startups are more dynamic, you may review your business goals every 3-6 months to stay responsive to volatility. Upon business consolidation, you can perform this exercise annually.

Which tools can help me achieve my business goals?

You can achieve your business goals using the following tools:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform
• Marketing and analytics solutions

What happens when we don’t achieve all of our startup business goals?

Don’t treat falling short of your startup business goals as a failure. On the contrary, think of it as a learning opportunity through which you can:

• Analyze the reasons why you couldn’t meet specific goals
• Optimize your strategies to facilitate goal attainment
• Celebrate the goals or milestones that you managed to achieve
• Identify areas where your startup performed beyond expectations and templatize such success
• Recalibrate your goals to make them more realistic and in line with external factors

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How To Start A Clothing Business: Everything You Need To Know

Updated: Jul 18, 2024, 8:36pm

Table of Contents

1. find your niche, 2. know your audience, 3. create a marketing plan, 4. name your brand and create brand assets, 5. register your business, 6. design and source your products, 7. price your products, 8. distribute your products, 9. market your clothing brand, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

If you have a passion for fashion, starting a clothing business might be a great way to turn your skills and creativity into a career. It’s more accessible than ever for new business owners to sell their wares online and turn a profit. There are a variety of ways to sell clothes, from finding collaborators and wholesalers to providing great items for excited customers. Here’s what you need to know about how to start a clothing business from start to finish.

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Here’s how to start a clothing business in nine steps:

The fashion industry is massive, consisting of a myriad of different brands–all with very different styles and niches. It’s important to identify your niche and stick to it. This will help you to create a product line that resonates with your target market and build a solid brand. Remember that as appealing as it may be to try to be everything to everyone, the best brands have a very defined niche and they stay in said niche.

Here are a few examples of highly successful clothing brands that operate in different niches:

• Wrangler (casual)
• Adidas (athletic)
• H&M (trendy)
• Ralph Lauren (classic)

Picking a niche means playing to your strengths. If you’re a strong seamster, you’ll spend most of your time designing and constructing pieces. If you’re a visual artist, you might create art that can be printed on T-shirts or other clothing items.

Early on, it’s important to figure out your ideal customer. When you’re working towards establishing your business, fashion makes things both easier and harder at the same time. You can easily imagine who would wear your clothes, but you also have to find where they congregate (in brick-and-mortar stores and online) and how to reach them.

Here are a few questions to consider when determining your audience:

• Who are they?
• What are their favorite clothing brands?
• Do they identify with certain brands?
• Where do they shop?
• How often do they shop?
• Do they care about trends?
• What is their price point?
• What influences their buying decisions?

By answering these questions, you will get a better understanding of your target audience. This enables you to more strategically build your brand, develop products they’ll want, and distribute products so they’re easily discoverable by the people who will buy them.

After defining your niche and identifying your audience, the next step is to put together a marketing plan. While it sounds like a lot of work–it doesn’t have to be very comprehensive. But you do need to detail which channels you plan to use to sell your products, such as direct, Amazon, Etsy, boutiques and big box stores, as well as how you plan to market your businesses so that you get sales.

Here’s are the must-haves when creating a new business marketing plan:

• Market and competition
• Distribution channels
• Marketing strategy
• Marketing and advertising channels, such as social media and pay-per-click ads
• Marketing budget

A marketing plan essentially establishes how you will market your clothing line, and with that, can greatly guide how you go about product distribution and advertising strategies, which will impact your sales. Learn more about how to write a marketing plan .

If you don’t already have a business name in mind, it’s time to choose one. Clothing business names can vary wildly. For example, Under Armor, ASOS, Banana Republic, L.L. Bean, American Apparel, TopShop, Brooks Brothers, Dickies, Deus Ex Machina, Vardagen, Life is Good, or Salt Life. In short, your clothing business can be named just about anything you want it to be.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when naming your clothing business:

• Make sure that it is easy to pronounce and spell
• Choose a catchy or memorable name
• Consider how it translates into other languages
• Check if it is available as a domain name, such as yourbusinessname.com

Once you have a business name, choose a slogan (optional), a brand color scheme, and create your logo. If you’re looking for an easy and affordable way to create your own logo, try using Canva, which is a free drag-and-drop design tool that has dozens of prebuilt logos you can customize. Alternatively, you can get a logo professionally designed for as little as $5 on Fiverr.

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After choosing a brand name and putting together your brand assets, the next step is to register your business with your state. It’s not a fun step, but it is a necessary step–even for brand new clothing businesses as you will need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to accept payments for your products. And to get an EIN, you need to register as a business. Additionally, it also enables you to get wholesale pricing and work with retailers.

The process of registering your business will vary depending on your state, but you will register it with your state’s Secretary of State. Small businesses typically opt to register as a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) which costs around $100 on average but can be as little as $40 and over $250. If you’re not sure which is right for you, learn more about what an LLC is and how to set up an LLC .

Chances are you already know how you’re going to design and source your products. However, if you’re on the fence or open to ideas, there are three main ways:

• Buy products from wholesalers
• Design your own and have them manufactured
• Design and sew your own in-house

Of course, which you choose will depend on how you plan to sell your products. For example, if you’re planning to curate collections of clothing to sell online, say directly via your website or on Amazon, you could opt to purchase products from wholesalers or drop shippers. This is a great way to keep upfront costs low–especially if you are dropshipping products. However, it also means your products are not as unique and therefore might require more marketing.

Pricing products in fashion is largely determined by two key variables. First, the cost of goods sold (COGS), such as labor expenses and cost of materials, and second, by the niche you’ve chosen to target. For example, the average clothing line uses what is called the keystone markup strategy , where the price is calculated by taking the cost of production and doubling it. However, it may be increased as much as 5X, depending on your niche, such as high-end clothing brands.

Here are a few key costs to include when pricing your products:

• Cost of materials
• Marketing and advertising

If you’re stepping into the luxury brand space, your products should be priced accordingly. Items that require a lot of attention, care and time in their creation should have premium prices.

On the other hand, a clothing company focused on high volume can have items with lower price points. Encouraging consumers to buy more means adding deals and flash sales to further incentivize purchases.

Clothing businesses have a number of distribution options available, from selling directly via their own website and selling on third-party sites such as Amazon and Etsy, to selling in-store, through local retailers, or national big box retailers. To maximize your exposure and increase your sales, it’s generally best to plan to distribute and sell your products via multiple channels.

Even if you do not plan to sell products directly or online, you still need to have a website. This helps build your brand and if you’re planning to approach retailers, it gives them a way to check your product catalogs and lookbooks. Learn more about how to make a website or check out the best e-commerce platforms that enable you to easily create an online store where you can sell your products directly to customers.

No matter how you plan to sell the bulk of your products, you should have your own website.

If you’re not ready to sell from your own website, you can look into Etsy or other highly ranked e-commerce platforms to lessen your workload. The less time you have to spend troubleshooting a website, the more time you have to work on designing clothing.

Last but not least, you need to market your clothing brand so that it can be discovered by your target market. There are a number of ways to market a clothing business, but ultimately you want to choose marketing channels that reach your particular target market. In other words, be where your target customers are.

Here are some of the most popular marketing channels and strategies for clothing brands:

• Organic social media marketing, such as Pinterest and Instagram
• Paid social media advertising, such as Facebook Ads and YouTube Ads
• Paid search advertising, such as Google Ads
• Forums, such as Reddit
• Content marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Paid placements
• Banner ads, such as Google AdSense
• E-commerce ads, such as Amazon Ads and Etsy Ads
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Email marketing
• Sponsorships
• Local events

When choosing the right marketing strategies and channels for your clothing business, remember to always keep your brand in mind. Consider if it stays on brand and if it’s likely to be a good use of your marketing budget. As with choosing distribution channels, you will also want to use multiple marketing channels for maximum exposure.

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Starting a clothing business is a great way to merge creative passion and business sense. It also gives you the opportunity to see your artistic work on people on the street, while turning your passions into a profitable business. On top of that, it’s more affordable than ever to start a clothing line, so you don’t need a huge investment to get started.

How much does it cost to start a clothing line?

As with any business of any size, the startup costs will depend on how large you want the business to start out. A small clothing business will need about $500, a medium-sized line between $1,000 and $5,000, and a large line might need up to $50,000.

Are clothing businesses typically profitable?

With hard work and devotion, it can be. Estimates state that profits can be anywhere from 4% to 13% . There will likely be many changes because fashion cycles through trends quickly.

Do I need a business plan to start a clothing business?

While you don’t exactly need a business plan to start a clothing business, it’s a good idea to create one. The reason being is having a strong business plan will help you stay true to your original vision. Planning out your suppliers, goals and general growth plan will set you up for success in the future.

Where can I get products for my online store?

You can get products for your online store from a variety of sources, including wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors. Another good place to find clothes are thrift stores and garage and yard sales, where you can find gently used clothing and sometimes clothes that have never been worn. Popular aggregators of manufacturers include Alibaba and DHgate. Many store owners use sites, such as Faire or Abound, for wholesale products.

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Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.

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How to Start a Business in Maine

By Homebase Team

Starting a small business in Maine can be an exciting yet challenging endeavor. You need to navigate various steps to ensure your business gets off to a strong start. One of the first and most important steps involves developing a solid business plan.

A well-structured business plan serves as your roadmap to success. It helps you clarify your business idea, set goals, and outline the steps needed to achieve them.

Developing a Business Plan for Your Maine Small Business

A well-structured business plan provides a clear path for your business. It helps you organize your thoughts, set realistic goals, and attract potential investors or lenders. Without a solid plan, you may find yourself navigating the business landscape without direction.

Key Components to Include in Your Plan

Executive Summary : This section offers a brief overview of your business, including your mission statement, product or service offerings, and basic information about your leadership team, employees, and location. It should also include a summary of your financial projections and funding requirements.

Market Analysis : Conduct thorough research to understand your industry, market size, expected growth, and target audience. Identify trends and forecast demand for your product or service. This section should demonstrate your understanding of the market and your position within it.

Competitive Analysis : Analyze your competitors to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Identify what sets your business apart and how you plan to gain a competitive edge. This might include pricing strategies, unique selling propositions, and market positioning.

Marketing and Sales Strategy : Outline how you plan to attract and retain customers. This includes your marketing channels, advertising strategies, sales tactics, and customer service approach. Detail your plans for promotions, partnerships, and other initiatives to drive sales.

Financial Projections : Provide detailed financial forecasts, including income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets. Include projections for at least the first three to five years. This section should also cover your funding requirements and how you plan to use the funds.

Resources for Creating a Business Plan in Maine

Several resources can help you create a comprehensive business plan. The Maine Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) offer free business advising and training. SCORE Maine provides mentorship programs and workshops. The Maine Department of Economic and Community Development offers various tools and resources. Local chambers of commerce and business associations can also provide valuable support and networking opportunities.

Choosing a Legal Structure for Your Maine Business

Selecting the right legal structure for your business impacts your taxes, liability, and day-to-day operations. Here are the common business structures to consider:

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is the simplest structure. You own and operate the business alone. This structure offers complete control but also means personal liability for business debts and obligations. It’s easy to set up and requires minimal paperwork.

Partnership

A partnership involves two or more people sharing ownership. There are general partnerships, where all partners manage the business and share liability, and limited partnerships, where some partners have limited liability and involvement. Partnerships require a partnership agreement outlining roles and profit-sharing.

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

An LLC provides liability protection similar to a corporation but with simpler tax and operational flexibility. Owners, called members, aren’t personally liable for business debts. LLCs can have one or multiple members. This structure combines the benefits of a corporation and a partnership.

Corporation

A corporation is a more complex structure with shareholders, directors, and officers. It offers strong liability protection but involves more regulations and paperwork. Corporations can raise capital by issuing stock. There are two main types: C corporations, which are taxed separately from their owners, and S corporations, which allow profits and losses to pass through to the owners’ personal tax returns.

Factors to Consider When Selecting a Structure

When choosing a legal structure, consider the following:

• Liability Protection : How much personal liability are you willing to assume?
• Tax Implications : Different structures have different tax benefits and obligations.
• Management and Control : Do you want to make decisions alone or with partners?
• Funding Needs : Some structures make it easier to raise capital.
• Regulatory Requirements : Consider the complexity of setup and ongoing compliance.

Registering Your Business with the Maine Secretary of State

After choosing a structure, you need to register your business with the Maine Secretary of State. For sole proprietorships and partnerships, registration is straightforward. LLCs and corporations require filing formation documents and paying a fee. You’ll also need to appoint a registered agent to receive legal documents on behalf of your business.

Securing Funding for Your Maine Small Business

Estimating startup costs accurately sets the foundation for your business. Calculate expenses such as equipment, inventory, rent, utilities, and initial marketing. Include one-time costs like permits and ongoing expenses like salaries. A detailed estimate helps you understand how much funding you need.

Exploring Funding Options

Personal Savings and Investments : Using your own money or investments from friends and family can be a straightforward way to fund your business. This option avoids debt but requires careful planning to ensure you don’t overextend your finances.

Small Business Loans : Banks and credit unions offer loans specifically for small businesses . These loans often require a solid business plan and financial projections. Interest rates and repayment terms vary, so compare options to find the best fit for your needs.

Grants and Incentives : Look for grants and incentives offered by federal, state, and local governments. These funds don’t need to be repaid, making them an attractive option. Research programs specific to Maine, such as those from the Maine Technology Institute or the Department of Economic and Community Development.

Crowdfunding : Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow you to raise small amounts of money from a large number of people. Successful campaigns often offer rewards or incentives to backers. Crowdfunding can also help you gauge interest in your product or service before launching.

Preparing Financial Documents for Lenders and Investors

Lenders and investors need to see detailed financial documents to assess your business’s viability. Prepare the following:

• Income Statement : Shows your projected revenue, expenses, and profits over a specific period.
• Cash Flow Statement : Details how cash flows in and out of your business, ensuring you can cover expenses.
• Balance Sheet : Provides a snapshot of your business’s financial health, including assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Break-Even Analysis : Indicates when your business will start making a profit, helping investors understand the potential return on investment.

Obtaining Licenses and Permits for Your Maine Business

Navigating the licensing and permitting process is a key step when starting your business in Maine. You’ll need to comply with federal, state, and local regulations to operate legally.

Federal, State, and Local Licensing Requirements

Start by identifying the licenses and permits required at each level of government. Federal licenses are necessary if your business involves activities regulated by a federal agency, such as broadcasting, alcohol, or firearms. State licenses vary by industry and can include professional licenses for fields like healthcare or real estate. Local licenses often cover general business operations, health and safety, and zoning.

Identifying Industry-Specific Permits

Different industries have unique permitting requirements. For example, if you plan to open a restaurant, you’ll need health department permits, food handler permits, and possibly liquor licenses. Construction businesses might need building permits and contractor licenses. Research the specific permits required for your industry to ensure compliance.

Registering for Taxes

Registering for taxes is a necessary step. If you sell goods, register for a sales tax permit with the Maine Revenue Services. This allows you to collect sales tax from customers. If you have employees, register for employer taxes , including unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. This ensures you comply with state tax regulations and can legally hire staff.

Homebase gives you modern tools and guidance to keep you compliant.

Applying for an Employer Identification Number (EIN)

An EIN is a federal tax ID number required for most businesses. It’s used for tax filings, opening a business bank account, and hiring employees. Apply for an EIN through the IRS website. The process is straightforward and free, providing you with a unique identifier for your business activities.

Marketing Your Small Business in Maine

Developing a marketing plan sets the foundation for your business’s growth. Outline your goals, strategies, and budget. Determine the best channels to reach your audience and set measurable objectives to track your progress.

Identifying your target audience helps you tailor your marketing efforts. Research demographics, preferences, and behaviors. Understand what your potential customers need and how your product or service can meet those needs. This information guides your messaging and marketing tactics.

Creating a strong brand identity makes your business recognizable and memorable. Develop a unique logo, color scheme, and tagline. Ensure consistency across all platforms and materials. Your brand should reflect your business values and resonate with your target audience.

Leveraging digital marketing channels expands your reach and engages customers. Start with website development. A professional, user-friendly website acts as your online storefront. Include clear information about your products or services, contact details, and an easy-to-navigate layout. Optimize your site for search engines to improve visibility.

Social media marketing connects you with customers on platforms they use daily. Choose platforms that align with your audience’s preferences. Post regularly, share engaging content, and interact with followers. Use social media to showcase your brand personality and build a community around your business.

Email marketing keeps your audience informed and engaged. Collect email addresses through your website or in-store promotions. Send regular newsletters with updates, promotions, and valuable content. Personalize your emails to make them more relevant to your subscribers.

Networking and building local partnerships strengthen your presence in the community. Attend local events, join business groups, and collaborate with other businesses. Partnerships can lead to cross-promotions, referrals, and increased visibility. Engage with your community to build trust and loyalty.

Resources for Maine Small Business Owners

Starting a business in Maine means having access to a variety of resources designed to help you succeed. Here are some key resources you can tap into:

Maine Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)

Maine SBDCs offer free business advising and training for new and existing businesses. They provide one-on-one counseling, workshops, and online courses. Advisors can help you with business planning, financial projections, marketing strategies, and more. Their goal is to support you through every stage of your business journey.

SCORE Maine Mentorship Programs

SCORE Maine connects you with experienced business mentors who offer free, confidential advice. These mentors are often retired business owners or executives who volunteer their time to help new entrepreneurs. They can provide insights on business planning, marketing, funding, and operations. SCORE also hosts workshops and webinars on various business topics.

Maine Department of Economic and Community Development

The Maine Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) offers various programs and services to support small businesses. They provide information on state incentives, grants, and loans. The DECD also helps with site selection, workforce development, and regulatory compliance. Their resources can help you navigate the state’s business landscape more effectively.

Local Chambers of Commerce and Business Associations

Joining your local chamber of commerce or a business association can provide valuable networking opportunities. These organizations often host events, workshops, and seminars that can help you connect with other business owners and potential customers. They also advocate for business-friendly policies and provide resources on local market trends and opportunities.

Online Resources and Tools for Small Business Management

Numerous online resources can help you manage your small business more efficiently. Websites like the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offer guides, templates, and tools for business planning, financial management, and marketing. Online platforms provide software solutions for accounting, payroll, scheduling, and customer relationship management. These tools can streamline your operations and free up more time for you to focus on growing your business.

• What : Starting a small business in Maine involves planning, legal steps, and marketing.
• So What : A solid business plan and legal structure are essential for success.
• Pros & Cons : Pros: Clear direction, funding; Cons: Complexity, regulations.
• Bottom Line : Preparation and resources make starting a business easier.

Let’s make managing your small business easier with Homebase. Get started today by signing up here . We look forward to helping you streamline your operations and improve team management.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. how much does a maine business license cost.

The cost of a business license in Maine varies depending on the type and location of the business. Generally, expect to pay between $65 and $190.

2. Is Maine a good state to start a business?

Yes, Maine is a good state to start a business due to its strong support for small businesses, availability of funding, and a community that supports local enterprises.

3. How do I start an LLC in Maine?

To start an LLC in Maine:

• Choose a name and check its availability.
• File a Certificate of Formation with the Maine Secretary of State.
• Appoint a registered agent.
• Create an operating agreement (optional but recommended).
• Obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS.
• Register for state and local taxes.

4. What is considered a small business in Maine?

In Maine, a small business is typically defined as a business with fewer than 500 employees.

Remember:  This is not legal advice. If you have questions about your particular situation, please consult a lawyer, CPA, or other appropriate professional advisor or agency.

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Boost Your Startup With Social Media Marketing for Startups in 2024

Daniel clark.

• September 18, 2024
• Blog , Marketing , Social

Did you know that 4.9 billion people use social media worldwide?

That’s over half the global population scrolling, liking , and sharing social media content every day.

Your next customer could be among them!

Social media isn’t just for sharing memes anymore. It’s a powerful tool that can help your startup grow in 2024.

Whether you’re launching a new app or opening a coffee shop, social media marketing for startup business can connect you with customers and boost your brand.

You don’t need to be a marketing expert to make small business social media marketing work for you.

We’ll break down simple strategies that you can start using today with the help of tools like Social Champ .

But first, ask yourself: If your startup’s story was told through social media, what would it look like?

Let’s find out together.

Grow Your Startup with Social Champ!

Start leveraging powerful scheduling, analytics, and AI-driven content tools to connect with your audience like never before.

Free 14-Day Trial

Short Summary

• Social media marketing in 2024 offers startups a powerful way to reach a global audience of 4.9 billion users.
• It enables startups to connect with potential customers, build communities, and convert followers into paying customers.
• Effective social media strategies for startups include selecting the right platforms, creating engaging content, and using tools like Social Champ for easier management.
• Startups can strengthen their brand, enhance customer relationships, and gain valuable market insights through regular social media engagement.
• Social media helps in competitive positioning, crisis management, public relations, and introducing new products to targeted customers.
• To maximize ROI, startups should assess the value of their social media efforts, analyze data, and possibly consider paid advertising.
• Tools like Social Champ, Canva, and Google Analytics are essential for content creation, performance tracking, and audience analysis.
• Techniques like retargeting and email marketing can further enhance social media marketing efforts by converting leads and nurturing customer relationships.

Why Is Social Media Marketing Important for Startups?

Social media platforms offer you a unique space to build and maintain your brand reputation.

Regularly posting valuable content and engaging with your audience can create a loyal customer base that trusts and advocates for your brand.

For instance, sharing customer testimonials, success stories , and behind-the-scenes looks can humanize your brand and build a community.

Featured Article: 30+ Best Social Media Marketing Books for 2024

Stronger Competitive Positioning

A good social media presence can help you analyze your competitors and understand industry trends .

By monitoring competitors’ activities and audience interactions , you can identify gaps in the market and position yourself more effectively .

More Customer-Centric Business Strategy

Social media provides a direct line of communication between you and your customers.

Listening to customer feedback and engaging in conversations lets you gain valuable insights into customer needs and preferences.

Better Public Relations Outcomes

Effective social media management can enhance your public relations efforts .

By promptly addressing customer queries and concerns, you can build a positive brand image .

Critical Role in Crisis Management

In times of crisis, social media can be a crucial tool for managing the situation and communicating with your audience.

Quickly addressing issues and providing transparent updates can help you mitigate negative impacts and maintain customer trust.

Introduces Products and Services to Ready-To-Buy Customers

Social media platforms are an excellent place for you to showcase new products and services.

With targeted advertising and organic content , you can reach potential customers who are already interested in what you have to offer.

Enhances Customer Experiences

Through social media, you can offer personalized customer experiences that build stronger relationships with your audience.

How Does Social Media Help Startups?

Social media provides a platform for startups to tell their story , connect with their audience, and build a brand from the ground up.

By creating a strong online presence, startups can reach a broader audience, generate leads, and convert those leads into loyal customers.

Additionally, social media allows startups to engage in two-way communication with their audience, building a sense of community and trust.

Automate Social Media Management With Social Champ

Managing multiple social media accounts can be time-consuming and overwhelming . This is where Social Champ comes in.

Social Champ gives you access to automation tools that can help you schedule posts, track performance, and engage with your audience, all in one place.

Choose the right plan for your business and streamline your social media management effortlessly.

This not only saves time but also ensures that your social media efforts are consistent and effective, maximizing your return on investment (ROI).

Elevate Your Social Game with Social Champ!

Why settle for ordinary when you can optimize? Automate your posting, analyze results, and engage smarter—all from one intuitive platform.

7 Things to Do Before You Start Social Media Marketing

Here are some things that you need to do before starting with social media marketing:

Evaluate if Social Media Is Worthwhile

Before diving into social media marketing strategy for startups should assess whether it aligns with their business goals .

Consider the time and resources required to manage social media accounts and weigh them against the potential benefits .

Featured Article: 35+ Best Social Media Marketing Tools in 2024!

Plan Your Content Strategy

Decide what type of content you will post and how often.

A well-planned content strategy can keep your audience engaged and encourage them to interact with your brand .

Develop Strategies to Grow Your Following

Growing a following on social media requires a strategic approach .

Engage with your audience by responding to comments, participating in conversations, and collaborating with influencers.

Select the Right Social Media Platforms

Not all social media platforms are created equal . Each platform has its unique audience and content style.

You should identify which platforms are most relevant to your target audience and focus your efforts there.

Analyze the Insights and Data You Can Gather from Social Media

Social media platforms offer valuable analytics that can help you as a startup understand your audience better.

Assess the Value and ROI of Your Social Media Efforts

It’s crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts regularly.

Use KPIs such as engagement rates, follower growth , and conversion rates to measure your success.

Consider if Paying for Ads is Beneficial for Your Goals

Paid advertising on social media can amplify your reach and help you target specific demographics.

However, it’s essential to consider whether this investment aligns with your business goals and budget .

Best Social Media Marketing Tips For Startups Growth

Here are some tried and tested tips for startups to grow their ventures with social media marketing:

Identify Your Market and Target Audiences

Understanding your market and target audience is the first step to successful social media marketing.

Conduct thorough research to identify who your potential customers are, their interests, and where they spend their time online.

This knowledge will help you tailor your content and marketing efforts to resonate with your audience.

Pick Out the Right Platform

Choosing the right social media platforms is crucial for reaching your target audience . Different platforms cater to different demographics and content types .

For example, Instagram is great for visual content and younger audiences , while LinkedIn is more suited for professional networking and B2B marketing.

Choose platforms that align with your business goals and audience preferences .

Which Platform Is For What Type Of Business?

• X : Best for real-time updates and customer service.

• YouTube : Best for video content and educational tutorials.

Create Social Media Marketing Strategy for Startups

A detailed social media marketing plan outlines your goals, content strategy, posting schedule, and metrics for success.

Content Is King

Creating high-quality , valuable content is key to engaging your audience and building your brand.

Focus on content that educates, entertains, or inspires your audience.

Post Content Regularly

Consistency is crucial in social media marketing. Regular posting keeps your audience engaged and helps you stay top of mind .

Boost Your Startup’s Online Presence!

Plan, schedule, and analyze with precision to ensure your content reaches the right audience at the right time.

Make Use of Social Media Marketing Tools

Leverage social media marketing tools to streamline your efforts and improve efficiency.

Tools like Social Champ can help post to all social media at once , track performance, and manage multiple accounts from a single dashboard .

Ensure Your Content Is Valuable and Engaging

Your content should provide value to your audience.

Whether it’s solving a problem, offering tips, or entertaining them, valuable content will keep your audience coming back for more.

Use the Same Handle on Every Platform

Consistency is key in branding, and one way to ensure this is by using the same handle across all your social media platforms.

This makes it easier for your audience to find and follow you, creating a unified and professional brand image.

Find the Best Time to Post Content

Timing can significantly impact the success of your social media posts. Posting when your audience is most active increases the chances of engagement.

Use analytics tools to identify the best times to post .

Actively Engage With Audiences

Social media is not a one-way street.

Engaging with your audience by replying to comments, answering questions, and participating in discussions can build a loyal community around your brand.

Build a Brand Message

Your brand message is the core value you want to communicate to your audience.

It should be consistent across all your social media platforms and align with your business goals .

Contribute in Community

Contributing to the social media community by sharing valuable content and participating in industry conversations can enhance your brand’s visibility .

Toolkits for Social Media Marketing for Startups

Effective social media marketing requires the right tools to manage and optimize your efforts. Here are some essential toolkits for startups:

• Social Media Management Tools : Tools like Social Champ help you schedule posts, track performance, and manage multiple accounts efficiently. With features like social listening and analytics, you can gain valuable insights into your audience and refine your strategy.
• Content Creation Tools : Tools like Canva and Adobe Spark allow you to create visually appealing graphics and videos without needing advanced design skills. High-quality visuals can enhance your social media posts and attract more engagement.
• Analytics Tools : Platforms like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights provide facebook metrics that can help you understand your audience’s behavior and measure the success of your campaigns. Use these insights to make data-driven decisions and improve your social media strategy.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools : Tools like HubSpot and Zoho CRM can help you manage interactions with your customers and leads, ensuring that you provide timely and personalized responses.

Techniques That Strengthen Social Media Marketing

Following are some techniques that you can use to strengthen social media marketing of your startup:

Retargeting

Retargeting involves showing ads to people who have previously interacted with your brand but did not convert.

This technique can help you stay top of mind and encourage these potential customers to complete their purchase .

Platforms like Facebook and Google Ads offer retargeting options that can be highly effective in converting leads into customers.

Email marketing complements your social media efforts by providing another channel to engage with your audience.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can enhance your social media content’s visibility by making it more discoverable through search engines.

Use relevant keywords in your social media posts, profiles, and content to improve your search rankings.

We have explored everything from a broad social media strategy for startups to specific tactics like Instagram strategy for startups.

To wrap up, social media marketing is a must for startups wanting to grow their brand, connect with customers , and boost business .

By using a solid social media strategy, you can build a strong online presence, reach your audience, and hit your goals .

Remember, success in social media comes from being consistent, engaging , and valuable .

It’s not a one-time thing but a continuous process of learning and adapting.

1. How to Use Social Media for Business in 2024?

2. how to start digital marketing in 2024, 3. how to promote a startup on social media, 4. which social media is best for startups, resources for you.

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JTC Delivers Accelerated Start To Cosmos Era With Strong Organic Performance And Strategic M&A

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Global professional services business JTC has today announced strong interim results with record new business wins, organic growth above upgraded guidance at a stable margin even as the Group continues to invest in growth.

JTC, which is listed as a FTSE 250 company on the London Stock Exchange (“LSE”), reported a 21.1% increase in total revenue to £147.1m with very good net organic growth of 12.5%, ahead of its medium-term guidance that was revised upwards to 10%+ for it latest multi-year business plan, the Cosmos era. JTC also delivered record new business wins of £18.8m up 28.8% period on period, and an underlying EBITDA margin of 33.4%.

The Group has been able to conduct M&A activity at an impressive pace, adding four businesses to the platform in the period, as well as the post period announcements of Buck, a bolt-on that will form part of JTC’s Employer Solutions business, and the significant acquisition of Citi’s global trust company business, which will sit within the PCS Division and cement JTC’s position as the world’s largest independent trust company businesses.

JTC’s Private Client Services (PCS) Division revenue increased strongly by 46.1% to £59.6m (H1 2023: £40.8m) with sector-leading net organic growth of 13.9% (H1 2023: 18.6%) and a similarly impressive increase of 51.6% in underlying EBITDA to £22.3m (H1 2023: £14.7m). In particular, the performance of its US business has been strong, with the addition of SDTC to the existing platform, which celebrated its one year anniversary in August, and the addition of FRTC in Delaware, all providing additional scale and delivering performance in the high growth US market. Post period end, the Group announced the acquisition of Citi’s global trust company business which is a transformational deal for the Group and the Division.

The Group’s Institutional Client Services (ICS) Division, which focuses on fund and corporate services, saw revenues increase by 8.5% to £87.5m, and robust net organic growth of 11.9%. Three of the four acquisitions during the period now form part of the ICS Division, with FFP being the catalyst and a core pillar for a new Governance Services practice, which will be called Northpoint Governance Services.

Post period end, and in recognition of the tremendous success of its Galaxy era business plan, which ran from 2021 to 2023 and saw the Group double in size, JTC awarded £50m of ‘warehoused’ shares from its Employee Benefit Trust to its entire global workforce.

The Board has declared an interim dividend of 4.3p per share, an increase of 0.8p period on period (H1 2023: 3.5p).

Looking ahead, strong financial performance with impressive organic growth, record new business wins, continued high cash conversion and the ability to de-lever, along with an increased interim dividend, are testament to JTC’s ability to continue to deliver consistent growth.

Nigel Le Quesne , CEO of JTC PLC, added:

“We have made a strong start to the Cosmos era, with record new business wins, organic growth above our upgraded guidance at a stable margin even as we continue to invest in growth. A particular highlight has been our M&A activity with four acquisitions announced or completed during the period. Post period end, we were pleased to announce the acquisition of Buck as an addition to our Employer Solutions business and the significant acquisition from Citibank of Citi Trust, its global trust company business. This is a transformational deal for the Group and the PCS Division, cementing JTC as one of the world’s largest independent trust company businesses.

Our commitment to ownership for all employees remains our defining characteristic and while it did not fall directly within the period, I must mention our most recent Shared Ownership event, through which £50m of ‘warehoused’ shares from our Employee Benefit Trust, were awarded to our global workforce in recognition of their collective achievement to double the size of the Group in just three years by delivering our Galaxy Era plan. As always, I thank our employee owners for their dedication to our clients and for bringing the JTC culture to life.”

Nigel Le Quesne

• > Email Nigel
• > Office +44 1534 700 000
• > View Profile

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• Brand Strategy

Brand Launch Strategy Explained (2024)

A brand launch is the strategic process of introducing a new brand to its market and target customers. It involves a strategic and coordinated approach to carefully craft a unique brand identity and generate attention in the lead-up to the launch. The effectiveness of the activities to launch a brand will lay the foundation for long-term success.

With the help of our experts, we outline the steps you need to take for a successful brand launch, along with best practices and examples that can help guide your planning.

Table of Contents

What is a brand launch, creating a brand launch strategy in 4 steps, best practices for launching a new brand, 3 examples of successful brand launches, brand launch strategy takeaways, brand launch strategy faqs.

A brand launch consists of three stages:

• Pre-launch activities: Extensive preparation is needed to create a strong first impression. This stage spans several months and encompasses market research, brand identity development, promotional strategies, logistics, and media outreach.
• Launch day: If you’ve set the stage correctly, the brand launch day will lead to a positive reception and maximum impact.
• Post-launch: The work doesn’t stop after launch day. It is important to monitor brand perception after the initial launch and track brand performance in the long run.

If you need help with some or all these stages, you can partner with a branding agency . They can develop a strategic plan and leverage the best marketing techniques to boost engagement for your brand launch.

Importance of Well-Planned Brand Launch

Effectively communicating your brand identity to your target audience leads to more awareness, engagement, and, ultimately, conversions. A successful brand launch is the first step to establishing your presence in the market and introducing your offerings to audiences who may be interested.

A robust brand launch strategy is essential for the following reasons:

• Sets the tone: A compelling and memorable first impression will give your brand the best start in developing trust and credibility for your target audience.
• Creates strong emotional connections: With resonant and engaging messaging, your brand can foster loyalty and advocacy from the jump.
• Establishes a strong presence: You can immediately create interest and establish a solid position in your market, differentiating your brand from your competition.
• Maximizes impact: A strategic and coordinated approach to brand launch across multiple channels will maximize the impact of your efforts. You can amplify your brand message and ensure high visibility.
• Attracts media coverage: Buzz around a new brand often extends to media outlets and industry attention. Positive press can amplify reach and create opportunities for future partnerships.

Preparing for a brand launch is similar to completing a product launch checklist , but the scope of the requirements is significantly broader. These detailed steps will guide you:

• Study your target audience
• Set brand launch goals
• Establish your brand identity
• Outline launch activities and create a detailed timeline

1. Study Your Target Audience

Knowing your audience is a critical foundation when creating an effective brand launch strategy. Understanding who your target audience is, what they want, and how they behave will help you create a brand that resonates with them.

Meet your audience’s needs and foster long-term loyalty with the following market research techniques:

• Gather direct feedback: Surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups can help you gather data directly from your target audience. Ask about their preferences, behaviors, and expectations from brands in your niche.
• Leverage analytics tools : If you have an existing website and social media accounts, use tools like Google Analytics, Meta Business Suite, and Instagram Insights for data about audience demographics and behavior.
• Monitor conversations: Look up industry-related terms and monitor conversations on social media, forums, review sites, and other platforms where your target customers are active. Look for discussions that can inform your overall branding and upcoming launch.
• Analyze your competitors : Review their social media engagement and website visitors with tools like Ahrefs and Sprout Social. Analyze reviews of similar products to gain insight into how your brand can do better.
• Review existing research: Industry reports and studies by market research firms can also provide crucial audience data for your niche.

Use this data to determine your target customers’ primary pain points and tailor your brand messaging to address and solve them. Align your brand’s value proposition with their specific needs and demonstrate how your offerings can enhance their lives.

2. Set Brand Launch Goals

Another crucial step is to define your objectives and establish SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) goals. This keeps your brand launch strategy on track and allows you to measure its performance.

In general, the primary goal of a brand launch is to generate awareness. Your target audience should become aware of your brand’s existence, understand what it offers, and associate it with the values that they share. You may also aim to acquire new customers via preorders or conversions immediately post-launch.

It is also important to align each goal with the appropriate marketing channels. Let’s apply this and the SMART framework for pre- and post-launch awareness:

• Narrow down the scope of your objective ( specific ): To capture 2,000 Instagram followers in the lead-up to the brand launch.
• Identify metrics and tools to track progress ( measurable ): Instagram Insights provides data on follower count and account growth over time.
• Set a realistic goal ( achievable ): Close competitors have gained an average of 100,000 Instagram followers since their launch, so 2,000 is a reasonable number for your own pre-launch.
• Align your launch goals with overall business objectives ( relevant ): Increased brand awareness leads to broader audience reach and potentially more revenue in the long run.
• Set a deadline to create urgency and maintain focus ( time-bound ): Gain 2,000 Instagram followers as you generate buzz on socials before launch day.

3. Establish Your Brand Identity

The branding process helps you build a unique and memorable brand identity that communicates your company’s values to your target audience. A complete brand identity is the ideal image you want to present to a broader audience during the brand launch.

3.1 Brand Story

Your brand story is the narrative that captures the essence of your brand, such as its origins, mission, vision, and values. It communicates why it exists and ultimately shapes the foundation of your brand identity. Your brand story should accomplish the following:

• Outlines your brand’s journey
• Humanizes your brand
• Resonates with customers emotionally
• Fosters trust through authenticity

The best brand stories engage audiences on a deep level and enable companies to build long-running relationships with them.

3.2 Brand Position

Brand positioning defines how your brand is perceived relative to its competitors, making it critical for a successful brand launch. It is shaped by the brand’s unique value proposition and defines the space it occupies in the market.

An effective brand positioning statement forms an emotional bond with the audience and communicates the benefits that customers experience when they choose the brand.

3.3 Brand Voice

Brand voice is the distinct style in which a company communicates with its audience. It reflects your brand’s values and identity through its tone, key phrases, and terminologies across all platforms.

Creating a consistent and recognizable voice humanizes the brand and makes it more memorable. It is an important differentiation from competitors. For example, a playful, friendly, and enthusiastic brand voice suits a women-owned wellness brand. It engages the correct audience through social media comments and email newsletters and fosters deeper relationships over time.

3.4 Brand Personality

Creating a unique brand personality involves embodying specific archetypes that humanize your company and create an emotional connection with customers.

For example, Red Bull’s branding is associated with risk and extreme sports. This energetic, fun, and youthful energy engages audience segments that enjoy outdoor sports and are more likely to drink Red Bull products to boost their energy while on an adventure.

3.5 Brand Visuals

Cohesive brand visuals effectively communicate your company's identity to audiences and are often the primary touchpoints for potential customers. The following elements make the brand easily recognizable across different platforms:

• Color palette
• Graphics and illustrations
• Photography

4. Outline Launch Activities and Create a Detailed Timeline

Once you’ve established the brand you want to introduce to the world, it’s time to outline your launch activities that will generate anticipation from your audience.

Ensure all necessary tasks are completed on time to make your launch day a success. To achieve this, break the activities down into the following phases:

4.1 Initial Strategy (6 to 12 months before launch day)

• Complete initial steps: Studying your target audience, setting brand launch goals, and establishing your brand identity must be done long before your brand launch.
• Outline your marketing strategy: Create a coordinated marketing strategy that spans social media, email marketing, public relations, content marketing, and traditional advertising. Brainstorm brand assets and assign content creation tasks to team members.

4.2 Pre-Launch Preparation (3 to 6 months before launch day)

• Optimize your website: A fully designed and developed website ensures that interested customers can access all the information they want to learn about your brand. Make sure your website can accommodate a large wave of visitors on launch day.
• Prepare your eCommerce platform: If you’re also launching products or services on your new website, set up detailed listings, secure payment gateways, and robust logistics to fulfill orders.
• Seek out partnerships: You can partner with related brands or known influencers and bloggers in your niche to amplify your message and create more buzz around your launch. Choose these collaborators carefully and ensure they can help capture your target audience.
• Develop a teaser campaign: Generate excitement through teaser campaigns across digital and physical channels. Sneak peeks, countdowns, and mystery elements can help build curiosity and intrigue around your brand launch.
• Create a launch hashtag: A customized hashtag will help you build a strong presence on social media and lead interested customers to more information about your brand launch.
• Prepare a soft launch: Consider a beta testing phase or soft launch where you introduce your brand to a small focus group. You can gather feedback and adjust your launch activities to make a bigger impact on your audience.

4.3 Final Countdown (1 to 3 months before launch day)

• Finalize marketing materials: Complete all digital and print materials, product videos, landing pages, email templates, and social media graphics.
• Create and share pre-launch content: Slowly build a presence on your social media accounts and populate your website with information about your brand. Communicate details about your brand story, mission, vision, and values through graphics, short videos, and blog posts that will engage your target audience.
• Write press releases: Distribute a press release to relevant media outlets and industry publications. Media coverage will enhance credibility and reach a broader audience.
• Set up customer service processes: Designate team members to handle all customer inquiries from pre- to post-launch.
• Finalize inventory and logistics: Make sure you're ready to meet launch demand and ship products on time.
• Set up analytics tools: Make sure you'll be able to monitor key metrics before, during, and after launch day.
• Outline contingencies: Plan for worst-case scenarios like your website going down or an uptick in negative feedback immediately post-launch. Outline contingencies step by step and assign team members to spearhead specific troubleshooting activities.
• Plan a launch event: Outline all the activities that will take place on the launch day, from social media announcements to press releases. Ensure all departments involved know their roles and deadlines.

4.4 Launch Week (7 days before launch)

• Complete final tests: Thoroughly test your website and eCommerce platform to ensure there are no issues with navigation or completing transactions.
• Check-in with influencers: Confirm schedules for influencer posts, media coverage, and other third-party promotional activities.
• Finalize launch day schedule: Outline the precise timing of everything that needs to be done on launch day, whether it’s social media posts, email blasts, or the components of a live event.

4.5 Launch Day

• Post official announcements: Make sure scheduled posts are live on the designated platforms, emails are sent out, and your website is up and running.
• Engage with your audience: Respond to questions and comments on social media and encourage followers to use your custom hashtag.
• Monitor branding metrics: Track website traffic, social media engagement, and sales in real time.

4.6 Post-Launch Follow-up (1 to 3 months after launch)

• Analyze performance: Track relevant metrics and KPIs and monitor progress toward your launch goals and overall business objectives.
• Gather feedback: Send surveys to customers for insights into the pre-launch buildup and launch day.
• Trigger post-launch promotions: Giveaways and discounts can draw more customers. Share content from launch day to demonstrate brand impact on your niche.
• Follow up with partners: Explore the potential for future collaborations with influencers and partners.
• Refine your brand strategy: Analyze collected data and adjust your brand strategy to ensure sustained growth for your company.
• Build anticipation
• Craft a compelling narrative
• Start internally

1. Plan Ahead

Proper planning helps create a comprehensive brand launch and sets the stage for long-term success. It lets you address potential challenges early on and adjust your strategies.

The timeline from market research to launch day can take six months or longer; a successful brand launch requires a lot of effort, resources, and dedication. Clear communication, collaboration, and task delegation are crucial throughout the process.

Additionally, if you aim to target international audiences, global branding adds complexities like cultural differences, language barriers, and local regulations for you to consider.

2. Build Anticipation

Create buzz and consistently engage your audience long before the official launch day. Generate excitement with countdowns and sneak peeks to set the stage for a successful rollout. Timing is crucial for this — you don’t want to give away too much too soon, but you should reveal just enough concrete information to rev up your target audience.

Partner with influencers and share teasers and prototypes to start building credibility with your shared audience. Offer early access to a select group of customers and allow them to share user-generated content on their socials.

3. Craft a Compelling Narrative

A well-told brand story shares the emotional journey that led to your brand’s creation. You need a compelling narrative to make an impact on your audience and pique their interest in a brand-new business.

Focus your brand messaging on your purpose and your journey so far. Be authentic and evoke strong emotions like inspiration, empowerment, or nostalgia. When you humanize your brand and build authentic connections, you can leave a lasting impression.

4. Start Internally

An internal brand launch is almost as important as an external one. Introduce your messaging, visuals, and identity to your employees and stakeholders to give them a sense of ownership over your brand. Hold training sessions so everyone in your team understands and can communicate your branding to customers.

Seek feedback on your branding and use it to improve your brand launch strategy. Encourage everyone to share their perspectives and gather insights through suggestion boxes, surveys, and open forums.

• Rare Beauty

TikTok’s launch in the United States was a carefully crafted effort that involved strategic marketing, partnerships, and various user acquisition techniques. In 2018, ByteDance, the app’s parent company, acquired the lip-syncing app Musical.ly and migrated its large user base to TikTok. This powered the app’s initial growth in the US and globally.

TikTok heavily invested in celebrity and influencer marketing and partnered with popular personalities and creators on Instagram and YouTube. These influencers cross-posted short-form videos on other social platforms and encouraged their followers to join TikTok. Viral TikTok challenges became global sensations, sparking viral trends and user-generated content.

In 2024, TikTok has accumulated over 120 million unique monthly users in the United States (over 1/3 of the entire population) and is one of the country’s most influential social media platforms.

2. Coinbase

Coinbase was founded in 2012 when cryptocurrency was mostly known to tech enthusiasts and very early adopters. Its founders, Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, aimed to create a user-friendly platform that made it easy for anyone to buy and store cryptocurrency.

One of the company’s key differentiators was its focus on user experience and security. It also prioritized regulatory compliance, which was a critical aspect of its launch strategy in the United States. It integrated with traditional banks and payment processors to make it more convenient for users to participate in crypto transactions.

Coinbase benefited from the increasing media coverage of cryptocurrency and solidified its position as the go-to platform for safely and easily purchasing Bitcoin. It also launched a referral program in which new users and their referrers received Bitcoin as a reward.

In 2023, more than 6 out of 10 crypto owners in the US indicated that they used Coinbase as a go-to crypto platform.

3. Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez

Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez was launched in September 2020, positioning itself as a disruptor in the beauty industry. Its mission, values, and tagline, “You are Rare,” focus on self-acceptance, inclusivity, and mental health advocacy. The Rare Impact Fund aims to raise $100 million over 10 years to support mental health services in underserved communities.

Selena Gomez’s massive online following was central to the brand’s launch strategy. She actively promoted the launch on her social media channels and shared behind-the-scenes content and personal stories about the inspiration for the brand.

Before the official launch, Rare Beauty posted teaser content, product reveals, and influencer collaborations on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. It also partnered exclusively with Sephora, a leading beauty retailer. This gave the brand immediate visibility to a broad audience.

As of August 2024, Rare Beauty has over seven million followers on Instagram and four million followers on TikTok. The brand was named one of Time’s most influential companies in 2024 .

A successful brand launch strategy involves many elements: performing intensive research, developing a unique identity, planning activities months before launch day, and so much more. It is important to cultivate strong online communities and adopt innovative promotional techniques to thrive in a competitive digital landscape.

If you need guidance throughout this process, the top branding agencies have the expertise you need to develop a successful launch strategy for your brand. Explore their portfolios, client reviews, pricing, and other key details to find the best branding partner for your brand.

1. What is a soft launch?

A soft launch introduces a brand or product to a limited audience before a full-scale launch. It helps brands gather feedback from a small group of early users to identify potential issues and make adjustments before the official launch. A soft launch focuses on testing and refining branding and promotional strategies in a controlled environment.

2. What is the best way to gain Instagram followers as a new brand?

Here are some tips to gain Instagram followers for a new business account:

• Optimize your profile
• Create visually appealing content for your target audience
• Post consistently and use different formats (carousels, Reels, Stories)
• Use relevant hashtags to increase discoverability
• Partner with influencers and relevant businesses to reach new audiences

3. Are influencers important for a brand launch?

Yes, influencers are valuable for brand launches. They can introduce your brand to established audiences to help you generate buzz and build credibility. Choose influencers whose niche, style, and overall values align with your brand. Provide them with clear and specific guidelines to ensure their content showcases your brand accurately.

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Where are the fashion CEOs?

This is Connecting the Dots , a series in which writer José Criales-Unzueta looks at how fashion, pop culture, the internet and society are all interconnected.

Some of the most iconic fashion of the past century came from not only once-in-a-generation talent, but the business minds behind them. Yves Saint Laurent had Pierre Bergé , Valentino Garavani had Giancarlo Giammetti, Tom Ford had Domenico De Sole , Marc Jacobs had Robert Duffy.

These CEOs are credited with taking the designers’ visions and crafting them into something that can perform commercially without diluting their creativity. They helped to broker deals with wholesalers and investors, get collections into production and products to market. Fashion must be bought, worn and flaunted to leave a lasting impression; these executives made sure their designers’ outputs didn’t fall into the void.

Over the past decade, however, the role of the designer CEO has become elusive and often nebulous. Many young designers have put off bringing on a partner to run the business side — think of Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee of Vaquera or Wiederhoeft designer Jackson Wiederhoeft. Most times I meet a designer breaking onto the scene, they offer proudly that they’ve built their brand solo: no business partner, no left brain to compliment their right. Designers today seem less keen to do away with equity to bring on a partner, or perhaps it is they don’t find it easy to source said partner early on. It can also be that there is now less ambiguity around what it takes to build a label — thanks to the internet, social media and other business how-to platforms, the landscape is less hazy than it once was.

It’s certainly admirable to fly solo, but I’m left thinking — would these designers benefit from having someone to bounce ideas off, someone to take some of the operational load off their shoulders? Now, in the midst of fashion month, and with many emerging labels on my radar, I offer an investigation: what happened to the CEOs?

“The challenge for a young brand in bringing on a CEO has always been budget constraints,” writes Steven Kolb , CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, over email. “Often, the investment in leadership takes a back seat to the immediate need to design, produce and sell a collection. The cost and infrastructure required for a collection can outweigh the perceived need for senior leadership.” What this does, says Kolb, is leave the designer managing both the creative and the business sides, which can be risky for those without a business background or the relevant know-how. “Many young designers are vulnerable to making mistakes — they learn as they go, relying heavily on perseverance in the early years,” he adds.

Drive can build a label, but does it build a long-lasting business? “The word CEO trips people up,” says Wen Zhou , co-founder and chief executive of 3.1 Phillip Lim . She was a manufacturing partner for designers before meeting Lim, which led to the pair starting the label almost 20 years ago. “There is a lot of outside noise for young designers, and many don’t have that person starting out, so looking for one feels like they’re giving away things or their companies for the sake of having someone come on board, but it has to be the right person.”

Zhou didn’t start out as CEO. Her role, at first, was fabric sourcing and manufacturing support for the brand. She was on top of product development, then operations, and eventually, human resources, finance as well as other various hats. Along the way, she hired the right people to support the skill sets she didn’t have or needed to learn more of.

“The role of the CEO sometimes carries so much weight and unnecessary burden,” says Zhou, “you feel like you need to be the answer to all the questions, because the chain ends with you.” The direction or success of any business is often put on the shoulders of the CEO, but for Zhou, as it pertains to founder-led businesses, this responsibility isn’t just weighed on the CEO, but on the partnership between CEO and designer. “It’s about bringing a vision together and a shared vision requires shared responsibility.”

The caveat of comparing today’s buzzy designers with names such as Saint Laurent, Jacobs or Ford, is that these three figures were connected with their respective partners well into their careers — and in some cases, by way of the roles they occupied prior to going off on their own. De Sole and Ford met at Gucci, while Bergé and Saint Laurent met socially during the latter’s tenure at Dior. “In some cases, success has come from having capable friends or qualified individuals step into leadership roles in exchange for equity rather than salary,” Kolb says. “If a designer is comfortable with this and is careful with equity terms, it can be an effective approach.”

Designers may need a doer, or someone to take parts of the business off their plates, but, as Zhou explains, in most cases and at least earlier on, that role is closer to that of a business operations manager, or a head of sales or production. “I see a lot of young designers give away equity in order to hire a good CEO, but I would say that protecting your equity and only giving it away when you really understand what this person is going to deliver is more important,” says Zhou, echoing Kolb’s consideration of being mindful with equity terms, while also understanding the necessities of the business. “The obvious risk here is the split focus,” says Kolb, with “designers not being able to fully dedicate oneself to either the creative or the business side”. In the meantime, Zhou’s suggestion is for designers to hire fractional CMOs or CFOs, or to work with sales or logistics experts to set up their businesses.

“Ask yourself, does your business need a role this big?” is what Zhou suggested young entrepreneurs consider before scouting out an executive. “We need to have real conversations about what makes sense for a business,” she explains.

During a recent conversation, a designer friend mentioned that the idea of finding a CEO was daunting, but that more than anything and at least for now, it made more sense to have an accountant and a product developer as opposed to an executive for what is a relatively slim operation. The follow-up question here is understanding when the role of a CEO becomes imperative.

The right time to find a CEO, Zhou says, is when businesses have reached a scale where it not only feels appropriate, but necessary. You only need an overlord once the business is organised, with enough moving parts for someone to look over it all — until then, the position can feel almost superfluous. “Recruiting a CEO or a president into the long-term business plan is essential,” says Kolb, explaining that the timing is dependent on “reaching a level of cash flow or profitability that can support a salaried position”.

Take the case of Piotrek Panszczyk and Beckett Fogg of Area . The duo, who celebrated the brand’s 10th-year anniversary this past New York Fashion Week, started the label as design partners, but, following a series of operational changes in the aftermath of the pandemic, Fogg formally took on the CEO role. “We both have a creative background, but I geared more onto the business side a few years in,” Fogg told me in an interview ahead of their autumn 2024 show earlier this month.

“Piotrek’s identity is Area. He’s such an incredibly directional designer, so we needed to lean into that, and I think that was the correct move,” she added. “Especially in New York, trying to go at it solo… I don’t know how anyone does it,” Fogg continued, “it gets to a point where you have to concentrate on certain aspects of the business to get anywhere. It’s an extremely complex industry, and both the creative and business sides are important, but they have to be in constant dialogue.” Fogg said that it was always important for them to value both concepts equally so they can “lift each other up”. While this distinction in their roles unravelled organically, Area is an example of how labels reach a point where splitting the roles becomes not just efficient, but compulsory.

Earlier this year, in an interview with Vogue Business , Khaite designer Catherine Holstein, who launched her label in 2016, explained her decision to hire a CEO: “I always knew I could get Khaite to a certain point. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know: taxes, warehousing, logistics, real structural points. It’s not my expertise. So bringing somebody in that’s done that before was imperative to the growth and longevity of the brand.” Holstein onboarded Brigitte Kleine as CEO in 2023, who is an operating partner at Stripes, the growth equity firm that took a majority stake in the label at that same time. The tipping point at Khaite was seven years in, around the same as Area.

The final piece of the puzzle, at least from the perspective of this designer friend, is where to find the right partner. Today, however, more and more designers launch their labels straight out of fashion school, or only a couple of years after occupying more junior positions in the industry. “I think we’re just more siloed now,” said this friend. “It’s not like you meet your perfect CEO match in art school.”

“Word of mouth is often the best way to find the right person,” offers Kolb to designers searching for an operations-minded partner. “Following industry trades can also help identify potential candidates who are currently in executive roles and may be interested in a title promotion. Don’t discount early-career professionals with potential or even friends, classmates and family members with the necessary skill set. While recruiters can be costly, some may offer pro bono or reduced-fee services if they believe in the brand’s vision.”

We often say that the industry has changed, but, from where I’m standing, one of the most significant changes in the past decade or so is how and when designers choose to launch and shape their businesses. The internet and social media have enabled everyone to have a platform to showcase their work on, and, as a result, we’ve seen more and more brands and designers rise organically. This has fundamentally changed the way many businesses in the industry operate, which in many cases is more informally.

“The one thing that doesn’t change are the fundamentals of running a business,” says Zhou. “You need good product and you need to ship and deliver your product on time.” The rest, she says, is constantly in flux, and it’s all of our jobs to learn and adapt. “A business is a living thing, it’s much like a garden,” she continues, “all it takes is a good gardener.”

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at [email protected] .

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