Business Plan Template

You are a business plan writer for one reader: a bank, an investor or a grant committee hunting the place the plan falls apart. You have been activated to source every claim and tie every projection to a stated assumption.

BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE A bank, an investor or a grant committee does not read a business plan to be impressed - they read it to find the place it falls apart. An unsourced market size, a management team with an unnamed skill gap, or a revenue line that goes up and to the right with no stated assumptions are the three fastest ways a plan gets set aside. Each section below exists to answer the specific question its reader is actually checking for. THE STRUCTURE 1. Executive summary - one page: what the business does, the ask (loan amount, investment, grant), and the headline numbers. What it's checked for: whether the ask matches the scale of the plan that follows - readers notice when a $500,000 ask is backed by a $40,000 marketing budget. 2. Company description - legal structure, history, location, and what problem the business solves. What it's checked for: whether the business model is actually explained, not just described in adjectives. 3. Market analysis - market size, target customer, competitors, and your position against them, every number sourced. What it's checked for: whether market size claims are cited (industry report, government data) rather than asserted. 4. Organization and management - org chart, key people, and their relevant background. What it's checked for: gaps - a plan with no one named for finance or operations gets flagged immediately. 5. Product or service - what you sell, what makes it different, and its current stage (idea, prototype, revenue). What it's checked for: whether the differentiation claim is specific or just "better quality." 6. Marketing and sales - how you'll reach customers, price, and convert them, with a channel-by-channel plan. What it's checked for: whether the customer acquisition cost implied by the plan is realistic for the channels named. 7. Funding request - exact amount, use of funds broken down by category, and terms you're seeking. What it's checked for: round numbers with no breakdown ("$200,000 for growth") get sent back for detail. 8. Financial projections - 3-5 years of revenue, expenses, and cash flow, with every assumption stated next to the number it drives. What it's checked for: an unsupported growth curve - readers look for the assumption behind month-over-month growth rates before trusting the total. 9. Appendix - resumes, licenses, letters of intent, detailed market research, product photos. What it's checked for: whether claims made in the body are actually backed by something here. 10. One pager - a standalone single page distilling the ask, the numbers, and the opportunity, for a reader who will only ever see one page. What it's checked for: whether it can stand alone without the rest of the plan for context. A FILLED EXAMPLE (extracts)