photo credit: hughelectronic

A business plan, in its simplest form, defines where you want your startup to be within a certain period of time and how you plan on getting there. A business plan is as important for launching your startup as blueprints are for building your house.

Diligent research (online or libraries) can help you answer questions about pricing structure, sales, funding and other issues you might come across in the planning process. One interesting thing you’ll notice is that while writing a business plan you will confront important issues you might not otherwise think of.

One important suggestion we would like to give all startup owners is that “write your business plan” yourself and avoid outsourcing it to specialists. The process of writing a business plan is much more important than the final document. You can either use software such as Business Plan Pro or make a structured business plan with a proper format.

Various types of people may read your business plan – your bank manager, business advisory organizations, alternative providers of finance or even friends and work colleagues who will be running the business and using your plan on a daily basis. Therefore, make sure that your plan is exhaustive, clear and well structured for everyone to understand.

You can also have a look of the following articles:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_important_is_my_business_plan.html
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-inbox12-2010jan12,0,1591095.story