Startup business plan: from idea to implementation. Top 3 Mistakes When Writing a Startup Business Plan

A business plan is one of the main documents for a startup, in which goals, business ideas, and ways to achieve them are voiced.

Having drawn up a business plan, the founder of the business will be able to soberly assess the idea, what are the risks of achieving it, and what financial benefits can be obtained. And not only a startup: investors will definitely ask you for a business plan. They need to understand what they are investing in and how it will benefit them.

Therefore, if you have any idea for a business, before looking for investors, hiring people and closely involved in its implementation, draw up a business plan.

You can, of course, do without it, relying on "maybe". But without thinking through a strategy, without trying to predict problems and risks, you will definitely encounter them. And you will not be ready for them, and this will not be reflected in your business in the best way.

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Business is not a toy. Nothing happens by itself. If you want to achieve success, you need to think through everything to the smallest detail.

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A well-written business plan is a strategy; it is the mechanism of operation of such a complex machine as a startup set out on paper. This is the face of your enterprise and a tool for managing it.

Who needs a business plan?

First of all, you need a business plan for you, as for a person who opens a business . This document will help you navigate your ship without losing your course. you provide possible problems and ways to solve them. You can soberly calculate losses and profits. You will have a clear plan of action - and this is already half the battle.

A business plan is required of you investors who are ready to help you financially. But no one will give money without knowing where they will go and whether they will return with interest (it is also desirable to know with what).

You may also be asked to develop a business plan customer or your leader.

What sections does a business plan consist of?

There is no single standard for a business plan, although it is the main document for a business. Everything is explained by the fact that there are different spheres, different goals, different kinds business. But highlight the main sections that must be in it :

1. Project Description. Summary essence of the business, its goals and history. Investors pay attention to it first of all.
2. Market and competitor analysis. Is there a lot of competition, will there be demand, in what conditions will the business develop.
3. Marketing plan. Where are you going to advertise, how, how much money is needed for this.
4. Receiving a profit. Where, how, how are you going to make money on your business. In other words, a sales plan.
5. Production plan- where the premises will be located, what resources are needed, what equipment.
6. organizational plan- what employees are needed to achieve the goals, what are the requirements for them, who manages the company.
7. Financial plan- how much money is required for implementation, to start a business, losses and profits.

pay attention to appearance document: print it on good paper, bind; use charts, graphs and tables.

Resources for developing a business plan online

Businessmen often complain about the lack of time and full employment in business - they say, I have no time to deal with such a trifle as a business plan. We have already figured out that this document is not a trifle.

And you can quickly compose it online on some resources.

Foreign resource for businessmen and startups. Bplans contains the largest collection of free business plan samples. There is useful tools and guides to help you manage your business better. Bplans includes practical advice on planning, interactive tools and calculators, and publishes daily tips to help you grow your business.

Click here to download a business plan template quick guide on its compilation, or start working on it online. If you absolutely do not want to write the plan yourself, here you can find a person who will do it for you - you just need to fill out a contact form.

I think it would be superfluous to say that to work with the resource you need to know English.

This is a subsite of the Bplans project. It allows not only to draw up a business plan, but also to fully manage a business online. You can start working on your plan simply on the main page. You are offered a convenient and simple interface, accounting software and much more.

The service is paid. Offers two subscription options: annual package ($11.90 per month) and monthly ($19.95 per month).

Ukrainian portal for businessmen. You can create a business plan in the Basic format or see examples for free. To create a full-fledged, professional business plan, you need to pay 58 UAH. You can also connect access to the designer for 30 days.

This is an online business plan program that allows you to create business plans of any complexity. Try the demo to see if it works for you. Builds charts and tables financial statements, helps to choose a taxation system and much more. The business plan you created can be downloaded as a Word document. Samples are also available for download.

Tariffs available:

• Free(free, access for 30 days, focused on students);
• Mini(1450 rubles, access for 60 days, focused on individual entrepreneurs);
• Midi(2950 rubles, access for 90 days, for small and medium businesses);
• maxi(5950 rubles, access for 180 days, for professionals and accountants).

Cloud service for developing business plans. It is convenient because you can work in the cloud from any computer - for example, you start working on a plan at home, finish it in the office. The finished document can be downloaded in PDF format.

Tariffs:

• standard– 3,000 rubles for 30 days;
• PRO– 6,000 rubles for 60 days;
• Corporate– 12,000 rubles for 90 days;
• tutorial- 120,000 rubles per year.

Software based on cloud technology. There are three options for working with this service: you can draw up a business plan yourself, buy a ready-made one, or order it from a specialist.

Free business plan builder. Here is a questionnaire - fill it out, click "Generate a business plan" and use it. Everything is simple - it just takes time and perseverance to fill in all the fields. As a result, you will get such a business plan.

As you can see, there are many resources online to help startups get started. It is not difficult to understand their work, but in some places you will have to invest money.

Good luck to your business!

When starting any business, having a business plan is essential. Not only to attract money, but also to better understand your own goals and objectives. Leonid Danilov, partner at the Center for the Commercialization of Innovations, recommends that project authors who come for consultations do not use business plan templates, but make them on their own from scratch. This allows you to avoid borrowing, which is typical for projects created by university graduates (obviously, your habits when preparing term papers affect), and allows you to more consciously look at your project, ask yourself questions that are not always convenient. Here are three typical mistakes when writing a business plan for a startup.

Overload of unnecessary information

Often presentations with business plans are filled with information that is not related to projects. real relationship. Danilov recalls how one project team submitted a business plan to the competition, in which 50% was given to listing the personal achievements of the authors, 30% was occupied by professional terms and definitions, and only 20% was a story about the business itself.

Artem Andreenko, leader of the Bytefy project, cloud hosting for applications, social networks and mobile platforms, recalls that in the original version, most of the business plan was information related to calculating the volume of markets: what they were and what they should have become in the future. As a result, they almost forgot to tell investors about the main thing - about the essence of the business. And that's not all: licensing costs in the business plan at that time simply did not appear.

Lack of clear business goals

When compiling a business plan, you need to set clear goals and outline realistic ways to achieve them, focus on specific market segments. For example, in a business plan for one production project a very impressive sales volume of the product was announced in the first year of the company's existence. However, according to the same business plan, R&D in the project was supposed to be completed no earlier than the middle of the second year, and the project team did not have a single marketer or sales specialist. How the project team was going to achieve the set targets remained a mystery.

Anton Nevolin, head of startup Soultravel, a guide app, says that the project was originally aimed at students and students who have enough free time. And when they began to think about the business component, it became obvious that it was necessary to focus on people who go on business trips, that is, those who are more busy and more solvent. It was unrealistic to earn the money prescribed in the business plan with reference to the old target audience. In addition, if earlier only walking tours were planned, then later - water and private cars.

Inflated financial figures

A startup is not a financial pyramid, and it is simply stupid to give fantastic numbers of hundreds of percent of profit. According to Danilov, representatives of one of the projects, speaking at the finals of the business plan competition, declared a rate of return of 800%. Obviously, this step was associated with the desire to impress potential investors, but caused exactly the opposite reaction - the project simply did not have a clear justification for the stated figures.

You need to operate with real physical indicators, then the figures of potential profitability will be convincing. For example, Yevgenia Petrova, leader of the Discontent.net project, a social online platform for solving problems, recalls that initially there was one extra indicator in their business plan - revenue for registrants, which had to be removed. As a result, Evgenia relies on two indicators in her business plan: the number of registrants and the loyalty coefficient. It's real physical quantities, which a startup can influence. “We initially set a pessimistic scenario and low performance,” adds Petrova.

The owner of a startup needs to remember that his potential investor will not look like an ordinary businessman trying to profitably attach his free funds. First, on his part there will be a large share skepticism. The investor will be more suspicious because he will have to face something unknown, which is markedly different from traditional ways extracting profit. Secondly, in modern conditions, such an investor will always have big choice alternatives, that's why a large number of forces will have to be expended only on simply attracting the attention of a potential "sponsor" of your project. Obviously, a good startup business plan will play a decisive role here. But what should this document contain?

Before writing a startup business plan

First of all, you should know how to properly start promoting your startup. The formation of a business idea must certainly end with the preparation detailed plan actions, a description of its main stages and, finally, business case profitability of the project.

Startup business plans are often very different from each other. The simplest example such a business plan can be downloaded from our website. In practice, novice businessmen resort to several methods of compiling this document:

• presentation
• description of the business model using the goal matrix
• analysis of critical success factors

The main thing in a business plan is persuasiveness, validity and an absolute understanding of what needs to be done to achieve the main goal - making money.

Who will fund the startup?

When compiling a business plan for a startup, you need to understand what category of potential investors it is designed for. Specialists distinguish several categories:

• venture capital companies
• business angels (private investors)
• relatives and friends
• casual investors ("fools")

The choice of an investor will largely depend on the amount of funds required, and the larger the amount of necessary investments becomes, the more requirements are placed on the business plan.

Startup business plan

A good business plan helps not only raise funds, but also clearly define the goals and objectives of the business. This is an extremely important point for any investor who wants to know what a company can achieve if it is given all the necessary financial opportunities.

The business plan should also be concise, since an experienced investor will immediately determine the oversaturation of the narrative part of the project with unnecessary information and, most likely, will consider this a significant negative factor. Finally, he just needs to make sure that the future project is profitable with the help of an understandable and transparent calculation. Here it is important to give real financial indicators that will not cause any doubts in the reader of the business plan. All figures given must be confirmed by calculations, and the initial data must have an official source of origin.

If you decide to start a startup and don't know if you need a business plan, remember one thing: having a written business model allows you to solicit investments, ensuring the success of the business. Today we will tell you how to draw up this document correctly, what it should contain and why it is important at all.

But before moving on to the structure of the document, we advise you to adhere to the following rules:

• First, do not use other people's business plans downloaded from the Web. It is unlikely that investors will begin to check the provided materials for uniqueness, but a deliberate, independently developed strategy will bring much more benefit. Use templates, take them into service, but do not get carried away with stupid copying.
• Secondly, giving free rein to ambitions, look soberly at your own capabilities. The desire to get millions of profits in a month is commendable, but an investor needs a really working model for the development of an enterprise. It is important to adequately assess your prospects, directing the idea on the right path.

Below we have prepared a template that can serve as a guide when writing a commercial strategy.

Strategic planning standard

1. Company information

This is the introductory part of your business plan, so don't try to make it too big. General information is required, such as:

• type of legal entity;
• organizational form;
• date of registration of the company;
• postal address, place of registration of the owner;
• names of managers, persons who registered the case;
• expected completion date;
• total cost of implementation.

It also includes a trade secret statement. All of the above is the so-called "protocol" data that must be filled in. Yes, they are likely to interest the investor less than practical reasoning or analytical information, but without them it is unlikely that you will be able to receive funds for the development of your entrepreneurial idea.

2. Brief summary

Here it is necessary to describe the direction of the company, justify the effectiveness of the future undertaking, and then predict real opportunities. Remember - the more convincing your text is, the more likely it is to get investments.

Follow the diagram below:

• describe the essence of the project, the method of its implementation;
• give a forecast of future results;
• indicate the total cost of the business;
• mark the planned payback period;
• give a financial justification for the implementation (here the economic terms “net present value”, “tax revenues to the state budget” will appear);
• indicate in what form you are going to attract investments;
• be sure to justify the return of investment data;
• describe the social, environmental and other benefits of implementation.

3. Industry research, enterprise description

Within the framework of the mentioned section, it is necessary to analyze in detail the current state of affairs of the industry where you want to advance. Be sure to note your role in the positive transformation of a particular area.

The analysis also includes:

• competitor research;
• exposition general concept business;
• list of partners (future and present).

4. Description of the product/service

This section is your real chance to present your product/service as well as you know it. Please indicate your experience in the production of the items described.

In addition, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics of analogues from competing firms - this will determine.

5. Planned marketing campaigns

Try to justify the sales market, the tactics of dealing with competitors, present a working mechanism for promoting the product / service to the market.

This should include:

• market assessment;
• brand role analysis;
• substantiation of the market niche of the product;
• overall marketing strategy;
• pricing characteristics;
• mechanisms for the sale of goods;
• after-sales service options;
• advertising campaigns;
• quality assessment criteria.

6. Logistics arrangements

A small section where it is worth including the estimated costs of maintaining and transporting products. For the IT sector, of course, there is often no need for suppliers of raw materials or warehouses to process and store products, but if you expect to sell physical goods, you must complete this part of the plan.

7. Production or sales plan

A section describing how the firm will produce or sell the required volume of goods/services with specified quality characteristics. Develop a strategy for the medium term, including:

• place of sale;
• available production facilities;
• future investments;
• assessment of the provision of the needs of the enterprise with the appropriate personnel;
• product quality analysis.

8. Organizational part

Briefly describe the management of the company, the organization of the structure, and also provide the main scheme of business development activities.

9. Finance

When working on the “Finance” section, pay attention to several areas: predicted movements financial flows and the current state of the organization.

It is important not to take numbers "from the ceiling", but to calculate the data based on the items "Planned Marketing Campaigns" and "Production Plan", including:

• analysis financial condition organizations;
• planned income / expenses (the first year - monthly, the next two - quarterly, then - annual calculations);
• possible monetary actions;
• budget of tax payments;
• estimated amount of sponsorship.

10. Performance evaluation

Any business plan for a startup must contain this item. In the IT sphere, it is especially important, since it is often difficult to evaluate high-tech projects objectively due to the peculiarities of the final result of the work.

This includes quite a lot of purely economic terms. The compiler must take into account:

• payback calculation;
• main types of risk (technological, economic, organizational, financial).

11. Applications

Applications traditionally contain documents confirming the data presented above.

Common mistakes

It is worth mentioning the most common mistakes drawing up a business plan:

1. Unrealistic numbers or too long description own advantages. Experienced businessmen say that an objective assessment is important not so much for future sponsors as for the startup itself. It allows you to consciously evaluate own project avoiding borrowing.
2. Overloading the document with unnecessary information. The essence of the enterprise should form the basis of the material. Then pay attention to analytics and forecasts.
3. Lack of clear goals is another fundamental mistake. Set realistic goals and plan equally realistic ways to achieve them.
4. Inadequate financial performance. Obviously, inflated numbers are operated to attract attention, but they have little to do with reality. Give feasible indicators, then your arguments will become convincing.

Instead of a conclusion

The described business plan template is relevant for both IT business and any other industries. Tip: Include in your strategic plan

Each of the entrepreneurs who invented new idea for business, dreams of growing a “unicorn” out of her that will change the world. But according to statistics, only 1 out of 10 projects takes off, the rest fail. Why is this happening and what can be done at the start of the project to minimize the risk of its failure - said Vladimir Lysikov, investment analyst at Capital Times.

— In the practice of investment banking, we have to deal with ideas and projects that are generated by entrepreneurs. Often they think they have come up with a unique technology or solution. And the longer they bear their invention in themselves, the more they fall in love with it and sometimes lose the sense of reality in which this solution should work and make a profit.

Often, a huge amount of money, time, energy has already been invested in these ideas to develop and promote their solution to a market that is essentially non-existent. This happens when the entrepreneur jealously guards his territory, not allowing the hypothesis that he is going the wrong way.

Even 30 years ago, the development cycle of a new solution took 5-10-15 years, and even in the event of a design error, users still had no other choice but to use the proposed product.

Now the development and launch cycle has been reduced to several months.

I'll give you an example. Version software 1.0 is considered to be a key milestone in development. As a rule, it is from the moment the first version is released that the product is ready and can be sold to a wide range of users. Wargaming presented the version of World of tanks 1.0 only on March 20, 2018, although the online release took place back in 2011. Since that time, the developer has released 45 client updates, full of settings, additions, improvements. At the same time, the monetization of the project actually began in the beta version of the product.

If Wargaming spent more than 7 years developing a product in-house without getting feedback from users who participate in battles on a daily basis, the market would receive a product that does not meet the expectations of gamers, and would hardly be able to win over its audience.

Why startups fail

In my opinion, there are three main reasons why startups fail:

1. Blind love of the founders for their project.

2. Failure to focus on the problem the project is supposed to solve.

3. Unwillingness to carefully work out the viability of ideas.

And if almost nothing can be done about the love of an entrepreneur for his offspring, then the rest of the reasons (concentration on the problem and a comprehensive study of the viability of the idea) are not so difficult to figure out.

Traditionally, businesses use tools such as economic modeling and detailed design to assess viability. roadmap» in the form of a business plan. But for start-ups, this form of valuation is not justified in terms of either cost or value. And the business plan itself is not so much a reflection of reality as a reflection of the "fantasies and expectations" of the author. It is for this reason that even a perfectly balanced business plan on paper with excellent performance may not be implemented.

Large cell instead of a business plan

An alternative to the traditional business plan in this case can be a kind of “screenshot” of the main concepts of the future business in the form of a concept developed using the Business Model Canvas or Lean Canvas technology.

The business modeling technology Business Model Canvas (authors - Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pignet) is a template for a stable structure of any business, consisting of 9 main elements.

1. Consumers. In this block, you need to determine which groups of people and organizations you expect to attract and serve. In order to better meet the needs of customers, it is desirable to break them into groups according to needs, behaviors or other characteristics.

2. Products (value proposition). Here you should describe why customers should choose your product over a competitor's product.

3. Relationships with clients. In this block, you need to clearly define what type of relationship you want to establish with consumers. They can range from personal to automated.

4. Sales channels. This is a system of interaction between a company and a consumer, a point of contact between a seller and a client.

5. Income. You have to ask yourself: what will your customers be willing to pay for? Correctly answering this question will create one or more revenue streams, with each stream having its own pricing mechanism.

6. Key activity. The actions a company needs to implement its business model. So, among the key activities of Microsoft - software development. And Dell's core business includes supplier relationship management.

7. Key partners. Network of suppliers and partners and types of relationships with them, such as strategic collaboration or co-competition.

8. Key resources. Key resources can be material, financial, intellectual or human (personnel). The company may own these resources, hire them or receive them from key partners. different types business models require different resources. A chip manufacturer needs capital-intensive production facilities, and a chip designer needs human resources.

9. Costs. In this block, it is necessary to describe the most significant costs of the project and their types.

The described technology allows you to combine and see the internal relationships and semantic chains in the process of creating profit. For example, what tools (resources) must be used in order to carry out activities for the production of a product, how much these resources cost and how they can be made cheaper.

This requires studying the strengths and weaknesses on the key blocks of the model, evaluate and adapt the solution for consumers and under the influence of changes external environment, and most importantly - to ensure the coordination of all blocks of the model with each other.

As a result, we get a one-page clearly structured business idea. However, the Business Model Canvas can be difficult to use for startups, as there is nothing to write in some cells (the project may not have partners or the future distribution channels are completely unclear).

Entrepreneur Ash Sea rethought the Business Model Canvas technology and proposed his own technology - Lean Canvas.

Click on the image to enlarge it

You need to fill in the blocks in the sequence indicated on the diagram.

1. Determine the target audience - who is the client. First, we define the target audience. The more precisely this is done, the better it is possible to understand and solve customer problems. Accordingly, the more successful the product will be.

2. What problem of the client are we solving. Often an entrepreneur proceeds from what he can do, what capabilities he has to produce a product. But you have to go the other way. You need to understand the client's problem, and then - how the entrepreneur can solve it.

3. Sources of income. The product is created not for the sake of implementing an entrepreneurial idea, but to generate cash flow. It is necessary to determine how this will happen, whether customers are ready to pay for the solution of their problem. At this stage, you should make a model and test it for realism.

4. Description of the solution. You should focus on the key features of your solution, but taking into account the description of the mechanism for solving these problems.

5. Unique offer. In this block, it is important to formulate in short form, maximum 140 characters, the uniqueness of our product, the difference between the product and competitive solutions.

6. Sales channels. Here it is necessary to determine the ways in which the customer will learn about the product.

7. Key project metrics. In this block, you should write down the criteria by which you are going to monitor the project: what will the product be like on the horizon up to 3 years, what financial result will the product generate, growth rates.

8. Cost structure. Costs should be divided into two categories: initial product costs and recurring development costs.

9. Hidden Advantage. In this block, it is necessary to immediately provide for measures to protect the product, for example, a huge client base, patents, licenses, brand, high cost of entry.

Most start-up entrepreneurs, when they first try to draw up an outline of the future business in any variant, cannot even approximately fill in all the blocks. So, in our practice, the most frequent and critical mistakes occur when analyzing the target audience.

I'll give you an example. A group of entrepreneurs from Uzbekistan developed an Internet portal that collected up-to-date information on the availability and cost of medicines in pharmacies. The project was launched, however, contrary to the expectations of the founders, it could not generate profit only because pharmacies themselves were identified as the target audience, and not ordinary people, the site users.

As a summary

In any case, drawing a canvas helps the founder to determine the goal, the prospects for the business, its risks, and the main financial parameters of development. Of course, drawing up a startup business model using the described technologies is not a panacea and is not a guarantee of success, but the founders and investors, looking at the completed blocks, instantly understand both the prospects of the project and the degree of development of the business idea.