The business plan is the key ingredient for a successful business and is often ignored. It’s often the case that investees will overestimate the value of their business by much the same amount that investors will undervalue it. In order to win greater financial confidence from potential investors, it’s important to detail how an exit route could be achieved and demonstrate your understanding of what your business needs to look like in order to achieve it.
This is simply an explanation of what your marketing strategy is and how you will execute it. Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.
This situation is complicated by the fact that many venture capitalists will refuse to sign an NDA before looking at a business plan, lest it put them in the untenable position of looking at two independently developed look-alike business plans, both claiming originality.
For those of you who would like to go into a bit more detail on how to write a business plan or voice your ideas, suggestions or frustrations with writing business plans, I welcome you to participate in the discussion on this topic in the Business Plans folder in the About Home Business Forum.
You’ve done all of the hard work researching, deciding what your business is about, targeting it accurately and selling it. It’s time to put the business plan together and articulate all your thinking, research, and hard work into a comprehensive description of your structure and service.