- Understand why a business plan is important and what it needs to accomplish
- This document provides crucial guidance and minimizes the chances that you’ll run into common mistakes
- Business plans can be dynamic documents, useful to both startups and established companies
No business should be launched without a solid plan in place. If you start up a company with the expectation that you’ll develop your strategy along the way, you’re much less likely to succeed. By contrast, a well-crafted business plan can help you outline your company’s goals, secure funding from investors, map a path to growth, and attract talented employees.
Here are some of the main purposes a business plan should address before you launch a business:
Set your purpose and prepare for launch
A business plan sets out your purpose for starting a company, including the market needs you hope to meet and what products or services you plan to offer. It also outlines all aspects of how you plan for your company to be successful, such as financial forecasts and a marketing strategy.
Starting a business is a complex task, but the business plan helps you make it more manageable by breaking it down into more manageable steps. A business plan also makes for a smoother rollout of a company, since you’ll have a guide for how to operate and address any problems that might come up.
Determine feasibility
Countless people have rushed the launch of their business, convinced that their idea is a surefire guarantee of success. A business plan ensures that you’ll take a more cautious approach and won’t waste your time and money on a questionable idea.
Market research is a critical component of a business plan, letting you identify customers, competitors, and industry needs. This information allows you to identify any challenges you need to address, such as determining whether you have enough capital to sustain the business in its early stages or whether you’re pricing your products correctly.
A business plan can also identify whether your idea is feasible. In some cases, you may be dissuaded from pursuing an idea after determining that there aren’t enough customers, the market is already saturated with competitors, or other factors make your idea unsustainable.
Set goals and guide your decisions
Part of the business plan involves setting goals you hope to achieve or benchmarks you need to reach. This can help you maintain your focus and guide critical decisions.
For this reason, the business plan remains valuable even after you’ve established your company. It can be a dynamic document, helping you determine what goals you’ve achieved, what changes you need to make, what new markets you might be able to break into, and more.
Secure financing
Most entrepreneurs don’t have an enormous pool of money to draw on, and will require financial assistance to get their company going. A business plan helps assure lenders and investors that you have a strategy for how you’ll find success, minimizing the risk of a default or poor investment. This, in turn, increases the possibility that a lender or investor will assist your venture.