business plan posts, articles, and infographics

Writing a Business Plan – 8 Ways to Catch the New Wave

December 19, 2011 by Tushar Mathur with 156 views

Writing a business plan can be pretty tedious. There’s the cover, the table of contents, some 20-25 pages of content and the back cover. The innards are typically long paragraphs punctuated with bold font sprinkled hither and yon. And it’s all a big bore. [read more]

Is Your Business Ready for the Rapture?

May 25, 2011 by Barry Moltz with 57 views

Last week, preacher Harold Camping predicted the end of the world . His ministry, Family Radio International had spent millions on more than thousands of billboards and RVs announcing the Judgment Day message. Like any good marketer, when that prediction did not go as planned, he revised it. Camping now says that the end of the... [read more]

4 Tips for Placing Your Customer at the Center of Your Business Plan

May 21, 2011 by Tushar Mathur with 121 views

Whenever we talk about small business, we usually have discussions about the user, or the customer. While “the customer is always right” is somewhat of a cliché, the good news about having a small business is that, especially with the globalizing village effect of the Web 2.0, more and more consumers seek out a very customer-centric... [read more]

Simplify your Business Plan

April 18, 2011 by Becky McCray with 122 views

How's your business plan? Have you looked at it lately? Could you find a copy if I asked? Do you even have one? You benefit two ways when you create your own plan: Preparing your plan forces you to actually evaluate your business, and having a real-world plan serves as a guide post and reminder of where you are heading. The... [read more]

Business Plan 2.0

June 8, 2009 by swanwick with 341 views

Business plans are an essential part of any new venture. But, what happens once you get into the execution stage? At that point, almost all go by the wayside. Some are dusted off and reviewed annually, but most are not. The initial development of a business plan is usually dominated by a very small number of people (sometimes... [read more]

11 elements of a great business plan pitch

May 8, 2009 by David Ronick with 356 views

Your business plan pitch deck should cover the following topics. In some cases, you can change the order around, and /or use more than one slide for each element, but make sure to cover them all. 1. Strong team. (You’ve got the right people for the challenge.)2. Attractive market. (The market has the right size, growth and trends.)3.... [read more]

Never outsource your business plan

April 7, 2009 by David Ronick with 118 views

Want help with your business plan? Great. Want me to write it FOR you? Never. Here’s why: The most important part of writing the plan is doing the thinking behind it. A plan simply gives structure to that thinking. Business plans must be revised over and over. Since you’ll be the one updating the plan, you’ve got to know how it was... [read more]

How Does Innovation Fit into a Business Plan?

February 23, 2009 by Tim Berry with 129 views

This is the third of four answers to questions I got in email last week from an MBA student asking my opinion as part of his research. The question is the title: how does innovation fit into a business plan? Innovation changes a business plan pretty much as a reflection of how it changes a business. It adds risk, uncertainty, and... [read more]

Planning in times of extreme turbulence

September 29, 2008 by Alan Gleeson with 25 views

September has witnessed a period of unprecedented economic turbulence and instability. Of course, this uncertainty is not just affecting us here in the U.K.; in a globalised economy it is affecting people all across the world. Years of consistent economic growth have given way to rising unemployment, increased costs, reduced disposable... [read more]

Top Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship

January 30, 2008 by Guy Kawasaki with 53 views

This is a guest post by Scott Shane as a follow up to his entrepreneurship test. He is the A. Malachi Mixon Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which is The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers... [read more]

Business Owner's Toolkit

November 1, 2007 by Bud Bilanich with 69 views

I was reading Fortune Small Business magazine the other day, and I came across a mention of the Business Owner’s Toolkit website (www.toolkit.com). I’ve mentioned this site before, but I’m bringing it up again here because I think it’s a site that every small business owner and/or entrepreneur should have bookmarked. For example,... [read more]

Tips from TechStars

October 31, 2007 by Brad Feld with 67 views

David Cohen – the creator and ringleader of TechStars – has started a blog series of his Top 12 Startup Tips from TechStars. His latest tip (#2) is titled Find and engage great mentors. I think this series is going to end up being required reading for any first time (and many multi-time) entrepreneurs. Tip #1 was Be... [read more]

Do the Financials in Your Model Link Together?

October 21, 2007 by Jon Paul with 92 views

We can take it for granted because it should happen automatically with financial packages but in doing the financial model it may not necessarily be the case. So you need to ask yourself do your financial statements in your financial model link together and make sense. Here are a few ways that they could be out of sync: 1. The cash... [read more]

A step-by-step guide to starting up

October 17, 2007 by Matt Rogers with 50 views

Ok, so you’ve got an idea, you’ve got a limited budget and you want to start your own company. To keep control of costs you’ve decided to off-shore the development. Now what do you do? How do you go from idea to launched system? In this post I’ll detail your first steps towards launch. By the end of it you’ll know how to build a mock-up... [read more]