A few weeks ago Bangor University students were asked to create and design a business and present it to staff and entrepreneurs in the form of a business plan. See a run-down of each section, and examples from my business plan Solvo. Libero. below.
Credit to Simply Do Ideas for the layout.
What is a business plan?
The run-down of a company, explaining what it is, why it’s needed, who needs it, and how it will be funded.
There are many different sections to a business plan, each with their own questions.
Concept
A brief summary of what the business is, including any key words you want your company to be known for i.e. recycling.
Customers
The target market of your company will appeal to. It’s useful to include some character profiles here, to make your target audience clearer.
This section also includes strategy. How will you advertise your business? How will you make it popular? Will you utilise social media, local businesses?
Competitors
A run down of the major direct and indirect competitors that you will be competing with. What’s good about them? What’s bad? What’s better about your company?
Compatibility
Who helps run your company with you? What role do you take in your company and why do you do it? A run down of your strengths and weaknesses in order to prove your compatibility with running a profit-making company.
Contents
What do you need to make your company run? This can cover the big things, such as as a workshop, staff and materials, right down to electricity and WiFi to power your social media advertising accounts. Don’t forget too think about insurance and heating!
This section also includes who will work for you i.e. founder, business adviser, accountant and also where you’ll be based.
An additional information section should be included for extra info.
Cash
Potentially the most important section is your income and expenditures.
Where do you get money, how will you spend it and how long until you can make a profit?
Do you need a loan? If so, how much?
These are all important questions which will need to be addressed in this section- it’s useful to create a projected spreadsheet in order to visualise the first year.
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What did I think?
Personally, as much as I don’t want to run a business in the future (or at least don’t plan to), it was surprisingly informative to create my own and to project my earnings. It almost made me consider starting a business, as I didn’t expect it to be as fun as it was.
It was really interesting to see my idea develop overtime, working out what would be profitable and how the bracelets would be sold and marketed. It allowed me to gain new skills in video-editing and explore excel in a way that I rarely use (for it’s original purpose, as opposed to just collected experimental data). The only downside however is that I spent a lot of time working on and developing an idea that I will, presumably, never use again.
Having said that, it will definitely be useful in the future to know the inner-workings of a company, especially in regards to calculating profit and potentially customer bases for products.
Link to my business plan: https://app.simplydo.io/idea/p9PT9uiY6TSvbWtYs/pitch
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