The feedback from how I organised my start-up research was great so I thought I’d tell you about my one page business plan.

It’s short and sweet and definitely not designed to show your bank manager*. It’s something I designed for me – to get all of my research into a structured plan for my online business.

It’s a starting point – it’s not set in stone, it is something to guide me  - and to keep tweaking based on feedback and things I learn along the way**.

It’s really important (I’ve found) to keep the plan to 1 page. When you’re finished keep it near you. Stick it near where you work and feel free to scribble on it. Look at it every day.

It might be short but it asks some tough questions. If you can’t answer them it’s best not to continue until you can (don’t make the same mistakes I have!!).

Here goes…

Side One

Answer the following questions (be concise, keep it to bullet points if you need to):

1. What is it? What’s your business name? What are you selling? Detail your product/service*** range. How will you make it/source it? How much are you selling it for? What profit will you make from the sale of each product/service? Why are you doing it? What are your big goals – the things you’re working to make happen? They might be business or lifestyle related.

2. What’s desirable about it? Why will people want it? How does it help them? Why would they spend their money on it? (I found this question helps you figure out what you’re selling – which helps focus your marketing – e.g. are you selling diaries or a fresh start?)

3. What’s different about it? Where do you fit in to your market? How will you stand out?

4. Who wants it? Describe your customer in detail – how old they are? Where do they shop for clothes? For food? Are they married? Do they have children? Do they drive a car? What type of car? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? I think of one person who embodies my brand – my ideal customer. If you want to take it further learn about buying personas here.

5. How are you going to connect to them? Where do they hang out online? Which blogs do they read? How are you going to become part of their life? What online communities do they belong to? How will you be relevant to them? Once you connect how are you going to keep in touch?

Side Two

Plan out the stages you’ll go through – from day 1 to month 3 and beyond.

When you’ve finished the first side of the business plan – the things you plan to do – it’s time to write down the first steps you’ll take to make your plan a reality.

The action points on the second side of my plan are a mixture of big picture planning and smaller planning – like the frequency of my newsletter and what it will contain.

1. Brain dump the actions you want to take in the first few months.

2. Assign a priority number to them – e.g. In my side two business plan for Stevie and Three I wrote down the things I want to do from launching to collaborating with other designers. I can’t do that until my core range is for sale so I need to open my online shop first so it gets a higher priority.

3. Be realistic and set deadlines. I select what I can achieve in 3 months and they go on to my micro to-do list. Remember you’ll be looking at this plan every day and adding/tweaking things so your priorities might change in 3 months based on feedback/opportunities etc.

If there’s one thing I know – it’s that the internet is not the place for a 5 year plan.

That’s it!

I hope it makes sense? Let me know if you’ve got any questions!

* If that’s something you’re planning on doing you might want a more detailed/formal plan. Something like this (file download from business.gov.au) might be helpful

** From customers, mistakes and successes

***Seriously, if you’re trying to sell a service online package it up. Package. It. Up.