Business & Marketing

Writing a Simple Business Plan

Turn a business idea into a short, honest, numbers-backed plan you can hand to a bank, partner, or yourself.

This course is for members

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What you will learn about Writing a Simple Business Plan

The 7-day sprint
  1. What a Plan Is For. A business plan is a written argument that a specific customer will pay you enough, often enough, to cover your costs and leave a profit.
  2. The Customer and the Problem. A plan is only credible when the customer is a narrow, findable group with a problem they already spend money or effort on.
  3. The Offer and the Price. Your offer is one clearly bounded thing at a stated price, and the price must be justified by value to the customer, not by your costs alone.
  4. Money In, Money Out. A simple financial model is three things: a revenue estimate built from units and price, a list of fixed and variable costs, and the gap between them.
  5. Cash Flow Versus Profit. Profit is whether the model works, cash is whether you survive the month, and a plan that ignores timing can be profitable on paper and still fail.
  6. Risks and Assumptions. Naming your three biggest assumptions and how you will test them cheaply makes a plan more convincing, not less.
  7. Assembling the Plan. A simple plan is a short document in a predictable order, with a one-page summary written last and read first.
The 80/20: the 7 concepts that matter most
  • Break-even volume
  • A narrow, findable customer
  • Cash timing
  • Bottom-up revenue forecasting
  • A bounded offer with a defended price
  • Assumptions made explicit and tested cheaply
  • A ninety-day action list
The core idea, explained like you are 5

A business plan works only if money coming in from customers is bigger than money going out, and arrives in time to pay the bills.

Then the quiz and the ladder

10 questions that correct you when you are wrong, and beginner, intermediate, advanced levels, each with a practical exercise.