lean start up business plan template

Lean Business Plan Template & How-To Guide

Written by Dave Lavinsky

On this page:

Key benefits of lean startup business planning, can you use a lean plan to raise funding, key elements of a lean business plan.

• Lean Planning Process
• Putting The Lean Plan Into Action

Review Your Results & Revise Your Plan

Lean business plan faqs, other helpful business plan articles & templates.

Historically, business owners have devoted months to constructing a detailed plan to establish strategy, executive, and financial numbers for their business. Although a strategic plan is often created, these entrepreneurs often miss a big piece: gathering feedback from potential customers.

Without collecting data and insight from target customers, the detailed business plan becomes a document of assumptions and guesses rather than a proven success blueprint.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here

Lean business planning allows you to more quickly and accurately develop your business plan based on actual customer feedback and interactions.

The lean startup business model is supported by a one-page business plan that does not require extensive financial forecasting or long-term market research and development plans. While the traditional business plan details every aspect of your company’s operations, the lean business plan focuses on key factors that present immediate opportunities for new companies to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. This approach allows you to maintain company focus on your core mission and avoid adding unnecessary information that can weigh down your final document.

The lean startup movement has encouraged entrepreneurs to shorten their plans down from hundreds of pages to a one-page business plan or less – essentially eliminating the need for small businesses to create traditional plans at all. Rather than spending time creating lengthy reports, owners can simply list their core values, mission statement, market analysis, marketing strategies, and projected financial statements – all on one page.

Some companies even document their entire value proposition on a single sheet of paper which serves as both the foundation for further market research and development to improve its product or service offering. By having this type of information readily available to share with investors or clients, your company will appear more professional and prepared without taking up too much time creating unnecessary documentation.

Developing a lean business plan is a critical step in launching or growing your business. However, it’s important to note that if you’re seeking VC funding , bank funding, or angel investors , a traditional business plan is required. Such a plan includes additional research, strategy, and financial forecasts to give investors and lenders the information they need to determine whether they will receive an adequate ROI (return on investment) if they provide funding to you.

Below are nine key elements of a lean business plan example:

Business overview

Describe what the business does.

Value propositions

Detail the value your business brings to the market and the industry.

Key partnerships

List the key partners, including suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, vendors, or software firms, with whom your business will work.

Key activities

List the key activities your business will perform to gain a competitive advantage, grow market share, and fuel profits.

Key resources

List the resources that your business has at its disposal to create maximum value. This could include human capital (your own experience or that of your core team), intellectual property, patents, funding, etc.

Customer relationships

Describe how your customers will interact with your business. Will you have personal or automated channels of communication available? Chart out the end-to-end customer experience journey and how you intend on building customer relationships.

Customer segments and channels

Specify your target audience, what requirements of theirs you cater to, how you reach out to them, and, most importantly, the steps you are taking to generate a customer experience that will result in long-term loyalty.

Cost structure

Define your key costs and variable costs, and how they represent a competitive advantage if applicable. A lean startup business plan (versus a lean business plan for an existing company), needs to also include key startup costs you anticipate in launching your company.

Revenue streams

Describe how your business generates money. What are your revenue streams or sources, for example, selling advertising space on your app or publication, membership fees, direct sales, etc? List all your revenue sources in this section, starting with the source that delivers the largest revenue.

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Lean Business Planning Process

To create your lean business plan, follow these 4 steps:

Create the Plan

Your lean business plan will start with you, your business idea, and one sheet of paper. Yes, one sheet is all you will need.

Business Strategy

You will first begin by explaining your business strategy. This is simply a summary of what you are planning to do, who your customers are, and who your competitors are.

Identify the problem you are trying to solve along with your solution and potential alternative solutions. Then, describe your target customers. Focus on defining and describing the audience you expect to serve, who they are, where they live, etc. Lastly, explain who your competitors are. Describe what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

Easy enough, that is all you need for your plan. With lean business planning, you simply create a business strategy that focuses on the essence and function of your business: what you’re doing and who it’s for.

Course of Action

The next piece of your lean business plan is laying out an outline of your course of action. This section will illustrate how you’re going to make your strategy happen. Here, you will focus on sales, marketing, your team members, and any potential key partners or future relationships in the business world.

Sales Strategy

It is important to first begin creating your course of action by establishing just what your sales strategy is. Will you be selling in a physical store or online? Or both? Consider whether or not your product will be sold in stores owned by other companies, and who these companies would be.

Marketing Strategy

Next up is creating your marketing strategy. Think about how you will effectively and attractively reach your potential customers. Here, consider the following:

• Target market
• Online presence
• Advertising
• Public relations
• Special promotions

Team Members

The success of your course of action will be dependent on the team members who execute it. If you need to build a team, think about who the key people are that you will need to hire. What are their qualifications and characteristics? If you already have an existing business, highlight the key members that help run your company and accomplish strategy and success.

Partners and Business Resources

Begin to think of the other businesses that you might want to work with. Most likely there are other companies that you will have to work with to make your strategy work. Brainstorm all key resources, business partners, distributors, and key suppliers that you will need to have relationships with.

After constructing your Course of Action, it’s time to create your schedule. Since lean business planning is centered around efficiency, designing an organized schedule is key.

For startups:

If you’re starting a new business, you should begin with getting to know your customers. For you to grow a viable business, you must understand your customers’ views, wants, and needs. Your goal here will be to ensure that you’ve developed a strategic, organized strategy. A startup’s schedule will often include sending out surveys, interviewing customers, and researching locations.

For established businesses:

For most businesses that have been around, your schedule should be focused on achieving the business goals you have identified. Your schedule should have specific actions with names, dates, and even times. The schedule you create should hold your business and its employees accountable for their work and progress.

The final part of scheduling is to make time to regularly review your Lean Business Plan. As your business progresses, so will your Lean Business Plan. Setting a regular review time is critical to get your business moving in the right direction and your team members on board.

Forecast and Budget

Even if you have the best business idea in the world, if the numbers aren’t there, it won’t work out. The final section of your Lean Business Plan should depict a business model that forecasts and budgets for the future.

Here, all you have to do is create basic bottom-up sales forecasts and a basic budget for expenses. Do not try to sugarcoat here, these numbers should be as practical as possible. With this, you will be able to identify just what will and won’t work for your business.

By taking on this pragmatic sense, you may begin to feel like your business will not be able to succeed unless you are flooding with customers or getting daily news coverage. You may need to alter your business model here and adjust your pricing and expenses to ensure that you can turn a profit. Also, keep in mind any funding options for large-scale marketing and PR campaigns. Keep a realistic view, but also be sure to acknowledge offers that may be available to help you out.

Putting The Lean Business Plan Into Action

After you have completed your lean business plan, it’s time to put it into action. Your main goal here should be to get a deeper understanding of your customers. Is your product solving their problem? Are they willing to pay for it? Do they want something else?

Reaching out to your customers early on will help you get a grasp on their wants and needs to make the necessary alterations to your Lean Business Plan for ultimate success. It will also provide you with some insight as to what products you may want to produce in the future.

As earlier mentioned, your lean plan should be reviewed regularly to discern just what is working and what isn’t. Compare your results with your lean plan. Are sales growing according to plan? Does the plan need to be changed?

For startups who have little to no metrics to track, review your customer interviews, surveys, or any other information that you have gathered about the industry. Here, you can begin to continually refine your plan and strategy if necessary.

If you are an established business, review your recent results with those from the past. Take note of your key metrics as well as foot traffic in stores, website visits, and any other critical units of measure for your business success.

After analyzing your results, it’s time to revise your plan. Remember that your Lean Business Plan is a process rather than a finalized document, and it is made for continuous improvements. Don’t be afraid to make any necessary changes to aid in your business’s success.

Lean business planning might just be the key to your company’s ultimate success. This simple method of business planning has helped many startups and existing businesses advance and flourish such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon. By focusing on reviewing, revising, and business management, lean planning allows you to test out different strategies to find the best one to create a successful business.

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What is a lean business plan?

A lean business plan is a compact, single-page document typically for internal use. Lean planning is a short-term business plan strategy for making small changes and measuring the results to improve the efficiency of the business. This compares to the formal business plan which is typically very detailed, includes 10 key components , and can be up to 15-25 pages in length.

What is the purpose of a lean business plan?

The lean business plan is primarily for internal use, so it doesn’t have to be a fancy document. The purpose of this plan is for you to document the changes you’ve made to your business so that you can analyze their effectiveness in improving business operations, marketing, and/or sales over a short period.

How long is a lean business plan?

The lean business plan is typically a one-page document to describe your business strategy including your goals, targeted audience, your business model, and how your sales and marketing strategies work to support your business goals. 

How do you create a lean business plan?

Refer to our article on ‘ Lean Business Plan: How-To Guide & Template ’ for the 4 steps in creating a lean business plan or a lean startup business plan template . You can also download our free lean plan template to help you get started. 

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An alternative to the business model canvas, a lean plan is:.

• Fast: You’ll be able to build your first Lean Plan in less than 20 minutes. Compared to writing a detailed business plan, that’s a huge time savings.
• Simple: Anyone can create a Lean Business Plan. Unlike the Business Model Canvas and other tools, you won’t need any special training or business knowledge to build your Lean Plan.
• Shareable: Because your Lean Plan fits on a single page, it’s easy to share and get feedback from business partners, friends, and family.
• Impressive: Investors don’t have time to read detailed plans. Present a simple one-page Lean Plan and grab their attention.

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Lean Business Plan Template: Step-by-Step Guide

Free Lean Canvas Template

• Vinay Kevadia
• December 18, 2023

Are you looking for a simple business plan template? Let me tell you simplicity is a great policy and one also said:

Only great minds can afford a simple style”

Write only what they want to read: Your end readers (i.e. investors) don’t have time to read your 40-page-long business plan , So let’s focus on what they want.

Let’s build your business plan with the help of a lean canvas proposed by Ash Maurya .

We are going to use 9 building blocks of the lean canvas each as a chapter of our business plan template.

So far, When you plot your plan using a lean business plan template , this template is also called a one-page business plan.

We follow a customer-centric approach in order to start writing our business plan. So here is the business plan outline :

You need to write this chapter along with the customer segment. Because customers and problems are very associated with each other.

Ask yourself: Which are the top 3 problems are you willing to solve with your business idea?

Your business idea is worthless if it’s not solving someone’s problems. So let’s start writing from this chapter.

In this chapter describe at least the top 3 problems you are going to solve with your business idea, and the pain or strongest frustrations that your potential customers have.

The best way to describe the problem is in terms of the jobs customers need to do, what they’re ultimately trying to reach and what’s the pain or the frustration they feel. Possibly with a concise sentence.

Read the next topic about how to write a customer segment chapter to identify customer pains, to understand customer Jobs.

Please make sure that you write problems in a way that anyone completely unaware of what the business is about is being able to understand. Avoid technical terms or single words like “time“, or “price“, as these will be very hard to understand for external people and are not really explaining what is the frustration.

Existing Alternative

Ask yourself: List How these problems are solved today?

For your future business, these are your current competitors. To solve their problems customers may be trying through alternatives like a single service, or through a combination of them, or even through basic and alternative techniques, and for some time all these services are failing them for some reason.

Along with this section, you can also list your potential competitors this will help you with your competitor analysis.

2. Customer Segment

In order to write this chapter in a business plan template, Here we have to understand who are the target customers,

To Identify target customers , Ask yourself the following two questions:

• Who are we creating value for in our business model?
• Who are our most important customers?

Client Segments define the classes of organizations or people you aim to achieve or function with. Every company needs profitable customers so as to survive.

After identifying your customers here are the steps to write this chapter:

Types of Customer Segments

• Mass Market
• Niche Market
• Diversified
• Multi-Sided Platforms/ markets

Creating a Customer Profile

The customer profile defines the customer segment more clearly for your company by understanding the customer’s jobs and assessing the customer’s pains and gains.

Customer Jobs:  Now understand what customers are trying to achieve in their personal and professional lives that are called their job. And our products or services are going to make their job easy that’s called our solution, To understand customer jobs let’s categorize those as follows:

• Functional Jobs
• Social Jobs
• Personal/ Emotional Jobs
• Supporting Jobs

While evaluating jobs it is also important to identify Job Context and the Importance of the job. Various tasks will maintain varying levels of significance in the eyes of the customer depending on their effect and the customer’s priorities.

Customer Pains:  What are the circumstances which prevent the customer from getting a job done or elicit negative emotions before, during, or after a project? The dangers of doing a project or negative results arising from it also fall within the ambit of Customer Pains. We can categorize customer pains as follow:

• Undesired outcomes, problems, and characteristics
• Pain severity

Customer Gains:  Customer Gains are the results or benefits that customers want. Some gains will be taken for granted by the customer upon purchasing a product or service, but others might be a surprise for them resulting in customer delight. Gains are of the following types: functional utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings. This is how we can categorize gains :

• Required Gains
• Expected Gains
• Desired Gains
• Unexpected Gains
• Gain relevance

Early Adopters

Who do you think feels those pains the most?

It is very important to Identify early adopters because these are the ones that are going to be your first customers and our first business plan template version will be crafted for them.

Moreover, since they are more in need than others of something solving their problems, they will forgive the imperfections or flaws of the early releases.

This would help you better test and collect the actual feedback for your solutions.

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3. Unique Value Proposition

How would you describe your business to target customers in just ONE sentence (possibly less than 200 characters long)?

A Unique Value Proposition is a sentence that tells why what you do is different from competitors and why that difference matters to customers.

As the title, itself suggests It describes the unique way you are going to provide value to your customers.

This is the most important box on the canvas and the hardest to get right. It might take years of experience to make that one sentence, It usually combines :

• The target segment
• The key problem
• The key benefits the customers are going to get after having the service/product.
• The special and unique way you will deliver it.

For a problem section, A good template is Who/What and How: “We help (who?) achieve (what benefit?) by doing (How the special and unique way the new business/new product is doing it)”

High-Level Concept

How would you briefly describe what you do?

The high-level concept is a single and very short statement that describes your business idea. For example YouTube = Flickr for videos.

That is the so-called “ elevator pitch “, and it is important as you’ll use it anywhere: when describing what you do on occasions, once the media wishes to convey what you do, etc. Your upcoming team members, investors, and clients may use it when speaking about your business too.

4. Solution

How would you solve customers’ problems? Outline a possible solution for each problem.

Describe your business idea briefly and in concise sentences that explain what the customer experience is going to be. Make sure you don’t go with the technical way here.

We have already written a problem chapter, Now Match your every solution with its associated problem from the problem chapter. Make one to one association between the problem and the solution.

5. Channels

List your inbound or outbound paths to the customers: How are you going to acquire your customers?

When your product is ready to solve customers’ problems in a unique way, you need to speak loud so customers know that you have the solution for their problems.

Here are examples of some marketing channels: Social media, Paid online advertising, TV ads, Good AdWords, PR, Col Calls, etc.

List all the possible channels are you going to use for your business.

6. Cost Structure

List expected fixed and variable costs to run your business.

The accuracy of costs depends on whether you have an existing business or the business is in just the idea stage. For the idea stage, you have to make all assumptions regarding costs.

Keep this section at last. at a very early stage, you don’t need to write down the numbers.

After validating your idea or solution, you will have more clarity on the actual numbers.

Costs also help you to identify how many customers you need to cover your fixed costs .

Examples of such costs are

• How much will it cost to build a website for your business?
• What is your burn rate?

7. Revenue Streams

List the sources of revenue: how much would you charge your customers for solving their problems?

For early-stage startups, It’s okay you won’t have to put numbers, list the methods and how would you collect revenues.

Define your pricing strategies , how you price your business will depend on the type of model it is, however, it’s quite common for startups to lower their cost, and even offer it for free to gain traction, however, this can pose a few problems.

Learn more about how effectively write the financial section of your business plan  and avoid some common mistakes.

8. Key Metrics

List the key numbers that tell you how your business is doing: Identify the metrics to monitor your business performance.

Every business(no matter what industry or size) will have some key performance metrics.

Which are the customers’ actions that you are going to track to define the steps above and monitor your business performance?

To identify the metrics you need to create a customer acquisition funnel, Use Dave McClure’s method for this.

9. Unfair Advantages

A single, clear compelling statement that states why you are different and worth paying attention to.

This section is a little hard to describe, Most of the entrepreneurs are making mistakes while defining this section.

Don’t make the wrong assumption that the unfair advantages and competitive advantages both are the same.

Instead, it has to be something that you already have, cannot be copied or bought, and would require a considerable amount of time for anyone else to build.

An unfair advantage makes you different from anyone else willing to launch the same exact business.

To understand your unfair advantage ask yourself: why do I believe to have more chances to be successful than anyone else?

If you don’t have any such advantages, It’s ok if it’s empty.

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About the Author

Vinay Kevadiya

Vinay Kevadiya is the founder and CEO of Upmetrics, the #1 business planning software. His ultimate goal with Upmetrics is to revolutionize how entrepreneurs create, manage, and execute their business plans. He enjoys sharing his insights on business planning and other relevant topics through his articles and blog posts. Read more

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• Lean Startup Business Plan Guide

How to Create a Lean Canvas

• Startup Basics

Last Updated: January 17, 2024 By Michaela Dale

Business planning isn’t typically the part of entrepreneurship people look forward to. Fortunately for startup entrepreneurs, there is another option: lean startup business plans. These templates are less in-depth than their traditional counterparts while still allowing you to go through the necessary steps to set the groundwork for your business. If an alternative method of business planning appeals to you, you’ve come to the right place to get started with our lean business plan guide .

Recommended: Read our full guide on how to start a startup  and our review of the best business plan software tools .

Writing a Lean Business Plan for a Startup

One benefit of launching a startup is that entrepreneurs can go outside the box to plan their business. Lean business plans are a less intensive option for startup entrepreneurs to establish their business goals and determine how they can make them happen in a fluid, simple format.

What Is a Lean Startup Business Plan?

A lean startup business plan is a short roadmap that outlines the startup’s goals and the steps to reach them. Concise in nature, sometimes only as long as one page, a lean startup plan starts by identifying a problem and solution. As beneficial as it is to have a business plan to secure investors, a lean startup business plan is also a template for entrepreneurs to think out and document their business strategy.

Lean Startup Plan Pros

• Traditional business plans are time-consuming, and lean startup plans offer entrepreneurs a way to document important business information and goals without going through the process of writing a traditional business plan.
• Lean startup plans are concise enough to pitch to an investor or grab a customer’s attention in a matter of seconds.

Lean Startup Plan Cons

• Some investors may want a more in-depth business plan provided prior to funding your startup.
• Lean startup plans offer less foundational business planning than their traditional counterparts.

Lean Plan vs. Traditional Business Plan

A traditional business plan is an in-depth, detailed blueprint of your startup’s first three to five years in business. In contrast, a lean startup plan is more of a diet-business plan, meaning it includes fewer details, less in-depth analysis, and is much shorter than a traditional business plan. While the two business plans are different in length and detail, they typically include the same nine sections at varying lengths.

Lean Canvas vs. Business Model Canvas

Lean Canvas is an adaptation by Ash Maurya of Alexander Osterwalder’s widely-used business model canvas. Both are templates for the strategic management of a business’s important information. Business model canvas is for all new and existing businesses, while Lean Canvas is created specifically for lean startup entrepreneur’s use. In their approach, they differ as well; business model canvases focus on the infrastructure of a business, while Lean Canvases start with a problem and work toward a solution using an actionable template.

Lean Business Plan Sections Explained

A lean business plan includes valuable information about a startup for both the founder and relevant business partners. Unlike traditional business plans which are a more detailed business plan, lean business plans are concise, typically only one page, and include only the most pertinent information such as target market, marketing strategy, and pain point being solved. 

These are the sections you should include in your lean business plan template.

A lean startup plan starts the same way many successful startups do — by identifying a problem. In this case, it’s a good idea to start by identifying one to three problems and listing them in your Lean Canvas. The intention of starting your business plan with a list of problems is to ensure there is a market for your product. Think about it this way, if you create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist or isn’t widespread, who will buy it?

Your startup’s task is to create a solution to the problem(s) you’ve identified. This section of your Lean Canvas outlines the solution for each problem you posted in the first section. Include a minimum viable product (MVP) that coincides with your proposed solution. Keep your solutions concise and easily digestible.

Key Metrics

Key metrics, the numbers that tell you how your business is performing, vary depending on your startup model and product. For example, some startups may include an ideal subscription percentage, while others may include an ideal amount of downloads in the first week. These goals will be used as a point of reference for you and your investors to assess your startup’s viability and success.

Unique Value Proposition

Describe in a single sentence why your startup is unique and valuable. Ideally, your unique value proposition will demonstrate to customers the promise that your startup solves their problem in an easily marketable way.

Unfair Advantage

What gives your startup a competitive advantage? Describe the edge your startup has that cannot be bought or copied by others — setting you apart from your competition.

Marketing Strategy

List the marketing strategy you’re planning to use to attract customers. This can be inbound or outbound channels to reach customers. Your strategy should be supported by market research and market analysis, as all these factors can impact the success of campaigns.

Customer Segments

Establishing your target market is absolutely essential to effectively marketing your product and keeping your startup afloat. Include your target customers as well as early adopters (otherwise known as the ideal customers) that your startup will initially appeal to. Be sure to include information about the marketing strategy that will be or is used to attract these users. 

Cost Structure

What your startup will be paying continuously without change (fixed costs) as well as costs that can change over time (variable costs) should be listed here. Essentially, any expense your startup will incur doing business should be considered in the cost structure to budget accurately and secure the necessary funding.

Revenue Streams

You know your costs. Now, you need to make a list of the revenue streams you have to cash roll your startup. These are your revenue streams, and they can be anything from business loans to venture capital.

Steps After Creating a Lean Startup Plan

Now that you have created the plan for your startup, it’s time to put it to the test. As much as startup plans can help entrepreneurs prepare for the road ahead, there is always room for improvement as the startup grows and adapts.

The ultimate test of your startup plan is to get to work. In lean startup methodology , entrepreneurs are encouraged to place their product on the market in order to rapidly improve upon their product and business as a whole. Therefore, in order to get an idea of what needs to be adjusted, you’ll need to put your business plan to the test.

Get a clear understanding of customer reception and feedback you receive about your startup’s products and services. You don’t need to take every suggestion; however, this feedback should help inform the adaption of your product to make it more consumer-friendly. Be open to criticism and ask questions. Listening to the response to your initial products can help you develop new strategies to improve.

Implement your findings from reviewing feedback by revising your business plan and rethinking product elements. Don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board when you need to reimagine a business plan. The benefit of using a lean startup business plan is that there is a great deal of flexibility available to business owners to reassess their vision.

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Streamline your business strategy: The essential lean business plan template

Dive into strategic planning with our lean business plan template, designed specifically for entrepreneurs, startups, and small business owners looking for a streamlined approach to business planning. This template strips away the complexities, helping you focus on the core elements necessary to articulate your business vision, strategy, and action plan efficiently.

What's inside this lean business plan template?

• Company name & mission : Begin with the basics, establishing your business identity and mission to guide all your strategic decisions.
• Our offer : Clearly articulate what your business offers, highlighting your unique value proposition to stand out in the market.
• Problem statement : Define the problem you're solving, ensuring your business targets real needs for a solid market fit.
• Solution : Summarize your solution in one sentence, showcasing how you uniquely address the problem.
• Target market : Identify and describe your primary audience segments, tailoring your approach to meet their specific needs.
• Key competitors : Offer insights into your competition, helping you position your business effectively in the marketplace.
• Sales and marketing strategy : Outline how you'll reach and convert your target audience, detailing sales channels and marketing tactics.
• Financial projections : Present a snapshot of your financial outlook, including key expenses, revenue streams, and growth trends.
• Management team and partners : Highlight the people behind the business and their roles, underscoring your team's expertise and capabilities.
• Action plan : Set clear milestones and deadlines, assigning responsibilities to ensure progress towards your business goals.

Key benefits of using this lean business plan template

• Focused strategy : Concentrate on what truly matters to get your business off the ground or to the next level with a clear, concise plan.
• Efficient planning : Save time and resources with this streamlined business plan tempalate that covers the essentials without the fluff.
• Clear direction : Eliminate ambiguity in your business strategy, making it easier for your team and partners to align with your vision.
• Competitive insight : Understand your market and competition better, enabling you to position your business more strategically.
• Financial clarity : Gain insights into your financial health and projections, aiding in better decision-making and investor communications.
• Action-oriented : Move from planning to doing with a structured action plan that keeps your team focused and accountable.

Get started

Elevate your business strategy without the complexity. Our lean business plan template is your first step towards a more focused, effective, and successful business journey. Start shaping your strategy today, driving your business forward with clarity and purpose.

And, for a more comprehensive approach to business planning try our business plan template.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Lean Startup Business Plan

Starting a business can be both thrilling and terrifying. On one hand, you have this brilliant idea and can’t wait to bring it into the world. But there’s also the nagging fear that your amazing concept might fall flat or fail to gain traction.

So how do you make sure your startup succeeds? The answer is charting out a solid business plan.

I know, I know. Just hearing the phrase “business plan” brings back bad memories of dry, long-winded documents from business school. But for startups, there’s a better way to plan out your venture – something called the lean startup business plan.

The lean startup approach focuses on streamlining the business planning process so you can start testing your idea faster, without getting bogged down with lengthy sections and financial projections you can’t possibly predict accurately at such an early stage.

In this beginner’s guide, I’ll walk you through exactly how to create a lean startup business plan template that helps you quickly validate your business idea with real-life customers.

What is a Lean Startup Business Plan?

First things first – let’s define what exactly the lean methodology means when applied to an entrepreneur’s business plan.

Put simply, a lean startup business plan is a streamlined, no-fluff version of a traditional business plan. It’s designed for speed and adaptability rather than comprehensiveness.

The lean startup movement first became popular around 2008. It emphasizes testing a product or service idea quickly, using a minimum viable product (MVP), and getting real user feedback before committing to long development and release cycles.

The key principles of lean startup are:

• Rapid build-test-learn loops
• Scientific testing with real customers from day one
• Iterating based on validated learning

Most new companies that take the lean approach never reach an official launch stage. Instead, they continuously test with and adapt to real customers – refining their MVP and pivoting directions based on evidence of what does or doesn’t get market traction.

So how does that tie in with writing a business plan?

Well, the traditional business plan model doesn’t fit the lean paradigm shift.

Lengthy, complex, intricate business plans take too much time to write. Attempting to project multiple years of expenses, sales, hiring, growth rates etc…..it’s all just guesswork when you haven’t started selling anything yet.

The lean startup business plan tosses unnecessary details out the window and instead focuses only on critical hypotheses and assumptions that must be tested as quickly as possible.

Investors like this approach because it shows you:

• Know what assumptions make or break your business
• Can test them quickly at low cost
• Will adapt based on real data

So if you’re an early stage startup looking for funding or entering an accelerator program like Y Combinator, a lean business plan is likely your best bet to showcase your entrepreneurial abilities.

Now the big question….

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup template pares down the typical business plan format to just the essential elements early-stage investors care about:

• Problem  – What pain points will your product address? Why are those needs not being met?
• Solution  – How will your product alleviate that pain better than alternatives? Why will customers buy from you over other options?
• Target market  — Who has that specific problem and will buy your solution? ( Note: Be specific!  “Everyone” is never the right answer.)
• Competition  — Who else is tackling that customer problem? How is your solution fundamentally better or different?
• Key features  – What’s the minimum feature set to address target customers’ needs on day one and provide value?
• Marketing & sales  – What tactics will you use to reach early adopters? ( Note: For most startups, digital sales & marketing channels rule supreme. )
• Operations  – Outline your core business processes. Don’t go into granular detail, just highlight how you’ll deliver value to customers.
• Milestones  – What big assumptions will you test? Include timelines + costs to conduct experiments so you can demonstrate a logical thought process.
• Financials  –  Optional  Breakdown high-level estimates only if useful. For the lean startup plan, elaborate projections are unnecessary and speculative. Focus everything on testing key assumptions.

You may have noticed one conspicuously absent item – the Executive Summary. We’re skipping it because unlike traditional business plans sent to various stakeholders, your lean startup plan has just one audience – startup investors.

And remember, the lean methodology is all about using real-life data instead of guesses and best-case scenarios. So even if some assumptions in your original lean business plan don’t pan out, that’s actually great news! It gives you hard evidence to adapt intelligently while developing your MVP.

Now that you know what the lean startup template includes at a high-level, let’s go through each of the core sections in more detail.

First and foremost, you need to spell out exactly what customer problem your startup aims to solve. (And yes, it needs to be an actual must-solve problem, not a nice-to-have).

Start by broadly describing the pain points your target customers face. Get tactical by including stats, data or quotes that showcase why this issue is so urgent for them.

Then explain how the problem ties into a larger trend in your target industry. Paint a big picture view of why common solutions up until now have failed to address this pain sufficiently.

Essentially, convincingly convey that there’s a pressing customer need ready for innovation.

You need to display beyond any doubt that you:

• Deeply understand your target customers’ challenges
• Can explain why those problems exist in the first place
• Will provide a compelling solution tailored to fix them

This sets the stage for why launching a startup to address this issue makes so much sense.

2. Solution

Now that you’ve framed the problem, shift gears into explaining your startup’s solution. Start by providing an overview of your product and how it alleviates target customer pains better than alternatives already on the market.

Then embellish with details on:

Product Benefits

How specifically will your product make customers’ lives easier? Don’t just describe product features or functionality. Speak directly to how you’ll empower them to achieve something that’s currently difficult, inconvenient or even impossible for them to accomplish on their own.

Competitive Advantage

What specifically sets your solution apart from potential competitor offerings and substitutes? Is it higher quality, better convenience, lower cost, less hassle, faster performance – or perhaps an innovative model that’s never been seen before in the market?

Highlight your startup’s special sauce that no one else can easily replicate. Explain barriers to entry that will hinder copycats.

Customer Incentive

Why will target users’ purchase from your brand over chasing other options? It usually comes down to believing you can deliver significantly MORE value than alternatives or solve an urgent pain nothing else currently satisfies. Make your case for why you fit one or both scenarios.

Scalability

Particularly if you are pursuing venture capital investors, explain how your business can rapidly scale up to tap a very large global market with your solution. Outline a blueprint for how you realistically grow from thousands to millions of customers in the coming years.

Remember, don’t drown potential investors in intricate details about every single product feature and technical specification. They care most about how your solution nails the value proposition trifecta:

• Targets an urgent customer problem
• Provides 10x+ better value over existing options
• Can scale to a very large market long term

If you can compellingly check all three boxes, you’ll spark investor interest even with limited hard evidence at such an early phase.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you won’t eventually need to back up your claims. However, the lean startup plan is more about framing hypotheses than definitive proof. We’ll cover how to demonstrate enough evidence to warrant launching experiments soon.

For now, stick to crafting an intriguing startup story that sets you up to start testing fundamental assumptions very soon after funding. There will be plenty of time to figure out minor product details once you validate solving a pressing problem for real paying customers.

3. Target Market

Up until now, I’ve used the term “target customer” quite loosely. But it’s time to get very specific on who those real-world people actually are for your startup.

Venture capital investors want to quantify the population size and traits of target buyer personas in precise detail. So you need to describe exact psychographic and demographic qualities of your beachhead market – the subset of overall customers you tackle first to gain a foothold quickly.

Start by explaining your total addressable market (TAM) – the entire population who could plausibly need and want your solution for the core problem it tackles. Depending on the ubiquity of that issue for consumers and/or businesses, the TAM could be very narrow or encompass hundreds of millions globally.

Then segment down from that full market to identify your specific beachhead target customer population. The ideal beachhead often has these characteristics:

• Suffers from the problem much more painfully than casual groups
• Has already tried existing solutions without sufficient success
• Has disposable income to purchase a premium solution for relief
• Is easy to access and serve operationally in early phases
• Isn’t incredibly price sensitive
• Can provide extensive feedback on the product
• Has influencer qualities to attract wider market segments

Nail down quantifiable population size estimates for this core beachhead subset. Combine publicly accessible data from existing market research reports with reasonable inferences or assumptions from adjacent industries.

But resist the founder’s tendency towards magical thinking – “If we nailed even just 1% of the market…!” Generic hypotheticals don’t sway experienced investors focused on tangible traction signals.

Paint a detailed demographic picture of exactly who fits the mold of a hot prospect customer for you in the beginning.

For B2C startups , call out relevant attributes like:

• Marital/family status
• Home ownership

For B2B startups , highlight qualities like:

• Industry vertical
• Company size
• Title seniority
• Annual revenue
• Tech adoption habits

Then outline statistical commonalities across your core beachhead buyers – what key similarities unite this subgroup vs. the entire population facing the problem?

Finally, convey TAM expansion opportunities once you solidify solutions tailored for that first niche. But defer outlining detailed ways to extend your reach right now since nailing product/market fit with just one segment is the critical prerequisite to win over adjacent groups.

Position your solution as optimized for an underserved niche ripe for disruption based on competitors failing to deliver adequate solutions. Then segue into how your distribution plan concentrated on this “low-hanging fruit” beachhead will purposefully evolve later to expand TAM reach long term.

4. Competition

What the competition section lacks by traditional business plan standards in length, it more than makes up for in strategic rigor.

The core question competitive analysis must answer:

Why are current solutions in the market failing to adequately alleviate your target customers’ pain?

Start by inventorying existing competitor products/services currently used by prospects experiencing this problem. List out the main options your target persona has for solving their struggles today, even if those solutions don’t perfectly fix the issue or fully satisfy them.

Then contrast point-by-point specifics on why your solution beats competitors, especially on the metrics most important to your target niche. Show how you will “disrupt the disruptors” because even pioneering products have limitations needing innovation.

Criteria to call out where you claim competitive advantage:

• Convenience
• Scale potential
• Business model innovation

Back up any bold claims of superiority with limited initial evidence beyond conjecture — data from beta user testing prototype versions, customer quotes from initial beachhead outreach, or precedents from analogs in adjacent markets.

Take care to focus specifically on competitors targeting the same early adopter beachhead market segment though. Details contrasting solutions for other peripherical segments are unnecessary right now.

Round out competitor analysis by itemizing macro trends almost certain to diminish prospects for legacy products over the next 5-10 years. These should make the rationale behind your startup now abundantly clear even to skeptics.

5. Key Features

Thus far you’ve made a case for:

• A pressing customer problem inadequately solved
• Your startup’s superior solution
• Quantified target beachhead market

Now it’s time to shift to specifics on the crucial product and feature details enabling your entire value proposition.

Remember – only include what’s absolutely necessary for launch based on addressing revealed target customer needs!

Err on the side of a minimal feature set early on. Describe additional functionality prospects request once you start serving initial customers.

Outline the critical set of features required to deploy a minimum viable product (MVP) with just enough core attributes to satisfy early adopters on day one.

Organize by:

Must-Have Features

What feature absolute “must-haves” must be ready for early adopters to provide enough value converting from current solutions?

Nice-To-Have Features

What would enhance perceived value but aren’t imperative to activate paying users? Defer these to later product milestones.

Future Features

Briefly mention functionality on the long-term roadmap to showcase platform potential.

Think of must-have features as the “walking version” of your product – unscalable manual processes providing baseline value perfect for testing with friendly early adopters.

Then nice-to-haves represent the “jogging version” – automating more of the workflow via technology – while future functionality serves as the “running version” enhanced for steep vertical scaling.

In conjunction with digital tools, brainstorm creative ways to manually deliver MVP experiences centered around must-haves. This showcases your determination to activate solutions for that first tiny niche even sans a fully built production-grade product.

Emphasize with investors that you respect their money enough to not waste it on premature optimizations. Your plan ensures you build and roadmap additional functionality responsibly IF AND ONLY IF initial feature experimentation proves substantial product/market fit warranting doubling down.

6. Marketing & Sales

Thus far you’ve covered the key value proposition and functionality your startup will offer. Now shift to tactical specifics on how you’ll connect your novel solution with that clearly defined target beachhead.

Start by breaking down your blended omni-channel market blueprint to cut through the noise and achieve conversion lift.

Here is an ideal framework pairing both scalable and targeted elements for seed-stage ventures:

Paid Digital Marketing

• Targeted Facebook/Instagram/TikTok Ads
• Search/Display Retargeting
• Streaming Radio Spots
• Industry Forum Sponsorships
• Highly-Targeted Content Marketing

Grassroots Outreach

• Beachhead Email Outreach
• Beachhead Calls/Texts
• Industry Event Networking
• Local University Campus Reps
• Early Adopter Referral Programs

Earned Media

• Contributed Articles
• Podcast Interviews
• Reviews / Testimonials
• Referral Partnerships
• PR Launches & Press Releases

The glaring omission? Sales team headcount.

Early on, founders must handle sales themselves to economize cash burn. Hiring reps too early risks overextending finances before ensuring product viability.

So spotlight your personal founder sales fit first. Play up hands-on selling experience within the specific market context you’re pursuing with this venture.

Then convey a scaling plan centered on refining and automating conversion funnel elements that empirically guide qualified leads to become delighted long-term customers.

The core funnel methodology goes:

• Broad-based brand awareness marketing → Baits wide audience
• Lead capturing mechanisms → Filters for buyers
• Consultative selling touchpoints → Focuses high-potential targets
• Frictionless conversion → Delivers ROI proof

If your business model doesn’t fit this framework, adapt concepts accordingly while sticking to the seed stage constraints of capital efficiency and lean experimentation.

7. Operations

By this point you’ve described WHAT your startup does and WHO it serves. Now it’s time to explain HOW you’ll deliver on ambitious promises to customers.

Start by simply framing core business processes required to get your product or service from raw inputs all the way through to solving target user pain points.

For physical products, that could involve flows like:

• Design concepts → Engineering specifications → Prototyping → Manufacturing → Quality assurance → Packaging → Distributing → Support

For software platforms:

• Product requisites → Cloud infrastructure → Coding → Version control → Usage analytics → Onboarding → Technical support

For services:

• Prospecting → Onboarding → Account Management → Delivery capacity → Quality control → Supplemental services → Support

You get the idea. Just define macro processes without diving into granular details. Those come through experimentation!

Primarily, concentrate operational details on two crucial pillars:

• Proprietary unfair advantages that supercharge efficiency to delight customers while maintaining profit margins despite tight costs. Common examples include algorithms, datasets, novel business model frameworks, or embedded industry experts.
• Partnerships or platforms enabling you to deliver baseline functionality matching incumbent competitors on day one. Don’t attempt to build everything end-to-end or innovate across every dimension from the start! Leverage existing commoditized solutions while you test differentiated value propositions focused on solving target customer problems 10x better.

Essentially, convey you grasp the key 20% inputs that drive 80% of customer value. If the processes seem complex, find ingenious ways to simplify. Position enhanced intricacies as optional add-ons once baseline product/market fit is proven vs. overbuilding the wrong advanced solution.

8. Milestones

The milestones section represents the culmination of everything you’ve documented thus far. Here, outline the step-by-step process for methodically testing the riskiest assumptions underlying your startup.

In conjunction with the experiment design, detail concrete metrics or signals indicating whether hypotheses prove true or false. Then estimate costs, durations, and resource requirements for rapid experiments.

Frame assumptions through statements structured like:

We believe [this capability] will result in [this customer reaction]

Then design tests around the ability to measure:

• behavioral changes
• sentiment improvements
• usage increases
• revenue lift

Common milestone tests to consider:

• Solution Viability – Manual then automated demonstrations quantifying interest
• Demand Validation – Willingness to prepay as a signal
• Market Sizing Accuracy – Applying proxies from analogous use cases
• Business Model Fit – Contrasting pricing sensitivity across customer segments
• Feature Prioritization – Gauging reactions to mockups or limited functionality
• Operational Scalability – Maximizing utilization before adding overhead

Combine testing both internally-facing operations and externally-visible customer experiences. But concentrate on product/solution related hypotheses first.

Beating competitors takes precedence over backend experimentation. Optimize business operations AFTER establishing winning customer value propositions.

The key is conveying to investors an empirical, metrics-driven approach centered on turning critical assumptions into facts or disproving them faster than incumbents hampered by legacies and red tape.

Cement belief you’ll double down on evidence proving repeatable formulas to acquire and monetize target niche segments. And quickly cut losses spending minimal capital if data suggests limited viability.

9. Financials

We’ve made it clear that traditional multi-year financial projections typical of standard business plans are counterproductive guesses for early stage startups.

However, seed investors still want to see back-of-napkin math you’ve done to quantify potential venture scale. So mock up top level metrics more as directional guidelines than definitive targets.

Take utmost care however NOT to pull imaginary hockey stick numbers from thin air. Founders claiming $100 million valuations on basic eCommerce stores face extreme investor skepticism…and deserve to!

Baseline financial model components should include:

• Estimated Customer Acquisition Costs Per Beachhead Channel
• Willingness-To-Pay Price Range For Target Personas
• Logical Volume Estimates Based On Analog Use Cases
• Assumed Conversion Rates Each Funnel Stage
• Operational Unit Economics At Various Scale Points

Use inherently bottom-up thinking grounded in realities of what combination of inputs would need to scale to hit specific 8-figure outcomes. Top-down abstract number picking lacks validity.

And remember, early-stage startup financial models serve more as instruments of learning than definitive targets. Adapt projections based on empirical evidence once live.

Concentrate everything on validating customer demand first. Defer advanced modeling of operational minutiae or elaborating hockey stick projections.

Getting REAL buyers is all that matters initially.

Bringing It All Together

Despite extending 3k+ words at this point, the lean startup methodology boils down to an elementary formula:

• Start by deeply understanding a pressing customer problem
• Design an innovative solution specifically addressing root causes
• Concentrate on dominating an underserved niche beachhead market segment
• Validate demand empirically through rapid testing
• Scale up deliberately only once achieving initial product/market fit

In that sense, think of the lean business plan format as more of an exercise in startup soul searching than a stuffy document.

It pushes founders to pressure test their value proposition, business model, and operational viability through the lens of target customers rather than theoretical academic assumptions.

You can’t survive let alone thrive in the brutally competitive startup game without getting inside the hearts and minds of actual buyers needing your solutions.

So escape the temptation to overly complicate initial planning with intricate spreadsheets and 40-page reports professional managers expect.

Instead, concentrate efforts on distilling explanations of the crucial assumptions requiring testing above all else before launch.

Then close your lean startup business plan with next step calls-to-action so readers clearly understand how you’ll leverage funding to start rapidly experimenting using the scientific method.

Now…go show the world what your brilliance is made of!

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Partha Chakraborty

Partha Chakraborty is a venture capitalist turned entrepreneur with 17 years of experience. He has worked across India, China & Singapore. He is the founder of Tactyqal.com, a startup that guides other startup founders to find success. He loves to brainstorm new business ideas, and talk about growth hacking, and venture capital. In his spare time, he mentors young entrepreneurs to build successful startups.

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A Guide to Creating a Lean Business Plan (2022)

Don’t have the time to develop a formal business plan for your startup? Here’s how to create a lean business plan to put things into motion.

Vivienne Chen

Vivienne is a Product Marketer at Bubble. She is a storyteller and is passionate about meaningful ways technology can help foster social solidarity.

More posts by Vivienne Chen.

The dramatic increase of small businesses in the United States during the last five years prompted the business community to rekindle the concept of Lean Business Plans. While having all these start-ups is laudable, 45% of them fail after five years.

The key to having a successful business, small or large, is having the right idea at the right time and crafting a viable business plan to fill that market niche . However, many entrepreneurs don't write business plans because they recoil at writing a voluminous traditional or formal business plan that spans 30 pages and has multi-year income statements and layers of operational complexity.

A lean business plan is the perfect solution for that problem.

Traditional Business Plan vs. Lean Business Plan

Traditional business plans tend to be written for start-ups that have multi-million-dollar revenue objectives and require large amounts of seed funding for a large staff and large office spaces that keep the enterprise running until it turns a profit. Investors want to know how their money will get spent, the potential market share, and the founders' experience. Hence, the 30-page masterwork loaded with numbers, graphs, and charts takes three months to create.

A lean business plan, however, is more effective for a small- to medium-sized business (SMB) because it concentrates on the key elements of the company. You’ll give a traditional plan a big haircut by writing a lean plan that outlines your business idea, what market problem you’re solving, how you’ll solve it, how much money you need, and when you’ll break even.

Why Lean Business Plan Methodology Is Gaining in Popularity

The Small Business Association (SBA) encourages entrepreneurs to develop a lean business plan first , even when contemplating writing a traditional plan later. This approach helps lean startups organize their concepts without getting bogged down with unwieldy traditional plans that often discourage writing a plan in the first place.

Start-ups commonly fail for six reasons . However, entrepreneurs today have access to a greater variety of resources than ever. Web-based apps, digital libraries, government agencies like the SBA, and mobile solutions provide a robust ecosystem for new companies.

These invaluable support systems often mitigate the need to write traditional plans for SMB start-ups because vast data stores are but a click away that can help entrepreneurs and potential investors validate any business model.

Benefits of a Lean Business Plan

Lean Business Plans continue to grow in popularity for these important reasons:

• Accessibility: Lean plans are relatively easy to conceive, formulate, and understand. Anyone with basic business sense can discern the unique value proposition (UVP) and unique selling proposition (USP) without being a former CEO.
• Speed: A lean business plan only takes two to four days to write and requires only three to five pages to complete. Compared to a traditional plan, this lean approach moves at light speed.
• Flexibility: A lean plan allows you to organize the business concept and summarize the UVP and USP in short, easy-to-digest thoughts, which can be modified when new information or investor inputs are presented. And it can be upgraded to a traditional plan later if needed.

The Major Components of a Lean Business Plan

Since you’re writing a lean business plan, you’ll be pleased to learn that such plans still have all the key elements of a traditional plan (again, making it a great foundation to build on later as you grow your business).

• Business Model : There’s no way around this essential requirement. Everyone, especially you, must understand the business model you’re starting to make a profit (e.g., retail, manufacturing, fee-for-service, etc.).
• Strategy: This describes how your company will solve a problem or addresses a market need and how it differs from competitors (aka the differentiator).
• Tactics: Outlines the operational steps needed to manage marketing, sales, and business objectives.
• Schedule: Explains when your business starts operations, where it’s located, when it expects to break even, and when it’s profitable.
• Income/Expense Statement: Summarizes revenues, sales, and expense projections for one year.

What to Include in a Lean Business Plan

The value of “lean” means describing these elements in a few short and clear sentences; write only one paragraph per subject.

• Overview: Describes your company’s mission
• Problem: Shows what problem you’ll solve or market need
• Solution: Outlines how you solve the problem
• Target Market: Defines your customers and the market
• Competition: Identifies competitors and what differentiates your company
• Marketing: Explains how you’ll reach customers
• Sales Channels/POS : Outlines where you’ll meet customer needs
• Revenue: Shows how you’ll make money
• Expenses: Summarizes start-up costs and ongoing expenses
• Milestones/Growth: Projects timelines for attaining business goals
• Partners/Resources: Indicates your business connections and other professional assets
• Talent/Roles: Identifies the team, relevant experience, and type of expertise you still need

How to Write a Lean Business Plan

Since you now understand the requisite elements of a good lean business plan, these links provide excellent resources and apps to help you write a lean business plan document.

• Hoshin Planning Process : Outlines a step-by-step thought process needed to develop a lean business plan.
• SBA Guide to Lean Business Plans : Shows how to write a lean business plan.
• What It Costs to Start a Business in 2022 : The Bubble community offers excellent tips on what it costs to start a business.
• Emerald Insight : Provides insights on what kind of business plan to use.
• Startly : A one-stop service that provides enhanced time and expense solutions.

Important Next Steps

• Add an MVP Summary. A start-up that plans to sell a new version of an existing product should consider adding a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) summary. The MVP protocol is an important testing and engineering process that ensures a prototype gets the proper development and testing prior to release.

The MVP methodology plays well with the lean business philosophy because it enhances the development of existing products rather than starting from square one.

• Get Funding. Once you have a solid lean business plan, you'll be in an excellent position to look for funding. The Bubble community can show you how to get seed funding .
• Getting Started. There is no time like the present to start building your dream. This is your Call to Action (CTA): wake up, get up, and start-up. Today.

How a No-Code Solution Like Bubble Can Help

Bubble’s numerous no-code platform solutions are invaluable tools that help entrepreneurs start new businesses. In addition to saving considerable time and money during the development phase, the Bubble community offers a wealth of know-how and support tools that guide entrepreneurs during the daunting start-up process.

These support structures complement the lean business plan approach because Bubble eliminates many infrastructure costs and operational hurdles a new company must overcome.

About Bubble

Bubble is a leader in the no-code movement. Bubble offers a powerful point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform that allows users to build fully customizable web applications and workflows, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more.

Millions of users are building and launching businesses on Bubble — many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raised $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs who are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.

Start building with a free account

Build the next big thing with Bubble

• How to build
• Responsive design
• Version control
• Feature index
• Integrations
• Marketplace
• Partnerships
• Brand guidelines

Deconstruct Your Big Idea on 1-Page

Business plans take too long to write, are seldom updated, and almost never read by others. When you're going really fast and under conditions of extreme uncertainty, you need dynamic models, not static plans. The Lean Canvas replaces long and boring business plans with a 1-page business model that takes 20 minutes to create and gets read.

Lean Canvas is used by over a million people that span startups, universities, and large enterprises.

What is a Lean Canvas?

Lean Canvas is a 1-page business plan template created by Ash Maurya that helps you deconstruct your idea into its key assumptions. It is adapted from Alex Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas and optimized for Lean Startups. It replaces elaborate business plans with a single page business model.

Why Lean Canvas versus Business Model Canvas?

Lean Startup Business Plan Template

Transform your startup idea into reality with a well-crafted lean startup business plan template today.

• Size : Letter
• Plan : business

Launch your startup with our Lean Startup Business Plan Template. Follow a streamlined approach to outline your business model, target audience, value proposition, and key metrics, enabling you to quickly validate and iterate your ideas.

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We are an award winning product design consultancy, we design connected products and instruments for pioneering technology companies.

A lean business plan template for startups and entrepreneurs.

Reading time 8 mins

• Traditional business plans aren’t always the best starting point for startups needing to validate concepts and get products to market quickly
• Traditional business plans are comprehensive and detailed documents that take months to prepare. This can be challenging for startups who haven’t yet acquired the skills (financial, production, marketing and sales) necessary to demonstrate their business viability
• A lean business plan is a simple 1-2 page summary that highlights the fundamentals and doesn’t require extensive financial forecasting or market research
• The lean approach allows for quick and cost-effective concept validation, focusing on customer problems and the solutions to them that present immediate market opportunities, allowing startups to establish their market presence quickly
• However, a lean business plan has its limitations and disadvantages
• For established companies looking to scale their business, secure funding and investors, and attract talented employees, a traditional business plan is necessary

Download our free lean business plan template

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Ben mazur  managing director.

Last updated May 1, 2023

I hope you enjoy reading this post. If you would like us to develop your next product for you,  click here

W riting a traditional business plan can be overwhelming and time-consuming for startups and entrepreneurs in the early stages of product or service development. You most likely haven’t had the time to validate ideas, test assumptions, and acquire the necessary skills (e.g. financial, production, marketing, and sales) needed to ensure the viability of your business. At the same time, you need to have essential information regarding your value proposition readily available. Our lean business plan template helps you to find the middle ground:

• A one-page plan to help you kickstart your business
• It doesn’t require extensive financial forecasting or long-term market research
• Uses customer needs and problems as the foundation to measure success
• Allows for quick and cost-effective concept validation
• Centred around taking small steps, consistent tracking, and frequent course corrections
• Focuses on the key factors that present immediate opportunities for a competitive advantage

While lenders and investors typically ask for a traditional business plan comprising a dozen or more pages of a detailed analysis, a lean startup plan is a good place to start if you expect many aspects of your business to change. In addition, a lean business plan template will help you to create a concise document that outlines the fundamentals.

Key differences between a traditional and lean business plan

Depending on where you are in your business or product development, there are several reasons not to write a business plan . One of the most important ones is that embarking on a new venture is a risky and explorative process: putting in the effort to complete the business plan process can convince you to commit more than you can risk should your exploration fail.

In addition, before a business plan can have any clout, some work is required to validate that your technology works, that a real market for your product exists, and that the price and returns you expect are reasonable.

On the other hand, if you want to attract investors and top-level talent, a business plan is essential. The table below outlines the key differences between traditional vs lean startup business plans and will indicate which is more appropriate in your case.

How to create a lean startup business plan

If you’ve decided that a lean business plan is the best way forward to kickstart your business, here’s how to get started:

• Download our free lean business plan template to lay the foundation for your course of action
• Once you have developed your minimum viable product (an early version of your product with only the essential features), put it to the test. Use our product testing survey template to gain valuable insights regarding what needs to be modified or improved to ensure the product fits the market it’s designed for
• Review your results according to the metrics for success you established
• Revise your plan accordingly. This may involve making changes to your assumptions, sales channels, marketing techniques, and even your target customers
• Your MVP may need several iterations before you’re ready to develop the final version. For each iteration, repeat steps 2-4 until you’re satisfied with the results
• Get set to launch and kickstart your business into motion!

Lean business plan

Download our free template, the pros and cons of the lean business plan approach.

In addition to being straightforward and quick to implement, the lean business planning approach is flexible and adaptable. This makes it easier to pivot if the original idea isn’t as viable as you thought it would be – with considerably less lost in terms of resources than if you had gone the traditional business plan route.

More importantly, by prioritising speed to market, taking the lean business approach will help you to establish your presence quickly in a highly competitive environment.

On the other hand, this approach has its limitations:

• Because the focus is on rapid prototyping and testing, there’s less emphasis on long-term planning and strategic thinking. This makes it challenging to develop a sustainable and scaleable business
• The lean approach requires less investment but also means that resources are more limited. For more expensive or exclusive products, several iterations of the MVP could end up being costly
• With a detailed business plan, creating a roadmap for the business that you can share with others is easier. This is essential for attracting investors, partners, or employees
• There’s a risk of pivoting too much due to the experimentation and iteration this model encourages. This can lead to confusion and a lack of direction

A final word on using a lean business plan template

Choosing between the traditional business plan model or the lean approach will ultimately depend on your needs. The traditional route would serve you best if you need a lot of upfront investment and strategic planning. However, the lean business planning approach is ideal if you want to validate your concept quickly and cost-effectively.

That being said, there’s no reason why you can’t do both. In our next post, we’ll explain how to write a killer business plan, so if you’re a fan of tradition, there will be a template for that too!

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Write a Lean Business Plan with this Template

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 by Abdul Momin Filed Under: Business

People often say that to succeed, businesses must have a business plan . However, this statement has slightly changed over the years.

It is said that to succeed, businesses must have a lean business plan . So you guys must be thinking, what the difference between these two is?

Today we will discuss how the lean business model differs from the traditional business model and what the lean business model is in general.

To operate a business, it is essential to construct a business model first. A business model provides a plan to run the business by identifying the customer base, sources of revenue, sources of financing, and the product that is to be offered.

Businesses make business plans to get direction. A business plan helps in making the business strategy and prioritizing tasks. Therefore, businesses must develop a business plan to operate in an organized manner.

The traditional business plans were used to cover all the details about a business, due to which they used to be 45-50 pages long. However, as time passed, businesses needed to make shorter and more precise business plans.

There were specific reasons why the need for shorter business plans was felt. One of the reasons was the argument that people don’t read lengthy business plans, due to which their purpose is not fulfilled.

Moreover, it was considered that short and precise business plans were more efficient and productive since businesses require less time to implement them, and it is easy to understand.

To overcome the shortcomings of a traditional business plan, the lean business model was introduced. The term “lean startup” was coined by Eric Ries, an entrepreneur, a decade ago. However, Henry Ford was among the first entrepreneurs who practically used lean business plans in the 20th century.

The success of implementing a lean business plan can be estimated from the fact that in recent times, many successful businesses such as Zappos , Buffer, and Dropbox adopted lean business plans to provide direction to their businesses.

A lean business plan is a shorter and more precise version of the traditional business plan, which consists of small steps prescribed to the management to make a business successful.

The lean business plan includes the business’s strategy, the tactics to implement the strategy, the schedule for monthly reviews, and the forecast and budgeting of the business.

Let’s proceed further to get more insight into the lean business plan and see its significance in the modern business era.

How to Write a Lean Business Plan

A lean business plan is similar to the traditional business plan as they both provide direction to the business. However, a lean business plan consists of only one page since only vital points are written in the form of bullets.

The usage of lean business plans is increasing in the business sector as it is considered more efficient and effective. In this section, we will discuss how to write a lean business plan.

1. Business Strategy

Similar to the traditional business plan, one of the main components of the lean business plan is the provision of a business strategy. Although a business strategy summarises your plans, it also identifies your customers and competitors.

The business strategy part of the lean business plan identifies the problem which your product will solve. It then tells how your product will solve that problem. For example, suppose there’s a lack of homemade food available in your town, and you plan to work on that. In that case, your business strategy will identify the problem and provide a solution for it.

Business strategy also describes the details of the product’s targeted audience and potential business competitors. For example, it tells what gender and age group your product will target. Moreover, it also makes the business aware of the competitors in the market.

2. Business Tactics

The lean business plan also identifies the tactics used to execute the business strategy. Another significant component of the lean business plan is developing business tactics. The business tactics provide a pathway to implement the business strategy.

This section of the lean business plan narrows down how the business strategy should be implemented. For example, it highlights what the marketing, sales, and HR strategy should be to make the business grow effectively.

3. Schedule

Every lean business plan must contain the schedule part. The schedule section ensures that all the employees’ business strategies, tactics, and work are revisited. Since a lean business plan is all about efficiency, designing a good schedule leads to an effective business plan.

With the help of a schedule, the goals and milestones set by the business can be reviewed to see where the business is standing in reality. Moreover, indicators and statistics help in analyzing the performance of the business.

However, the type of schedule varies for startups and established businesses. The schedule of a startup will analyze the consumer’s demands and market trends . To do that, the startup will send out questionnaires and surveys to get all this information.

On the other hand, for a well-established business, the focus of the schedule is to analyze the goals to be achieved. Moreover, the workers’ performances are analyzed after a set interval time. All this is done to analyze whether the business is moving in the right direction.

4. Forecast and Budgeting

Finally, the lean business plan should contain forecasts and budgeting statistics. No matter how good a business plan is, as long as you have not sorted out the cash flows and calculated the expected revenues, your business plan can’t succeed .

Forecasting and budgeting help to convert the business plan into a reality by estimating sales and expenses. The business model is restructured if the expected revenues are insufficient to meet the expenses or generate good profit.

In the next section, we will look at an example of the lean business plan template. So let’s move ahead and see what the template looks like.

Lean Business Plan Template

The above template shows how the lean business plan can precisely present a business plan on one page. Although it contains the entire business plan, it is very precise and easy to understand.

Difference Between a Traditional Business Plan and a Lean Business Plan 

Both the traditional business plan and the lean business plan provide a business plan to the management. Working on this plan, a business can succeed since a set pathway and direction are provided in the plan.

For decades the traditional business plan has been used to set the direction of the business. However, in the past few years, the lean business plan has been adopted by businesses all over the globe. This section will discuss the difference between a traditional and a lean business plan.

1. Size of the Document

Although there are many differences between the traditional and lean business plans. However, One of the visible differences between the two is the size. The traditional business plan consists of nearly 45-50 pages or more, whereas the lean business plan fits on one page.

2. Detail Presented

The traditional and lean business plans cover a business plan’s main aspects. However, they differ when it comes to the details which are present in the business plan. The traditional business plan is known for the details it covers. It explains every component of the business plan in detail. This provides clarity to the reader.

Whereas the lean business plan is famous for having pointers that give a general idea to the reader without explaining anything in detail. This saves time for the reader and makes it easy to understand.

3. Time Required to Construct

The traditional business plan and lean business plan also vary when it comes to the time needed to construct the business plan. The traditional business plan requires more time to construct since much research is needed before constructing it.

On the other hand, the lean business plan requires less time since no detailed analysis is required to construct it.

Advantages of Lean Business Plan

Until now, we discussed how to construct a lean business plan and the difference between a traditional and a lean business plan. However, in this section, we will look at what are the reasons that businesses have decided to adopt the lean business plan instead of the traditional one.

1. Quick Access to Market

As we discussed earlier, the lean business plan is famous for being less time-consuming as it doesn’t involve many details. Moreover, it requires less time to make a lean business plan than the traditional one.

All these factors help the business to introduce its product in the market early. Therefore, the lean business plan is extremely efficient and beneficial in highly competitive or time-sensitive markets.

2. Less Time and Money Spent

Since the lean business plan doesn’t contain much detail, no detailed analysis is done. Hence, less time and money is spent on constructing the lean business plan. For any business, especially for startups, this factor holds great significance.

Due to this trait of the lean business plan, even if the business crashes, not much time and money is wasted in constructing the business plan.

3. Attracts Investors

Every business is looking to catch investments to ensure the smooth running of the business. As a result, businesses that have lean business plans often attract investors compared to businesses with traditional business plans.

The reason why a lean business plan attracts more investors is that investors are busy people who have more money and less time. Therefore, any investor would read a one-page lean business plan but not be interested in reading a 50-page business plan.

Lean Business Plan: Final Word

At the end of this article, let’s summarise whatever we have discussed.

In this article, we gave you guys an insight into what a lean business plan is. We shed light on a traditional business plan and how a lean business plan differs from the traditional business plan.

Moreover, the components of the lean business plan were also highlighted. The lean business plan consists of business strategy, business tactics, schedule, forecasting, and budgeting.

Furthermore, to make you guys better understand what a lean business plan is, a template of the lean business plan was made available to the readers.

The differences between traditional and lean business plans are highlighted in this article. It was established that the lean business plan is more precise, less time-consuming, and less detailed.

In the end, some advantages of the lean business plan were discussed. For example, a lean business plan attracts more investors. Moreover, constructing a lean business plan is less costly and time-consuming. We hope that you’ll enjoy this article and gain awareness about the lean business plan.

Lean Business Plan Template

Create a plan that adds value without getting lost in the tiny details. monday.com's lean business plan template will help you create a streamlined visual that focuses on your business model, schedule, strategy, and tactics..

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Include key aspects, organize assets, collaborate with ease, lean business plan template key features.

• monday Workdocs Create your business plan on a collaborative document where stakeholders can add input without disrupting your work.
• Views Get the full picture of your strategy. Choose from views such as Gantt charts, Calendar, Kanban, Table, and others.

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Frequently asked questions.

• What is a lean business model? A lean business emphasises value and minimizes waste. This model focuses on optimizing processes to deliver value to the customer.
• What is a lean start up plan? A lean startup business plan is a short roadmap that specifies the startup's goals and what's needed to reach them. This plan often begins by identifying a problem and solution.

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FigJam Keep it clean with a lean startup canvas template

Condense your brand new lean business model and plan to a single page, then expand on it with myriad more tools and templates from FigJam.

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Put ideas into perspective: View all of your thoughts and dreams in a single customizable document.

Push past pitfalls: Plan ahead to anticipate common challenges and stretch toward success.

FigJam Go from startup to superstardom, together

Starting a business takes a lot of work—and it also requires a dedicated team. Bring everyone together in a collaborative online lean business model canvas to compare notes via comments, stickies, or voice messages, and create drawings and designs when words won’t do the trick.

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What is a lean startup canvas?

A lean startup canvas is a one-pager that captures the essential information about a new business or opportunity in one place. Somewhere between a business plan and a company factsheet, a startup canvas can act as a map in the early days of building a business empire.

Lean startup canvases encourage you to think about vital tidbits that future partners and investors will want to know. While startup canvases vary in their content, typical sections to fill out include:

- Company name

- Value proposition

- Cost structure

- Revenue streams

- Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Should startups use a business model canvas or a lean canvas?

Business model canvas, lean startup—which one makes the most sense? In truth, the answer to this question comes down to personal preference. With that said, the stripped-back format of a lean canvas may be more suited to those setting out on a new venture.

Because a lean canvas gives you all the essentials and none of the fluff, it's an ideal choice for the busy business owner in startup mode.

Where do I start with a lean canvas?

If you’re short on time—and, as an entrepreneur, you probably are—your best bet is to start with a lean startup canvas example from FigJam. With pre-made templates at your disposal, you can focus more on building your business than building your one-sheet.

In terms of where to start once you have your template, that can be trickier. If you already have a clear vision, you may be able to gather your partners and start filling out each category right away. If you’re still in the early stages, you might find it helpful to just brainstorm about who you are and what you hope to do. With a few of those ideas in the margins of your template, you can start to answer every thought-provoking question in earnest.

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Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything

• Steve Blank

In the past few years, a new methodology for launching companies, called “the lean start-up,” has begun to replace the old regimen. Traditionally, a venture’s founders would write a business plan, complete with a five-year forecast, use it to raise money, and then go into “stealth mode” to develop their offerings, all without getting much feedback from the people they intended to sell to. Lean start-ups, in contrast, begin by searching for a business model. They test, revise, and discard hypotheses, continually gathering customer feedback and rapidly iterating on and reengineering their products. This strategy greatly reduces the chances that start-ups will spend a lot of time and money launching products that no one actually will pay for.

Blank, a consulting associate professor at Stanford, is one of the architects of the lean start-up movement and has seen this approach help businesses get off the ground quickly and successfully. He believes that if it’s widely adopted, it would reduce the incidence of start-up failure. In combination with other trends, such as open source software and the democratization of venture financing, it could ignite a new, more entrepreneurial economy.

There are numerous indicators that the approach is catching on: Business schools and universities are incorporating lean start-up principles into their curricula. Even more interesting, large companies like GE are applying them to internal innovation initiatives.

A faster, smarter methodology for launching companies may make business plans obsolete.

Launching a new enterprise—whether it’s a tech start-up, a small business, or an initiative within a large corporation—has always been a hit-or-miss proposition. According to the decades-old formula, you write a business plan, pitch it to investors, assemble a team, introduce a product, and start selling as hard as you can. And somewhere in this sequence of events, you’ll probably suffer a fatal setback. The odds are not with you: As new research by Harvard Business School’s Shikhar Ghosh shows, 75% of all start-ups fail.

• SB Steve Blank is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, a senior fellow at Columbia University, and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been either a cofounder or an early employee at eight high-tech start-ups, and he helped start the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and the Hacking for Defense and Hacking for Diplomacy programs. He blogs at www.steveblank.com .

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How to start a business from scratch (in 5 doable steps).

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Entrepreneurial aspirations? Starting a business from scratch is easier than you might think.

The best way to start a business depends on the type of business you want and your individual situation. Ideal side hustles for college students are different than for stay-at-home parents . If you’re a talented baker, you’ll need a different plan if you want to open your own bakery, versus selling a few of your items at the weekend farmers’ market, versus building a national franchise to rival Mrs. Field’s Cookies or Baked By Melissa. If you have dreamed of owning a pastry-related business, but you don’t bake, then you’ll need a different plan than the talented baker for any of the three options above.

Since aspiring entrepreneurs vary so widely in their interests, ideas and talents, no one post can account for all situations, but here are five foundational steps to start a business from scratch.

1. Decide If You Will Buddy Up Or Go Solo

Going solo means that you have free rein to make all the decisions – but then you have to make all decisions, including who your customer is, what you’ll offer, what price you’ll charge, how you’ll market your business and more. Starting a business with one or more other people divides up the work — but it also divides up the rewards. If you’re not 100% in agreement with your partner(s), you may find that the business does not match your vision or live up to your quality standards.

As you can see, there are pros and cons to starting a business with others versus alone. Do a candid self-assessment about whether you have the risk appetite, stamina and desire to go it alone. One compromise could be to start your business solo, but rent a co-working space so you are surrounded by others. Or, join a mastermind group or entrepreneurs association so you have an ecosystem of colleagues on a similar journey.

2. Look At Your Unique Competitive Advantages For Ideas

Once you have answered the partner versus solo question, you still need a business idea. Your partner might have a strong opinion on this. If not, or if you don’t have a partner, one smart way to tilt the odds of business success in your favor is to pick an area where you have a unique competitive advantage.

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For example, the talented baker who decides to open a pastry-related business has ability as their unique competitive advantage. Someone who worked for years in the food industry would have an experience advantage. Someone with culinary training has an education advantage. If you have a rabid interest in a subject — e.g., you might be an accountant by day but you frequent pastry shops every chance you get and read all about the industry — your enthusiasm can be your advantage.

3. Marshall Your Resources

In addition to an idea for your business, you’ll need to invest resources into it — not just money, but also your time. The amount of money you need to invest varies widely based on the type of business you’re starting. Product businesses where you need material and/or equipment to create your goods to sell are going to have much higher upfront costs than service businesses where you might be selling your knowledge and therefore have virtually zero upfront financial costs.

Time to get started also varies widely. If you need to build out a physical location (e.g., the bakery with kitchen) or retail store for your products, you will have a longer time investment before you can even make your first sale than the service entrepreneur who can start selling themselves with a relatively inexpensive, fast-build digital presence.

Calculate what money you need to invest to get your business started, as well as how long you’ll need to prepare before you can start selling. Compare this to your personal situation (e.g., do you already have a job, are you part of a dual-career couple or have other family commitments) to gauge how quickly and easily you will be able to get your business started. If you plan to leave your current job to start your business, include in your calculations the notice you’ll give to your current employer, as well as how you plan to meet the expenses that your paycheck used to cover.

4. Check The Legal Requirements Your Business Needs To Meet

A bakery business selling at a farmers’ market faces different food safety requirements than if they open a physical store or operate a mail-order business. If you have workers, there are labor requirements to meet. Even if you are a solo business owner offering services, you might need to have a license or certification for that service. Businesses also need to comply with insurance and tax requirements.

Because requirements vary, not only by business, but also by geography (e.g., bakers at farmers’ markets in Maine vs. Florida). Your local library, community business school or SCORE chapter ( SCORE is a national nonprofit that provides small business mentoring) can help you research the rules that apply to your business. As you’re researching the business you hope to start, your enthusiasm for digging into these details is a good test of how serious you are about your business idea!

5. Make Your First Sale

The best feedback on your business new idea comes from your customer’s wallet. If someone is willing to spend money on something, then you have uncovered a genuine need or desire for whatever you are selling. If you’re selling a service, start offering it as soon as you have bandwidth to deliver it. Making your first sale will prove your concept has a market, and it will also help you gauge firsthand if you like delivering this service. You can also start testing your prices and how to structure your offering.

If you have a more involved business — e.g., the baker planning to open a store — see if you can sell some of your products in advance. For example, you can cater events, and you can see people’s reactions to your creations firsthand. You might even get some testimonials for your ad campaign. Or, you can start by selling via other stores or at farmers’ markets — to gauge reactions, get testimonials, test product variety and test pricing. Focusing on early sales also gives your business some much-needed cash flow upfront.

Start As Cheaply As Possible

Notice that these first steps — focusing on sales, doing research using libraries or free providers like SCORE — are really focused on getting your business up to the first sale as cheaply as possible. It takes time for any new venture to gain traction, so by running a lean business, you give it more time to be successful. Starting a business is not about buying business cards (you can start with word-of-mouth) or building a website (use existing social platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn) or running ads (build a following on social media to build a following on social media). You can start a business without necessarily spending a lot of money.

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