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What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates

Published: June 07, 2023

In an era where more than 20% of small enterprises fail in their first year, having a clear, defined, and well-thought-out business plan is a crucial first step for setting up a business for long-term success.

Business plans are a required tool for all entrepreneurs, business owners, business acquirers, and even business school students. But … what exactly is a business plan?

In this post, we'll explain what a business plan is, the reasons why you'd need one, identify different types of business plans, and what you should include in yours.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a documented strategy for a business that highlights its goals and its plans for achieving them. It outlines a company's go-to-market plan, financial projections, market research, business purpose, and mission statement. Key staff who are responsible for achieving the goals may also be included in the business plan along with a timeline.

The business plan is an undeniably critical component to getting any company off the ground. It's key to securing financing, documenting your business model, outlining your financial projections, and turning that nugget of a business idea into a reality.

What is a business plan used for?

The purpose of a business plan is three-fold: It summarizes the organization’s strategy in order to execute it long term, secures financing from investors, and helps forecast future business demands.

Business Plan Template [ Download Now ]

Working on your business plan? Try using our Business Plan Template . Pre-filled with the sections a great business plan needs, the template will give aspiring entrepreneurs a feel for what a business plan is, what should be in it, and how it can be used to establish and grow a business from the ground up.

Purposes of a Business Plan

Chances are, someone drafting a business plan will be doing so for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Securing financing from investors.

Since its contents revolve around how businesses succeed, break even, and turn a profit, a business plan is used as a tool for sourcing capital. This document is an entrepreneur's way of showing potential investors or lenders how their capital will be put to work and how it will help the business thrive.

All banks, investors, and venture capital firms will want to see a business plan before handing over their money, and investors typically expect a 10% ROI or more from the capital they invest in a business.

Therefore, these investors need to know if — and when — they'll be making their money back (and then some). Additionally, they'll want to read about the process and strategy for how the business will reach those financial goals, which is where the context provided by sales, marketing, and operations plans come into play.

2. Documenting a company's strategy and goals.

A business plan should leave no stone unturned.

Business plans can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, affording their drafters the opportunity to explain what a business' goals are and how the business will achieve them.

To show potential investors that they've addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies — from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

These explanations should ultimately lead to a business' break-even point supported by a sales forecast and financial projections, with the business plan writer being able to speak to the why behind anything outlined in the plan.

Free Business Plan Template

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

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Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Free Business Plan [Template]

Fill out the form to access your free business plan., 3. legitimizing a business idea..

Everyone's got a great idea for a company — until they put pen to paper and realize that it's not exactly feasible.

A business plan is an aspiring entrepreneur's way to prove that a business idea is actually worth pursuing.

As entrepreneurs document their go-to-market process, capital needs, and expected return on investment, entrepreneurs likely come across a few hiccups that will make them second guess their strategies and metrics — and that's exactly what the business plan is for.

It ensures an entrepreneur's ducks are in a row before bringing their business idea to the world and reassures the readers that whoever wrote the plan is serious about the idea, having put hours into thinking of the business idea, fleshing out growth tactics, and calculating financial projections.

4. Getting an A in your business class.

Speaking from personal experience, there's a chance you're here to get business plan ideas for your Business 101 class project.

If that's the case, might we suggest checking out this post on How to Write a Business Plan — providing a section-by-section guide on creating your plan?

What does a business plan need to include?

• Business Plan Subtitle
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• The Business Opportunity
• Competitive Analysis
• Target Market
• Marketing Plan
• Financial Summary
• Funding Requirements

1. Business Plan Subtitle

Every great business plan starts with a captivating title and subtitle. You’ll want to make it clear that the document is, in fact, a business plan, but the subtitle can help tell the story of your business in just a short sentence.

2. Executive Summary

Although this is the last part of the business plan that you’ll write, it’s the first section (and maybe the only section) that stakeholders will read. The executive summary of a business plan sets the stage for the rest of the document. It includes your company’s mission or vision statement, value proposition, and long-term goals.

3. Company Description

This brief part of your business plan will detail your business name, years in operation, key offerings, and positioning statement. You might even add core values or a short history of the company. The company description’s role in a business plan is to introduce your business to the reader in a compelling and concise way.

4. The Business Opportunity

The business opportunity should convince investors that your organization meets the needs of the market in a way that no other company can. This section explains the specific problem your business solves within the marketplace and how it solves them. It will include your value proposition as well as some high-level information about your target market.

5. Competitive Analysis

Just about every industry has more than one player in the market. Even if your business owns the majority of the market share in your industry or your business concept is the first of its kind, you still have competition. In the competitive analysis section, you’ll take an objective look at the industry landscape to determine where your business fits. A SWOT analysis is an organized way to format this section.

6. Target Market

Who are the core customers of your business and why? The target market portion of your business plan outlines this in detail. The target market should explain the demographics, psychographics, behavioristics, and geographics of the ideal customer.

7. Marketing Plan

Marketing is expansive, and it’ll be tempting to cover every type of marketing possible, but a brief overview of how you’ll market your unique value proposition to your target audience, followed by a tactical plan will suffice.

Think broadly and narrow down from there: Will you focus on a slow-and-steady play where you make an upfront investment in organic customer acquisition? Or will you generate lots of quick customers using a pay-to-play advertising strategy? This kind of information should guide the marketing plan section of your business plan.

8. Financial Summary

Money doesn’t grow on trees and even the most digital, sustainable businesses have expenses. Outlining a financial summary of where your business is currently and where you’d like it to be in the future will substantiate this section. Consider including any monetary information that will give potential investors a glimpse into the financial health of your business. Assets, liabilities, expenses, debt, investments, revenue, and more are all useful adds here.

So, you’ve outlined some great goals, the business opportunity is valid, and the industry is ready for what you have to offer. Who’s responsible for turning all this high-level talk into results? The "team" section of your business plan answers that question by providing an overview of the roles responsible for each goal. Don’t worry if you don’t have every team member on board yet, knowing what roles to hire for is helpful as you seek funding from investors.

10. Funding Requirements

Remember that one of the goals of a business plan is to secure funding from investors, so you’ll need to include funding requirements you’d like them to fulfill. The amount your business needs, for what reasons, and for how long will meet the requirement for this section.

Types of Business Plans

• Startup Business Plan
• Feasibility Business Plan
• Internal Business Plan
• Strategic Business Plan
• Business Acquisition Plan
• Business Repositioning Plan
• Expansion or Growth Business Plan

There’s no one size fits all business plan as there are several types of businesses in the market today. From startups with just one founder to historic household names that need to stay competitive, every type of business needs a business plan that’s tailored to its needs. Below are a few of the most common types of business plans.

For even more examples, check out these sample business plans to help you write your own .

1. Startup Business Plan

As one of the most common types of business plans, a startup business plan is for new business ideas. This plan lays the foundation for the eventual success of a business.

The biggest challenge with the startup business plan is that it’s written completely from scratch. Startup business plans often reference existing industry data. They also explain unique business strategies and go-to-market plans.

Because startup business plans expand on an original idea, the contents will vary by the top priority goals.

For example, say a startup is looking for funding. If capital is a priority, this business plan might focus more on financial projections than marketing or company culture.

2. Feasibility Business Plan

This type of business plan focuses on a single essential aspect of the business — the product or service. It may be part of a startup business plan or a standalone plan for an existing organization. This comprehensive plan may include:

• A detailed product description
• Market analysis
• Technology needs
• Production needs
• Financial sources
• Production operations

According to CBInsights research, 35% of startups fail because of a lack of market need. Another 10% fail because of mistimed products.

Some businesses will complete a feasibility study to explore ideas and narrow product plans to the best choice. They conduct these studies before completing the feasibility business plan. Then the feasibility plan centers on that one product or service.

3. Internal Business Plan

Internal business plans help leaders communicate company goals, strategy, and performance. This helps the business align and work toward objectives more effectively.

Besides the typical elements in a startup business plan, an internal business plan may also include:

• Department-specific budgets
• Target demographic analysis
• Market size and share of voice analysis
• Action plans
• Sustainability plans

Most external-facing business plans focus on raising capital and support for a business. But an internal business plan helps keep the business mission consistent in the face of change.

4. Strategic Business Plan

Strategic business plans focus on long-term objectives for your business. They usually cover the first three to five years of operations. This is different from the typical startup business plan which focuses on the first one to three years. The audience for this plan is also primarily internal stakeholders.

These types of business plans may include:

• Relevant data and analysis
• Assessments of company resources
• Vision and mission statements

It's important to remember that, while many businesses create a strategic plan before launching, some business owners just jump in. So, this business plan can add value by outlining how your business plans to reach specific goals. This type of planning can also help a business anticipate future challenges.

5. Business Acquisition Plan

Investors use business plans to acquire existing businesses, too — not just new businesses.

A business acquisition plan may include costs, schedules, or management requirements. This data will come from an acquisition strategy.

A business plan for an existing company will explain:

• How an acquisition will change its operating model
• What will stay the same under new ownership
• Why things will change or stay the same
• Acquisition planning documentation
• Timelines for acquisition

Additionally, the business plan should speak to the current state of the business and why it's up for sale.

For example, if someone is purchasing a failing business, the business plan should explain why the business is being purchased. It should also include:

• What the new owner will do to turn the business around
• Historic business metrics
• Sales projections after the acquisition
• Justification for those projections

6. Business Repositioning Plan

When a business wants to avoid acquisition, reposition its brand, or try something new, CEOs or owners will develop a business repositioning plan.

This plan will:

• Acknowledge the current state of the company.
• State a vision for the future of the company.
• Explain why the business needs to reposition itself.
• Outline a process for how the company will adjust.

Companies planning for a business reposition often do so — proactively or retroactively — due to a shift in market trends and customer needs.

For example, shoe brand AllBirds plans to refocus its brand on core customers and shift its go-to-market strategy. These decisions are a reaction to lackluster sales following product changes and other missteps.

7. Expansion or Growth Business Plan

When your business is ready to expand, a growth business plan creates a useful structure for reaching specific targets.

For example, a successful business expanding into another location can use a growth business plan. This is because it may also mean the business needs to focus on a new target market or generate more capital.

This type of plan usually covers the next year or two of growth. It often references current sales, revenue, and successes. It may also include:

• SWOT analysis
• Growth opportunity studies
• Financial goals and plans
• Marketing plans
• Capability planning

These types of business plans will vary by business, but they can help businesses quickly rally around new priorities to drive growth.

Getting Started With Your Business Plan

At the end of the day, a business plan is simply an explanation of a business idea and why it will be successful. The more detail and thought you put into it, the more successful your plan — and the business it outlines — will be.

When writing your business plan, you’ll benefit from extensive research, feedback from your team or board of directors, and a solid template to organize your thoughts. If you need one of these, download HubSpot's Free Business Plan Template below to get started.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Simple Business Plan

By Joe Weller | October 11, 2021

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A business plan is the cornerstone of any successful company, regardless of size or industry. This step-by-step guide provides information on writing a business plan for organizations at any stage, complete with free templates and expert advice. 

Included on this page, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan and a chart to identify which type of business plan you should write . Plus, find information on how a business plan can help grow a business and expert tips on writing one .

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that communicates a company’s goals and ambitions, along with the timeline, finances, and methods needed to achieve them. Additionally, it may include a mission statement and details about the specific products or services offered.

A business plan can highlight varying time periods, depending on the stage of your company and its goals. That said, a typical business plan will include the following benchmarks:

• Product goals and deadlines for each month
• Monthly financials for the first two years
• Profit and loss statements for the first three to five years
• Balance sheet projections for the first three to five years

Startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses all create business plans to use as a guide as their new company progresses. Larger organizations may also create (and update) a business plan to keep high-level goals, financials, and timelines in check.

While you certainly need to have a formalized outline of your business’s goals and finances, creating a business plan can also help you determine a company’s viability, its profitability (including when it will first turn a profit), and how much money you will need from investors. In turn, a business plan has functional value as well: Not only does outlining goals help keep you accountable on a timeline, it can also attract investors in and of itself and, therefore, act as an effective strategy for growth.

For more information, visit our comprehensive guide to writing a strategic plan or download free strategic plan templates . This page focuses on for-profit business plans, but you can read our article with nonprofit business plan templates .

Business Plan Steps

The specific information in your business plan will vary, depending on the needs and goals of your venture, but a typical plan includes the following ordered elements:

• Executive summary
• Description of business
• Market analysis
• Competitive analysis
• Description of organizational management
• Description of product or services
• Marketing plan
• Sales strategy
• Funding details (or request for funding)
• Financial projections

If your plan is particularly long or complicated, consider adding a table of contents or an appendix for reference. For an in-depth description of each step listed above, read “ How to Write a Business Plan Step by Step ” below.

Broadly speaking, your audience includes anyone with a vested interest in your organization. They can include potential and existing investors, as well as customers, internal team members, suppliers, and vendors.

Do I Need a Simple or Detailed Plan?

Your business’s stage and intended audience dictates the level of detail your plan needs. Corporations require a thorough business plan — up to 100 pages. Small businesses or startups should have a concise plan focusing on financials and strategy.

How to Choose the Right Plan for Your Business

In order to identify which type of business plan you need to create, ask: “What do we want the plan to do?” Identify function first, and form will follow.

Use the chart below as a guide for what type of business plan to create:

Is the Order of Your Business Plan Important?

There is no set order for a business plan, with the exception of the executive summary, which should always come first. Beyond that, simply ensure that you organize the plan in a way that makes sense and flows naturally.

The Difference Between Traditional and Lean Business Plans

A traditional business plan follows the standard structure — because these plans encourage detail, they tend to require more work upfront and can run dozens of pages. A Lean business plan is less common and focuses on summarizing critical points for each section. These plans take much less work and typically run one page in length.

In general, you should use a traditional model for a legacy company, a large company, or any business that does not adhere to Lean (or another Agile method ). Use Lean if you expect the company to pivot quickly or if you already employ a Lean strategy with other business operations. Additionally, a Lean business plan can suffice if the document is for internal use only. Stick to a traditional version for investors, as they may be more sensitive to sudden changes or a high degree of built-in flexibility in the plan.

How to Write a Business Plan Step by Step

Writing a strong business plan requires research and attention to detail for each section. Below, you’ll find a 10-step guide to researching and defining each element in the plan.

Step 1: Executive Summary

The executive summary will always be the first section of your business plan. The goal is to answer the following questions:

• What is the vision and mission of the company?
• What are the company’s short- and long-term goals?

See our  roundup of executive summary examples and templates for samples. Read our executive summary guide to learn more about writing one.

Step 2: Description of Business

The goal of this section is to define the realm, scope, and intent of your venture. To do so, answer the following questions as clearly and concisely as possible:

• What business are we in?
• What does our business do?

Step 3: Market Analysis

In this section, provide evidence that you have surveyed and understand the current marketplace, and that your product or service satisfies a niche in the market. To do so, answer these questions:

• Who is our customer? 
• What does that customer value?

Step 4: Competitive Analysis

In many cases, a business plan proposes not a brand-new (or even market-disrupting) venture, but a more competitive version — whether via features, pricing, integrations, etc. — than what is currently available. In this section, answer the following questions to show that your product or service stands to outpace competitors:

• Who is the competition? 
• What do they do best? 
• What is our unique value proposition?

Step 5: Description of Organizational Management

In this section, write an overview of the team members and other key personnel who are integral to success. List roles and responsibilities, and if possible, note the hierarchy or team structure.

Step 6: Description of Products or Services

In this section, clearly define your product or service, as well as all the effort and resources that go into producing it. The strength of your product largely defines the success of your business, so it’s imperative that you take time to test and refine the product before launching into marketing, sales, or funding details.

Questions to answer in this section are as follows:

• What is the product or service?
• How do we produce it, and what resources are necessary for production?

Step 7: Marketing Plan

In this section, define the marketing strategy for your product or service. This doesn’t need to be as fleshed out as a full marketing plan , but it should answer basic questions, such as the following:

• Who is the target market (if different from existing customer base)?
• What channels will you use to reach your target market?
• What resources does your marketing strategy require, and do you have access to them?
• If possible, do you have a rough estimate of timeline and budget?
• How will you measure success?

Step 8: Sales Plan

Write an overview of the sales strategy, including the priorities of each cycle, steps to achieve these goals, and metrics for success. For the purposes of a business plan, this section does not need to be a comprehensive, in-depth sales plan , but can simply outline the high-level objectives and strategies of your sales efforts. 

Start by answering the following questions:

• What is the sales strategy?
• What are the tools and tactics you will use to achieve your goals?
• What are the potential obstacles, and how will you overcome them?
• What is the timeline for sales and turning a profit?
• What are the metrics of success?

Step 9: Funding Details (or Request for Funding)

This section is one of the most critical parts of your business plan, particularly if you are sharing it with investors. You do not need to provide a full financial plan, but you should be able to answer the following questions:

• How much capital do you currently have? How much capital do you need?
• How will you grow the team (onboarding, team structure, training and development)?
• What are your physical needs and constraints (space, equipment, etc.)?

Step 10: Financial Projections

Apart from the fundraising analysis, investors like to see thought-out financial projections for the future. As discussed earlier, depending on the scope and stage of your business, this could be anywhere from one to five years. 

While these projections won’t be exact — and will need to be somewhat flexible — you should be able to gauge the following:

• How and when will the company first generate a profit?
• How will the company maintain profit thereafter?

Business Plan Template

Download Business Plan Template

Microsoft Excel | Smartsheet

This basic business plan template has space for all the traditional elements: an executive summary, product or service details, target audience, marketing and sales strategies, etc. In the finances sections, input your baseline numbers, and the template will automatically calculate projections for sales forecasting, financial statements, and more.

For templates tailored to more specific needs, visit this business plan template roundup or download a fill-in-the-blank business plan template to make things easy. 

If you are looking for a particular template by file type, visit our pages dedicated exclusively to Microsoft Excel , Microsoft Word , and Adobe PDF business plan templates.

How to Write a Simple Business Plan

A simple business plan is a streamlined, lightweight version of the large, traditional model. As opposed to a one-page business plan , which communicates high-level information for quick overviews (such as a stakeholder presentation), a simple business plan can exceed one page.

Below are the steps for creating a generic simple business plan, which are reflected in the template below .

• Write the Executive Summary This section is the same as in the traditional business plan — simply offer an overview of what’s in the business plan, the prospect or core offering, and the short- and long-term goals of the company. 
• Add a Company Overview Document the larger company mission and vision. 
• Provide the Problem and Solution In straightforward terms, define the problem you are attempting to solve with your product or service and how your company will attempt to do it. Think of this section as the gap in the market you are attempting to close.
• Identify the Target Market Who is your company (and its products or services) attempting to reach? If possible, briefly define your buyer personas .
• Write About the Competition In this section, demonstrate your knowledge of the market by listing the current competitors and outlining your competitive advantage.
• Describe Your Product or Service Offerings Get down to brass tacks and define your product or service. What exactly are you selling?
• Outline Your Marketing Tactics Without getting into too much detail, describe your planned marketing initiatives.
• Add a Timeline and the Metrics You Will Use to Measure Success Offer a rough timeline, including milestones and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will use to measure your progress.
• Include Your Financial Forecasts Write an overview of your financial plan that demonstrates you have done your research and adequate modeling. You can also list key assumptions that go into this forecasting. 
• Identify Your Financing Needs This section is where you will make your funding request. Based on everything in the business plan, list your proposed sources of funding, as well as how you will use it.

Simple Business Plan Template

Download Simple Business Plan Template

Microsoft Excel |  Microsoft Word | Adobe PDF  | Smartsheet

Use this simple business plan template to outline each aspect of your organization, including information about financing and opportunities to seek out further funding. This template is completely customizable to fit the needs of any business, whether it’s a startup or large company.

Read our article offering free simple business plan templates or free 30-60-90-day business plan templates to find more tailored options. You can also explore our collection of one page business templates . 

How to Write a Business Plan for a Lean Startup

A Lean startup business plan is a more Agile approach to a traditional version. The plan focuses more on activities, processes, and relationships (and maintains flexibility in all aspects), rather than on concrete deliverables and timelines.

While there is some overlap between a traditional and a Lean business plan, you can write a Lean plan by following the steps below:

• Add Your Value Proposition Take a streamlined approach to describing your product or service. What is the unique value your startup aims to deliver to customers? Make sure the team is aligned on the core offering and that you can state it in clear, simple language.
• List Your Key Partners List any other businesses you will work with to realize your vision, including external vendors, suppliers, and partners. This section demonstrates that you have thoughtfully considered the resources you can provide internally, identified areas for external assistance, and conducted research to find alternatives.
• Note the Key Activities Describe the key activities of your business, including sourcing, production, marketing, distribution channels, and customer relationships.
• Include Your Key Resources List the critical resources — including personnel, equipment, space, and intellectual property — that will enable you to deliver your unique value.
• Identify Your Customer Relationships and Channels In this section, document how you will reach and build relationships with customers. Provide a high-level map of the customer experience from start to finish, including the spaces in which you will interact with the customer (online, retail, etc.). 
• Detail Your Marketing Channels Describe the marketing methods and communication platforms you will use to identify and nurture your relationships with customers. These could be email, advertising, social media, etc.
• Explain the Cost Structure This section is especially necessary in the early stages of a business. Will you prioritize maximizing value or keeping costs low? List the foundational startup costs and how you will move toward profit over time.
• Share Your Revenue Streams Over time, how will the company make money? Include both the direct product or service purchase, as well as secondary sources of revenue, such as subscriptions, selling advertising space, fundraising, etc.

Lean Business Plan Template for Startups

Download Lean Business Plan Template for Startups

Microsoft Word | Adobe PDF

Startup leaders can use this Lean business plan template to relay the most critical information from a traditional plan. You’ll find all the sections listed above, including spaces for industry and product overviews, cost structure and sources of revenue, and key metrics, and a timeline. The template is completely customizable, so you can edit it to suit the objectives of your Lean startups.

See our wide variety of  startup business plan templates for more options.

How to Write a Business Plan for a Loan

A business plan for a loan, often called a loan proposal , includes many of the same aspects of a traditional business plan, as well as additional financial documents, such as a credit history, a loan request, and a loan repayment plan.

In addition, you may be asked to include personal and business financial statements, a form of collateral, and equity investment information.

Download free financial templates to support your business plan.

Tips for Writing a Business Plan

Outside of including all the key details in your business plan, you have several options to elevate the document for the highest chance of winning funding and other resources. Follow these tips from experts:.

• Keep It Simple: Avner Brodsky , the Co-Founder and CEO of Lezgo Limited, an online marketing company, uses the acronym KISS (keep it short and simple) as a variation on this idea. “The business plan is not a college thesis,” he says. “Just focus on providing the essential information.”
• Do Adequate Research: Michael Dean, the Co-Founder of Pool Research , encourages business leaders to “invest time in research, both internal and external (market, finance, legal etc.). Avoid being overly ambitious or presumptive. Instead, keep everything objective, balanced, and accurate.” Your plan needs to stand on its own, and you must have the data to back up any claims or forecasting you make. As Brodsky explains, “Your business needs to be grounded on the realities of the market in your chosen location. Get the most recent data from authoritative sources so that the figures are vetted by experts and are reliable.”
• Set Clear Goals: Make sure your plan includes clear, time-based goals. “Short-term goals are key to momentum growth and are especially important to identify for new businesses,” advises Dean.
• Know (and Address) Your Weaknesses: “This awareness sets you up to overcome your weak points much quicker than waiting for them to arise,” shares Dean. Brodsky recommends performing a full SWOT analysis to identify your weaknesses, too. “Your business will fare better with self-knowledge, which will help you better define the mission of your business, as well as the strategies you will choose to achieve your objectives,” he adds.
• Seek Peer or Mentor Review: “Ask for feedback on your drafts and for areas to improve,” advises Brodsky. “When your mind is filled with dreams for your business, sometimes it is an outsider who can tell you what you’re missing and will save your business from being a product of whimsy.”

Outside of these more practical tips, the language you use is also important and may make or break your business plan.

Shaun Heng, VP of Operations at Coin Market Cap , gives the following advice on the writing, “Your business plan is your sales pitch to an investor. And as with any sales pitch, you need to strike the right tone and hit a few emotional chords. This is a little tricky in a business plan, because you also need to be formal and matter-of-fact. But you can still impress by weaving in descriptive language and saying things in a more elegant way.

“A great way to do this is by expanding your vocabulary, avoiding word repetition, and using business language. Instead of saying that something ‘will bring in as many customers as possible,’ try saying ‘will garner the largest possible market segment.’ Elevate your writing with precise descriptive words and you'll impress even the busiest investor.”

Additionally, Dean recommends that you “stay consistent and concise by keeping your tone and style steady throughout, and your language clear and precise. Include only what is 100 percent necessary.”

Resources for Writing a Business Plan

While a template provides a great outline of what to include in a business plan, a live document or more robust program can provide additional functionality, visibility, and real-time updates. The U.S. Small Business Association also curates resources for writing a business plan.

Additionally, you can use business plan software to house data, attach documentation, and share information with stakeholders. Popular options include LivePlan, Enloop, BizPlanner, PlanGuru, and iPlanner.

How a Business Plan Helps to Grow Your Business

A business plan — both the exercise of creating one and the document — can grow your business by helping you to refine your product, target audience, sales plan, identify opportunities, secure funding, and build new partnerships. 

Outside of these immediate returns, writing a business plan is a useful exercise in that it forces you to research the market, which prompts you to forge your unique value proposition and identify ways to beat the competition. Doing so will also help you build (and keep you accountable to) attainable financial and product milestones. And down the line, it will serve as a welcome guide as hurdles inevitably arise.

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The Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan Here's the no-nonsense guide on how to write a business plan that will help you map success for your startup.

By Carolyn Sun

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." If you're starting a business, you should have a business plan regardless of whether you're bootstrapping it or looking for outside funding.

The best sorts of business plans tell a clear story of what the company plans to do and how it will do it. Given the high failure rate of startups in their first year, a business plan is also an ideal opportunity to safely test out the feasibility of a business and spot flaws, set aside unrealistic projections and identify and analyze the competition.

A business plan doesn't need to be complicated, but for it to serve its purpose and set you up for success, it must be clear to whomever is reading your plan that you have a realistic handle on the why and how your business will be a success.

To get you moving in the right direction, here's a guide on how to write a business plan.

Overall tips

There's a lot of advice in the infosphere about how to write a business plan, but there's no single correct way. Your approach depends on your industry, who is reading your plan and what the plan is intended for. Are you trying to get funding? Sara Sutton Fell, founder of FlexJobs , a job site for flexible telecommuting jobs, says her business plan was an initiator for more in-depth conversation with potential investors. "A plan does help to see if investors and entrepreneurs are on the same page with general expectations for the business," she says.

A business plan serves many purposes, but there is universal consensus on the following when it comes to your business plan:

Have several versions tailored for specific audiences: "One of the mistakes that inexperienced business owners make is not understanding who they're writing the plan for," says David Ciccarelli, a small business owner who got consultation from his local Small Business Association (SBA) when he was starting his company Voices.com , which connects employers with voiceover talent.

Your plan is a living document: Tim Berry, the founder of a business planning software company Palo Alto Software , took his company from zero to $5 million in sales in its first three years. To do so requires frequent review and close tracking, says Berry, who met with his management team every month to review the plan versus what actually happened -- and then to revise. "There is no virtue to sticking to a plan if it's not useful and responsive to what actually happens," he cautions.

Be realistic about financial estimates and projections: "When you present a plan to bankers and financiers, or even to your employees, people will get way more excited about what's real rather than some huge thing that's never going to happen," says Ciccarelli. So present an achievable sales forecasts based on bottom-upwards information (i.e. how many units per month get sold in how many stores) and stop over projecting profits.

Writing your business plan is about the process and having a blueprint: Your business plan "reflects your ideas, intuitions, instincts and insights about your business and its future," according to Write Your Business Plan (Entrepreneur, 2015). The plan serves as a safe way to test these out before you commit to a course of action. And once you get your business going, the plan also serves as a reference point. "I still print the document," says Ciccarelli. "You're capturing it in time. If you're changing it all the time, you kind of don't remember where you were last year."

Back up any claims: Follow up your projections and assertions with statistics, facts or quotes from a knowledgeable source to lend your plan credibility.

Presentation counts: Reading any long, text-heavy document is hard on the eyes, so format with this in mind. Consider formatting your text pages into two-columns and break up long passages with charts or graphs. Arial, Verdana or Times New Roman are standard industry fonts.

Writing your business plan isn't busy work or a luxury; it's a vital part of the process of starting a business and arms you with information you need to know. So, let's get into what information goes into your business plan.

Related: Bu siness Plans: A Step-by-Step Guide

What goes into a business plan?

A typical business plan is 15 to 25 pages. Its length depends on a variety of factors, such as whether your business is introducing a new product or belongs to a new industry (which requires explanation to the reader), or if you're pitching to bankers, who generally expect to see a traditional written business plan and financials.

"Most equity investors prefer either an executive summary or pitch deck for first contact, but will often request a more detailed plan later in the due diligence process. Potential customers don't need all the details of your internal operation. Your management team needs access to everything," says Akira Hirai, managing director of business plan consulting service Cayenne Consulting .

Most business plans include these seven sections:

1. Executive summary : The executive summary follows the title page and explains the fundamentals of your business. It should provide a short and clear synopsis of your business plan that describes your business concept, financial features and requirements (i.e. cash flow and sales projections plus capital needed), your company's current business position (i.e. its legal form of operation, when the company was formed, principals and key personnel) and any major achievements in the company that are relevant to its success, including patents, prototypes or results from test marketing.

2. Business description : This section typically begins with a brief description of your industry and its outlook. Get into the various markets within the industry, including any new products that will benefit or hurt your business. For those seeking funding, reinforce your data with reliable sources and footnote when possible. Also provide a description of your business operation's structure (i.e. wholesale, retail or service-oriented), who you will sell to, how you will distribute your products/services, the products/services itself (what gives you the competitive edge), your business's legal structure, your principals and what they bring to the organization.

Here are some worksheets from Write Your Business Plan that will help determine your unique selling proposition and analyze your industry.

Click to Enlarge+

3. Market strategies: Here is where you define your target market and how you plan to reach them. Market analysis requires research and familiarity with the market so that the target market can be defined and the company can be positioned (i.e. are you a premium product or a price-competitive product?) in order to garner its market share. Analyze your market in terms of size, structure, growth prospects, trends and sales/growth potential. This section also talks about distribution plans and promotion strategy and tactics that will allow you to fulfill your plans.

Here is a worksheet from Write Your Business Plan that will guide you toward identifying your target market.

4. Competitive analysis: The purpose of the competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within your market, strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage, the barriers that can be developed in order to prevent competition from entering your market, and any weaknesses that can be exploited within the product development cycle. Show why your business will be a success over others.

5. Design and development plan: You will only need this section if you have a product in development, such as an app. The purpose of this section is to provide investors with a description of the product's design, chart its development within the context of production and marketing and show a development budget that will enable the company to reach its goals.

6. Operations and management plan: This section describes how the business functions on a daily basis, its location, equipment, people, processes and surrounding environment. If you have a product that needs to be manufactured, explain the how and where; also, describe your work facility, the personnel, the legal environment (such as licensing, permits, special regulations, etc.), key suppliers and inventory. This section will also highlight the logistics of the organization such as the various responsibilities of the management team and the tasks assigned to each division within the company.

7. Financial factors: Financial data is always at the back of a business plan -- yet it's extremely important. The financial data can include your personal financial statement, startup expenses and capital, your projected cash flow statement and 12-month profit-and-loss statement. PaloAlto's Berry stresses that if you're going after investors, you'll need to show a cash flow statement and a break-even analysis -- or the breakdown to see where your business breaks even.

The best way to prepare for running a business is to have all the components of the plan ready. So if you are are showing a prospective lender your business plan on 10 PowerPoint slides and get asked about something that isn't in the presentation, you can speak knowledgeably and follow up with a more fleshed out plan -- and quickly.

Some business owners hire business plan writing services. Cayenne Consulting's Hirai says that his clients generally fall into one of two categories: those intimidated by the process and those who could write the plan themselves but would prefer to spend their time on other priorities.

If you find yourself intimidated or stuck, you can always write the parts of plan yourself that you understand and hire a consultant or researcher to help with parts that you find confusing.

Or if you're a startup watching every dollar, then tap the free services of the federal Small Business Association (SBA). Every state has a district office . Through the SBA, you can get business plan assistance through its various resource partners, which includes Women's Business Centers , Small Business Development Centers and Service Corps of Retired Executives .

Allow this business plan template for Business Plan for a Startup Business to guide you:

Different types of business plans

Generally, business plans can be divided into four categories :

Working plan: This plan is what you will use to operate your business and is not meant to be admired. This version of your plan is an internal document and will be long on detail, short on presentation. Here, you can omit descriptions that you need not explain to yourself or your team.

Mini plan: The reader may request a mini plan, or a condensed version of your business plan (1-10 pages), which includes most of the same components as in a longer traditional plan -- minus the details and explanation. This includes the business concept, financing needs, marketing plan, financial statements (especially cash flow), income project and balance sheet. This shorter plan is not meant to be a substitute for a full-length plan, but serves as an option to present to potential partners or investors.

Presentation plan: Whether you're using a pitch deck or a written business plan, the information in your presentation plan will be, more or less, the same as in your working plan but worded differently and styled for the eyes of an outsider. The reader of your presentation plan will be someone who is unfamiliar with your business, such as investor or venture capitalist, so lose any jargon or shorthand from your working plan, which only makes sense to you. Also, keep in mind that investors will want to see due diligence on your competition threats and risks as well as financial projections. In addition, looks count, so use the color printer, a nice cover and bindings and the fancy paper stock. Or else, if you're presenting your business plan as a PowerPoint presentation, you can use this business plan presentation template .

What-if plan: This is a contingency plan -- in case your worst case scenario happens, such as market share loss, heavy price competition or defection of a key member of your team. You want to think about what to do in the face of an of these, and if you're trying to get outside funds, having a contingency plan shows that you've considered what to do if things don't go according to plan. You don't necessarily need this, but if you are getting outside funding, then it can strengthen your credibility showing that you have thought about these what-if possibilities. Even if you're not going to get outside funding, shouldn't you be thinking of the what ifs?

If four plans seem like a mountain of work, don't panic. Select two to start off -- a working plan and a mini plan, which will be an abbreviated version of your working plan.

Take several months to write your business plan. Consider it a journey, not a sprint.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Business Plan

Carolyn Sun is a freelance writer for Entrepreneur.com. Find out more on Twitter  and  Facebook . 

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What is a Business Plan? Definition and Resources

9 min. read

Updated April 8, 2024

If you’ve ever jotted down a business idea on a napkin with a few tasks you need to accomplish, you’ve written a business plan — or at least the very basic components of one.

The origin of formal business plans is murky. But they certainly go back centuries. And when you consider that 20% of new businesses fail in year 1 , and half fail within 5 years, the importance of thorough planning and research should be clear.

But just what is a business plan? And what’s required to move from a series of ideas to a formal plan? Here we’ll answer that question and explain why you need one to be a successful business owner.

• What is a business plan?

A business plan lays out a strategic roadmap for any new or growing business.

Any entrepreneur with a great idea for a business needs to conduct market research , analyze their competitors , validate their idea by talking to potential customers, and define their unique value proposition .

The business plan captures that opportunity you see for your company: it describes your product or service and business model , and the target market you’ll serve. 

It also includes details on how you’ll execute your plan: how you’ll price and market your solution and your financial projections .

Reasons for writing a business plan

If you’re asking yourself, ‘Do I really need to write a business plan?’ consider this fact: 

Companies that commit to planning grow 30% faster than those that don’t.

Creating a business plan is crucial for businesses of any size or stage. 

If you plan to raise funds for your business through a traditional bank loan or SBA loan , none of them will want to move forward without seeing your business plan. Venture capital firms may or may not ask for one, but you’ll still need to do thorough planning to create a pitch that makes them want to invest.

But it’s more than just a means of getting your business funded . The plan is also your roadmap to identify and address potential risks. 

It’s not a one-time document. Your business plan is a living guide to ensure your business stays on course.

Related: 14 of the top reasons why you need a business plan

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What research shows about business plans

Numerous studies have established that planning improves business performance:

• 71% of fast-growing companies have business plans that include budgets, sales goals, and marketing and sales strategies.
• Companies that clearly define their value proposition are more successful than those that can’t.
• Companies or startups with a business plan are more likely to get funding than those without one.
• Starting the business planning process before investing in marketing reduces the likelihood of business failure.

The planning process significantly impacts business growth for existing companies and startups alike.

Read More: Research-backed reasons why writing a business plan matters

When should you write a business plan?

No two business plans are alike. 

Yet there are similar questions for anyone considering writing a plan to answer. One basic but important question is when to start writing it.

A Harvard Business Review study found that the ideal time to write a business plan is between 6 and 12 months after deciding to start a business. 

But the reality can be more nuanced – it depends on the stage a business is in, or the type of business plan being written.

Ideal times to write a business plan include:

• When you have an idea for a business
• When you’re starting a business
• When you’re preparing to buy (or sell)
• When you’re trying to get funding
• When business conditions change
• When you’re growing or scaling your business

Read More: The best times to write or update your business plan

How often should you update your business plan?

As is often the case, how often a business plan should be updated depends on your circumstances.

A business plan isn’t a homework assignment to complete and forget about. At the same time, no one wants to get so bogged down in the details that they lose sight of day-to-day goals. 

But it should cover new opportunities and threats that a business owner surfaces, and incorporate feedback they get from customers. So it can’t be a static document.

For an entrepreneur at the ideation stage, writing and checking back on their business plan will help them determine if they can turn that idea into a profitable business .

And for owners of up-and-running businesses, updating the plan (or rewriting it) will help them respond to market shifts they wouldn’t be prepared for otherwise. 

It also lets them compare their forecasts and budgets to actual financial results. This invaluable process surfaces where a business might be out-performing expectations and where weak performance may require a prompt strategy change. 

The planning process is what uncovers those insights.

Related Reading: 10 prompts to help you write a business plan with AI

• How long should your business plan be?

Thinking about a business plan strictly in terms of page length can risk overlooking more important factors, like the level of detail or clarity in the plan. 

Not all of the plan consists of writing – there are also financial tables, graphs, and product illustrations to include.

But there are a few general rules to consider about a plan’s length:

• Your business plan shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to skim.
• Business plans for internal use (not for a bank loan or outside investment) can be as short as 5 to 10 pages.

A good practice is to write your business plan to match the expectations of your audience. 

If you’re walking into a bank looking for a loan, your plan should match the formal, professional style that a loan officer would expect . But if you’re writing it for stakeholders on your own team—shorter and less formal (even just a few pages) could be the better way to go.

The length of your plan may also depend on the stage your business is in. 

For instance, a startup plan won’t have nearly as much financial information to include as a plan written for an established company will.

Read More: How long should your business plan be?  

What information is included in a business plan?

The contents of a plan business plan will vary depending on the industry the business is in. 

After all, someone opening a new restaurant will have different customers, inventory needs, and marketing tactics to consider than someone bringing a new medical device to the market. 

But there are some common elements that most business plans include:

• Executive summary: An overview of the business operation, strategy, and goals. The executive summary should be written last, despite being the first thing anyone will read.
• Products and services: A description of the solution that a business is bringing to the market, emphasizing how it solves the problem customers are facing.
• Market analysis: An examination of the demographic and psychographic attributes of likely customers, resulting in the profile of an ideal customer for the business.
• Competitive analysis: Documenting the competitors a business will face in the market, and their strengths and weaknesses relative to those competitors.
• Marketing and sales plan: Summarizing a business’s tactics to position their product or service favorably in the market, attract customers, and generate revenue.
• Operational plan: Detailing the requirements to run the business day-to-day, including staffing, equipment, inventory, and facility needs.
• Organization and management structure: A listing of the departments and position breakdown of the business, as well as descriptions of the backgrounds and qualifications of the leadership team.
• Key milestones: Laying out the key dates that a business is projected to reach certain milestones , such as revenue, break-even, or customer acquisition goals.
• Financial plan: Balance sheets, cash flow forecast , and sales and expense forecasts with forward-looking financial projections, listing assumptions and potential risks that could affect the accuracy of the plan.
• Appendix: All of the supporting information that doesn’t fit into specific sections of the business plan, such as data and charts.

Read More: Use this business plan outline to organize your plan

• Different types of business plans

A business plan isn’t a one-size-fits-all document. There are numerous ways to create an effective business plan that fits entrepreneurs’ or established business owners’ needs. 

Here are a few of the most common types of business plans for small businesses:

• One-page plan : Outlining all of the most important information about a business into an adaptable one-page plan.
• Growth plan : An ongoing business management plan that ensures business tactics and strategies are aligned as a business scales up.
• Internal plan : A shorter version of a full business plan to be shared with internal stakeholders – ideal for established companies considering strategic shifts.

Business plan vs. operational plan vs. strategic plan

• What questions are you trying to answer? 
• Are you trying to lay out a plan for the actual running of your business?
• Is your focus on how you will meet short or long-term goals? 

Since your objective will ultimately inform your plan, you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish before you start writing.

While a business plan provides the foundation for a business, other types of plans support this guiding document.

An operational plan sets short-term goals for the business by laying out where it plans to focus energy and investments and when it plans to hit key milestones.

Then there is the strategic plan , which examines longer-range opportunities for the business, and how to meet those larger goals over time.

Read More: How to use a business plan for strategic development and operations

• Business plan vs. business model

If a business plan describes the tactics an entrepreneur will use to succeed in the market, then the business model represents how they will make money. 

The difference may seem subtle, but it’s important. 

Think of a business plan as the roadmap for how to exploit market opportunities and reach a state of sustainable growth. By contrast, the business model lays out how a business will operate and what it will look like once it has reached that growth phase.

Learn More: The differences between a business model and business plan

• Moving from idea to business plan

Now that you understand what a business plan is, the next step is to start writing your business plan . 

If you’re stuck, start with a one-page business plan template and check out our collection of over 550 business plan examples for inspiration. They’re broken out over dozens of industries—you can even copy and paste sections into your plan and rewrite them with information specific to your business.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

Table of Contents

• Reasons to write a business plan
• Business planning research
• When to write a business plan
• When to update a business plan
• Information to include
• Business vs. operational vs. strategic plans

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Blog Business

What is A Business Plan & How To Design It?

By Midori Nediger , Jul 11, 2023

A business plan outlines the goals of your business and how it plans to achieve them.

Real important – because without it, it’s like running a business in the dark. It’s like a roadmap that guides your company’s direction and helps everyone stay on track.

Gone are the days when designing a business plan from scratch was a time-consuming and challenging task. Today, business plan templates offer a convenient solution by providing pre-designed layouts that simplify the process.

In this blog, I’m going to break it down for you. I’ll share the six things you need to know to put together a compelling, engaging business plan. Ready to get started now? Venngage’s online Business Plan Maker  lets anyone create a winning business plan quickly and easily.

Click to jump ahead:

• How to format your business plan

Startup business plan templates

Simple business plan templates.

• How to write your business plan
• How to design an engaging executive summary
• How to use charts and graphs to present data
• How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

How to present financial data in your business plan

How to format your business plan.

To format your business plan:

• Start with a clear title page.
• Include an executive summary.
• Provide a company description.
• Conduct a market analysis.
• Describe your product or service offering.
• Outline your marketing and sales strategy.
• Include organizational or business structure and management information.

A typical business plan is an in-depth document and covers every facet of your business (present and future). Creating a traditional business plan makes sense when you have a clear growth plan for the next three to five years, are in need of major funding, or want to attract long-term partners.  

A professional business plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

A business plan can span a dozen or more pages because it presents the big picture, as complete as possible, to reassure others to invest in you. Investment can mean a few different things – usually financial, but also as partners or employees. 

The sections that can take a lot of research and add to the bulk of your business plan are your market analysis, marketing and sales plans, and financial projections. 

These are the sections that demonstrate your business acumen, your long-term vision, and your accountability. Whereas, sections like the executive summary are meant to grab attention, inspire and get people excited about your business. 

Start with a business plan template

To get started on your business plan, save yourself some time and use a template.

Most business plan templates will include things like a cover page, table of contents and the main sections you need. It will also have pre-formatted pages with placeholder text and charts that you can swap out. 

It takes time to do market research, present growth plans, put together financial projections, analyze your customer base, create competitor breakdowns…the list goes on.

The last thing you want to do is spend precious time formatting the resulting document. 

Save time by building your business plan from an existing business plan template, and customize it with your own content.

With a clean, consistent structure and clear headings, this template is the perfect starting point:

Then you’re free to customize the template with helpful visual elements like charts, tables, and diagrams, that will make your business pitch impossible to resist.

A Venngage business plan template is designed to help you communicate visually  and explain complex ideas easily. The right business plan template for you depends on the length and detail of your business plan, your brand and style, and the different sections you want to cover.

If your small business doesn’t have a dedicated design team, but you still need to learn how to write a business plan to present to investors–build off of a pre-designed business plan template:

There are just a handful of our business plan templates that can be customized in the Venngage editor. Browse more business plan templates,  choose one that’s best for you and start editing right away.

Structuring your startup business plan involves organizing it into sections such as executive summary, company description, market analysis, product/service offering, marketing and sales strategy, financial projections, and operational plan.

Here are some business plan template examples:

Short Business Plan Template

Number your pages and include a table of contents

A table of contents is crucial to help readers navigate your document and quickly find specific sections that are of interest to them.

It’s a good idea to include page numbers, main section headings, and section subheadings here for easy reference.

Keeping these tips in mind will ensure that your business plan design feels clean and professional and doesn’t distract from your content. You want your information, not your formatting, to be the focus!

How to write your business plan 

Here are three tips for writing your business plan to ensure it’s easy to read, appears professional and is memorable.

Use bulleted lists, bold text, and a clear type hierarchy for ‘skimmability’

Business plans need to be understandable at a glance to attract funding . Investors are looking for information that will help them understand your business quickly and without much effort.

Take a look at this snippet of the business plan template from above:

What stands out to you?

To me, the large green headers pop out first, making it easy to scan through the sections to find what I want to focus on.

This is because there’s a defined type hierarchy, giving more visual weight to the headers over the body text.

Next, the unique selling points of this business–superior quality products, unique glass carving and brass inlays, and excellent service–jump out. Because they’re presented in an indented list , they’re easier to see at a glance, which will likely make them more memorable.

Finally, I’m drawn to the bolded stats–“top 30% of the industry” and “4 out of 5 households spent money on renovation”.

Key statistics like these can go a long way towards convincing your investors that you’re worth their time and money. If you’re going to include them within larger paragraphs, make sure they stand out by increasing their font weight.

To sum up: make your report skimmable. Draw attention to important takeaways with indented lists, bolded text, and a clear type hierarchy.

Consider using a one-column or two-column grid

If your business plan contains only text, stick with a single-column layout that reinforces the linear flow of the document. If your business plan includes some supporting data in the form of charts and tables, use a two-column layout to juxtapose text with its corresponding data.

Maintain page margins that set text at a readable line length

When we read long passages of text, the ease at which we read depends on how the text flows on the page. Something called line length (the number of characters in a horizontal line of text) plays a huge role in readability, and is something you should consider when formatting your business plan.

To dictate line length, designers and typesetters play with the width of page margins (the edges of a document that don’t contain any text or images) with the aim of maximizing readability.

It’s generally accepted that the ideal line length sits somewhere between 40 and 90 characters per line. Any longer or shorter and you’ll find that something feels “off” about your document.

How do you achieve this in your business plan?

If you use a single-column layout, use nice wide margins (1 ½ to 2 inches) to limit your text to less than 90 characters per line.

With a two-column layout, you might need to use narrower margins (possibly as little as ½ an inch on either side) to make sure there’s enough space for at least 40 characters per line of text.

The last thing to remember about margins and line length–don’t play around with them from page to page. Use consistent margins across your whole document.

How to design an executive summary

An executive summary is a snapshot of your business plan. It should be concise and hook your readers. It should reassure stakeholders that your business plan will be a worthwhile read.

How you choose to structure your executive summary is key. You can deliver a lot of excellent information that simply gets lost in a sea of text and paragraphs. Even if someone reads through it entirely, they may have missed something.

To make key information stand out, use vibrant headings, incorporate visuals throughout, and break up the layout of your text.

Not every investor looks for the same thing. Some will care more about who you or your executive team are, while another is interested solely in the financials of the business. Identifying each section makes it easy for readers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

You can also list out the key takeaways, briefly explaining them in the executive summary. If your reader finds everything they needed to know in the executive summary, they’ll happily move onto the rest of the business plan.

Use one feature color to tie your business plan together

Color should be used with restraint in professional documents like business plans. Instead of adding color solely for aesthetic purposes, think of color selection as another tool to highlight information you want your reader to focus on and to tie the document together.

You shouldn’t need more than a single color (ideally one of your brand colors ) to achieve this in a business plan.

In business plan charts, color should be used only to clarify trends and relationships. Use color to emphasize single important data points, differentiate between real and projected values, or group related data:

In the rest of your business plan, keep color to a minimum. At most, use it to make headers stand out or to highlight key points in long-form text, diagrams, or tables.

The nice thing about keeping document colors this simple? It’s hard to mess up, and without any complex design work, it creates a sense of cohesion and unity within a document.

How to use charts and graphs to present your data

Since your business plan should be backed by solid data, you might want to include some of that data as evidence, in the form of  charts, tables or diagrams . Even simple visuals can communicate better than long paragraphs of text.

I’ll touch on some specific types of charts commonly used in business plans next, but first let’s review a few general chart design tactics.

Use descriptive titles and annotations to spell out chart takeaways

Avoid generic headers whenever possible. Maximize your chart’s value and impact by providing takeaway messages right in the title.

In the same vein, add direct annotations to data points or trends that support your case.

Repeating key messages within a chart, in the title, annotations, and captions, may improve viewers understanding and recall of those messages .

Aid understanding of market size and market share with area charts and pie charts

A market potential analysis is a fundamental pillar of your business plan. Market size and market share are two major components of a market potential analysis.

These numbers are typically in the millions and billions (the bigger the better, really), but most people have trouble grasping the meaning of such big numbers . At a surface level we can understand that one billion is one thousand times larger than one million, but we often struggle to comprehend what that really means.

This is the perfect opportunity to add some visual aids to your business plan.

Use bubble charts to represent market size

Bubble charts are useful for showing general proportions among numbers. Check out this one from our redesigned version of AirBnb’s first pitch deck :

Without having to think about the absolute values of these very large numbers, we can quickly see how they relate to one another.

While bubble charts are good for making quick, general comparisons, they’re less useful when it comes to precise measurements. To help readers make slightly more accurate judgements of proportion:

Use pie or donut charts to represent market share and market composition

Pie and donut charts are the industry standard for showing market share and market composition, since they’re the most widely understood method for representing part-to-whole relationships.

The way Uber breaks down their market with a simple donut chart makes their biggest segment (a key takeaway) really stand out, while the subtler differences between the smaller segments are still evident.

When you present a market analysis, use pie charts, donut charts, or bubble charts to aid the reader understanding proportions and part-to-whole relationships.

Use histograms and bar charts to represent demographic distributions in market segmentation summaries

Another part of analyzing market potential is about identifying and understanding target customers. This means segmenting customers by geography, interests, demographics…really anything that might affect purchasing behaviour.

Two standard metrics that most businesses include in a market segmentation summary are customer age and gender. These data are easily summarized in a histogram, with bars that represent age group distribution.

Bar charts can then be used to contrast the key behaviors and lifestyle choices of the top consumer segments.

Histograms and bar charts are standard features of a market segmentation summary. Use them together to identify and present information about top customer segments.

Outline major milestones with a Gantt chart

Stakeholders will want to see that you have a concrete plan in place to help you reach your revenue goals. When formulating your goals, use the SMART principle to provide your stakeholders with a very clear vision of how you intend to achieve them. 

Use a Gantt chart (a sort of modified bar chart) to outline the major milestones and phases of your business strategy. Try to include a multi-year plan, broken down by quarter and by project or department.

You can create your own Gantt chart with Venngage.

How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

No matter how impressive your product line or services, your business won’t just magically grow. You concrete marketing and sales plans in place, and effectively communicate strategies to your stakeholders.

Start by acknowledging your target market – who are you going after? This is what your marketing and sales efforts will revolve around after all.

Demonstrate an understanding of the competitor landscape. You will always have direct or indirect competition, and showing how your planning accounts for it is key. Then you can talk about actual plans and strategies you wish to implement.

Present your target audience with persona guides

A product may great on its own. But its value is determined when there is a clear and obvious market for it. You can point out shortcomings of your competition, but you also need to show that your target audience exists and how you’re serving them.

A persona guide provides a great deal of context to readers of your business plan. It’s the best way for them to understand who cares about your product or service, how it aligns with their lifestyle and needs, and why your marketing and sales tactics will work.

A persona guide needs to be detailed, and share an intimate understanding of your target audience. The more you can divulge, the more reassuring your research and overall business plan will be.

Even if you don’t have a substantial customer base, you can still create an ideal persona guide to show who you’re pursuing.

Highlight competitors and differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis

Every business plan should include an analysis of the competitive landscape–an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competitive businesses.

In terms of visuals, this competitive analysis is typically summarized in a SWOT analysis matrix .

You can also present the SWOT analysis as a table or a list. The layout is up to you, but you want to focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to your competition.

While the SWOT analysis framework provides valuable insights, it’s not the entire reflection of your competitive landscape. For example, it doesn’t make it easy to see at a glance the qualities that differentiate your business from your competitors.

To highlight those offerings that set you apart from your competitors, a comparison matrix is more effective. Take a look at these two templates:

With a direct competitor comparison, it’s easy to present the key differentiators between the existing options for a product or service, and your business.

Alternatively, a “ Magic Quadrant ” can be useful when you’re focused on comparing across two main metrics ( key differentiators ):

Finally, in a competitive market, there are going to be a lot of players who compete directly or indirectly with you.  A breakdown of them all may not be necessary. Instead, you can point visually to the space that you will address, that has been so far ignored up to now.

To do that, a prioritization chart can be used. By plotting competing businesses on a prioritization chart, you highlight experiences existing competitors focus on, and where your business falls. 

Use roadmaps to present your marketing and sales plans

To explain any long-term marketing or sales plan, you want visuals. It’s easier to break down strategies you’ll be deploying every month or each quarter, when you can actually show what you’re talking about.

Keep in mind, those reading your business plan may not be marketers or sales executives. Being able to lay out your approach in a way that’s organized, shows how much thought you’ve given to your growth strategies.

You can design a simple roadmap that points to what you’ll be doing throughout the year. The more detailed you can get, the better.

You can also present your product roadmap , with your marketing roadmap how the business will be growing overall.

You don’t need to use a traditional roadmap layout, either. Experiment with different formats as you may find one easier to work with than another. As long as the time period for different strategies is clear, your roadmap will be easy to understand.

Presenting financial data isn’t easy. You have to crunch a lot of numbers before you can share projections with confidence. You’ll also need to explain how you arrived at the numbers and prepare for your answers.

Understanding how to organize your information is key to walking potential investors and other stakeholders through your projections.

Use organizational flow charts and summary tables for budget breakdowns and financial summaries

The financials section of your business plan will get a lot of attention from stakeholders. Simple bar charts and pie charts won’t suffice, as they can’t present financial data in very much detail.

If your business has already been operating for some time, stakeholders will expect a detailed report of revenues and expenses. Tables are usually the best choice for this kind of financial summary, as they provide an unbiased view of the numbers and allow stakeholders to look up specific values.

If you’re interested in highlighting a particular trend, however, you may want to include a line chart featuring a smaller snapshot of your financial data:

If you’re just starting your business and you don’t have any detailed revenue data, you can still provide useful information about your budget. Outline higher-level budget allocation with an organizational flow chart .

Use line or bar graphs to visualize financial trends

You can use different types of graphs to also show how your business has performed thus far. 

You can share results over the course of a year with a line graph. This is effective to show an overall set of trends and growth rates. 

You can also compare previous years to highlight how your business has grown.

Your audience should be able to draw conclusions from your data within seconds. If there is simply too much information, or it’s hard to find important information, they will lose interest. 

Looking for a business plan software to help save time and reduce errors? Pick from one of these 7 best business plan software to get started.

A quick summary 

A business plan is the one key document that every young business needs to present their vision to potential investors and other stakeholders.

The quality of a business plan can make or break a young business Here’s a quick recap of what we covered for you to keep in mind:

• Get started with a template
• Use a table of contents and numbered pages
• Use lists, bold headings and aim for skimmability
• Consider using a one-column or two-column
• Maintain page margins
• Use headings to identify the most important information
• Use one thematic color palette for your design
• Use descriptive titles and annotations
• Use area and pie charts to explain market size and market share
• Use pie/donut charts to visualize marketing share and market composition
• Use bar charts and histograms to capture demographics data
• Highlight major milestones with a gantt chart
• Identify your target audience using persona guides
• Differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis/competitor chart
• Use roadmaps to visualize your marketing and sales plans
• Use flow charts and summary tables for financial breakdowns
• Use line or bar graphs for financial trends and projection

You can always reference this post as you work on your business plan. I’ve also included additional blog posts you can reference for specific areas of your business plan.

More Resources for business planning and growth:

• Growth Strategy Checklist: Plan Your Business Goals With These 5 Templates
• What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]
• How to Communicate Strategy To Your Team Effectively
• 50+ Essential Business Report Examples with Templates

• Encyclopedia of Management
• Business Plan

BUSINESS PLAN

A business plan is a written document used to describe a proposed venture or idea. It typically includes the current state of a business, future vision for the business, target market analysis and challenges, sales and marketing strategies, and funding requirements to reach stated goals. Many business plans are designed with the intention of securing funding and investors to support a proposed idea; others are designed to assist with reorganization, takeovers, or to serve as an internal planning document. On its website, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)( http://www.sba.gov ) describes it this way:

A business plan precisely defines your business, identifies your goals, and serves as your firm's resume… It helps you allocate resources properly, handle unforeseen complications, and make good business decisions. Because it provides specific and organized information about your company and how you will repay borrowed money, a good business plan is a crucial part of any loan application. Additionally, it informs sales personnel, suppliers, and others about your operations and goals.

GETTING STARTED

The article "Write the Right Business Plan," lists ten things to consider before tackling the document:

• Decide why you're writing your plan—what is your motivation?
• Do your homework—read some books, explore web resources.
• Compile your information—locate articles, financial statements.
• Start typing—write down all your ideas, notes and questions in outline form.
• Write a rough draft—Flesh out the outline with full sentences and paragraphs.
• Do more research—support your case with data via Small Business Association contacts, annual reports, and competitors in the chosen industry.
• Think about the numbers—develop pro forma financial statements.
• Write a final draft—demonstrate attention to detail with accuracy and clarity.
• Get feedback—have someone else read over your plan and offer advice.
• Polish your plan to perfection—include a cover page, table of contents, nondisclosure form and an executive summary containing highlights.

Employees with the right skill set and expertise can collaborate to create the business plan. Alternatively, a consultant can be hired to assist with the process. A consultant can bring expertise and professionalism to the appearance and tone of your business plan, provide informed market analysis and research assistance, and supply educated projections for a market that the entrepreneur might be unfamiliar with or have little experience analyzing.

After determining who will be working on the plan, it is useful to decide on the scope of the plan and timeframe for completion of the plan. Once the team or consultant is in place, research and analysis can begin. Internal and external assessments should be conducted and then examined. The interpretations of these assessments will be the framework of the plan- and will guide goal setting and strategies for the company. Once goals and strategies are determined, a solid business plan can be formed toward fulfilling these goals.

From a management perspective, a business plan allows managers to set priorities and allocate resources effectively. It brings order and direction to an organization and provides a vision of the future that employees throughout the company can put energy into and get excited about. This shared vision and focus will benefit the company at every level and ensure that all constituents are working cooperatively and cohesively. Ideally, all employees will utilize the information from the business plan to assist in goal setting, and guide in decision making and performance assessments.

ELEMENTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN

The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends that a business plan describe four main elements of the proposed venture: an overview of the business, a marketing analysis, a financial plan, and a management plan. An executive summary and other supporting documents should also accompany the plan. These elements provide a solid starting point for a general plan, but there is no single formula to a business plan and a multitude of factors will impact the amount of content needed in a good business plan.

The executive summary is a synopsis of the entire business plan. It is critical that this summary be carefully crafted and compelling. This is the first and possibly the only information that a potential investor will read; if it is not informative enough or if it is lacking crucial data, the investor might not read beyond this summary component.

The business overview segment is a profile of the company and its primary industry. Projections, trends, and industry outlooks should be included. In this section the company describes the unique elements that make it a prime candidate for its proposed venture.

A market analysis details how the company will handle its sales and marketing strategies. This analysis includes information on the company's products or services and intended customers, and how customers will be made aware of the product or service. This section should also include a competitive analysis with a break-down identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) to the company and the business proposed. A plan of action should explain how the company will address, exploit, or withstand each of these eventualities.

The financial section discusses the current financial state of the company and what types of financing will be required for the proposed venture. In this area, it is appropriate to discuss the specific dollar amounts required for the business venture, the cost to maintain and sustain the venture, and projections of income, balance sheets, and cash flow. Statistics, facts, and research should support any financial projections listed.

The management plan section should discuss the strengths, experience, achievements, and expertise of the person or team undertaking the business venture. Investors want to know that they are offering their support to a person or team qualified and capable of handling the business proposed and the funds loaned.

A complete business plan will provide evidence to the lender that the entrepreneur has performed a thorough investigation of this new business venture, because it details how the business will generate cash flow, pay for operating expenses, and service debt repayment.

The accompanying table offers several elements for inclusion in designing a business plan.

CUSTOMIZING FOR INVESTOR-TYPE

Bankers, venture capital fund managers, and business angels each look at different features of a business plan when assessing it for investment. Bankers tend to focus on the financial aspects of the plan, and give little emphasis to marketing and management issues. Venture capital fund managers are typically most interested in both the marketing and the financial aspects of the plan. Business angels focus on entrepreneurial elements and "investor fit" considerations. Thus business plan writers should customize their proposals based on the audience they are trying to reach.

Bankers are interested in businesses that will be successful over the long term and entrepreneurs who will remain committed to the project as described in the business plan. When making their lending decisions, they are interested in collateral as security for the loan, and tend to support projects that are less risky. A banker's main interest is the repayment of the loan.

Element of a Business Plan

• Cover sheet
• Statement of purpose
• Description of business
• Competition
• Operating procedures
• Business insurance
• Loan applications
• Capital equipment and supply list
• Balance sheet
• Breakeven analysis
• Three-year summary
• Detail by month, first year
• Detail by quarters, second and third years
• Assumptions upon which projections were based
• Pro-forma cash flow
• Tax returns of principals for the last three years Personal financial statement (all banks have these forms)
• For franchised businesses, a copy of franchise contract and all supporting documents provided by the franchisor
• Copy of proposed lease or purchase agreement for building space
• Copy of licenses and other legal documents
• Copy of resumes of all principals
• Copies of letters of intent from suppliers, etc.

Venture capital fund managers invest for capital gain, and when a venture is successful, they also benefit. Likewise, if a business fails, venture capital fund managers stand to lose significantly-and at much cost to the outside investors whose funds they are managing. Therefore, venture capital fund managers focus on the uniqueness of the product or service, the status of the market, and the management team's potential for success. Venture capital fund managers' main interest is growth potential and potential returns.

Business angels interests align more closely with venture capital fund managers than with bankers. Business angels focus on how their interests match up with the entrepreneur's and how well they are able to work with the entrepreneur over the length of the project. They seek out entrepreneurs who have strong, positive qualities, such as integrity and responsibility, and with whom they feel a connection. Because the investment is personal for the business angel, he or she is interested in financial gains, but also enjoys the opportunity to participate in the venture itself. A business angel's main interest is potential returns, camaraderie with the entrepreneur(s), and personal involvement.

RECENT TRENDS

An article by A. Gome investigates a growing trend among certain entrepreneurs to move away from the old-style business plan that contains an extended, long-term outlook. They are opting instead to use an abbreviated, shorter-term document that better fits their business strategy.

Long-range planning documents don't work as well for some entrepreneurs because of the fast-changing markets they are entering into, which renders the business plan irrelevant within months. And, the short-term nature of some ventures preclude the need for a long-term plan. It is unnecessary to have a five-year plan if the entrepreneur expects to conclude his venture within a shorter time frame.

LIVING DOCUMENTS

Replacing the traditional business plan is what is called a "living document," typically one page in length and with a forward-looking range of one year. Goal-setting may be projected on three- to six-month timeframes, which are more easily monitored and attainable. The living document contains similar elements of a typical business plan-vision, values, objectives, methods toward reaching objectives-but abbreviated to fit on a single page. This document needs constant updating and adjusting, with ample flexibility to respond to customer and market fluctuations. Highly-tailored documents may also need to be prepared for each type of stakeholder, whether bankers, venture capital fund managers, or business angels.

There are many resources for the entrepreneur looking to write a business plan. Local business organizations, public libraries, colleges and universities may offer useful workshops, seminars, or courses.

Local Small Business Administration (SBA) offices or websites (< http://www.sba.gov >) also offer resources. The SBA has sponsored more than 200,000 loans worth more than $45 billion, making it the largest single financial backer of U.S. businesses in the country. The SBA provides free online courses, e-mail guidance, print materials, and face-to-face consultations to small business owners.

The SBA also administers the Small Business Development Center Program to provide management assistance to current and prospective small business owners. This program provides a broad-based system of assistance for the small business community by linking the resources of federal, state and local governments with the resources of the educational community and the private sector.

There are also several books and software programs that assist with creating a business plan.

Business plans are useful documents for garnering funds for entrepreneurial ventures and evaluating progress in a business start-up. They are also useful for evaluating success in established companies, establishing steps for reorganizations or acquisitions, and for guiding the overall strategy of a company. Customizing the business plan for the intended investor type ensures that the proposal will mesh with the investor's interests and key considerations.

SEE ALSO: Entrepreneurship ; Venture Capital

Monica C. Turner

FURTHER READING:

Bunderson, Gaye. "Have Your Business Plan in Hand Before Seeking $$$." Idaho Business Review, 31 January 2005.

Business Plans Handbook. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, Inc., 2004.

Delmar, F. and Shane, S. "Does Business Planning Facilitate the Development of New Ventures?" Strategic Management Journal 24 (December 2004): 1165–1185.

Gome, A. "Plan Not to Plan." BRW 27 (February 2005): 72–73.

Lasher, William. The Perfect Business Plan Made Simple. New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2005.

Mason, Colin and Matthew Stark. "What Do Investors Look for in a Business Plan?" International Small Business Journal 22 (June 2005): 227–248.

McKeever, Mike P. How to Write a Business Plan. Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2005.

Office of Small Business Development Centers. U.S. Small Business Administration. Available from http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/aboutus.html .

Pinson, Linda. Anatomy of a Business Plan: A Step-By-Step Guide to Building a Business and Securing Your Company's Future. Chicago, IL: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2005.

U.S. Small Business Administration. "Elements of a Business Plan." Available from < http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/writingplan.html >.

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Business Plan Development Guide

(6 reviews)

Lee Swanson, University of Saskatchewan

Copyright Year: 2017

Publisher: OPENPRESS.USASK.CA

Language: English

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Reviewed by Kevin Heupel, Affiliate Faculty, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 3/4/20

The text does a good job of providing a general outline about writing and developing a written business plan. All of the important steps and components are included. However, the text is light on details, examples, and rationale for each element... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The text does a good job of providing a general outline about writing and developing a written business plan. All of the important steps and components are included. However, the text is light on details, examples, and rationale for each element of the business plan. Some examples from actual business plans would be helpful.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

For the most part, the content is accurate. The content covers all important aspects of drafting a business plan. I thought the industry analysis could use more information about collecting primary and secondary sources; instead, this information was referenced in the marketing plan section.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Most of the content relies on cites as far back as 2006; however, when it comes to developing and writing a business plan nothing has changed. Thus, the content is current and there is no concern about it becoming obsolete in the near future.

Clarity rating: 4

The text is clear. There are no difficult terms used and the writing is simple. The text uses a lot of bullet points though, which gets tedious to read for a few pages.

Consistency rating: 5

The text does a good job of maintaining consistency in terms of framework and terminology. The text is organized where it's easy to find the information you want in a quick manner.

Modularity rating: 3

The text has a lot of bullet points and the paragraphs are dense. However, the use of subheading is excellent.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is organized as if you're writing a business plan from start to finish, which is helpful as a practical guide.

Interface rating: 5

There are no navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, or any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is free of grammatical errors. The sentence structure is simple with many bullet points, which helps to avoid any grammatical issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This book was written by a Canadian professor and provides references to Canadian sources. However, the information in this text can be used for U.S. schools.

This book is very short and provides a good, general overview about the process of creating and writing a business plan. It won't help a reader if he/she is confused about a certain part of the business plan. The reader will have to find another source, such as "Preparing Effective Business Plans" by Bruce Barringer, Ph.D. The book provides links to good resources and a finished business plan that the reader can reference. I would recommend the book for undergraduate courses.

Reviewed by Kenneth Lacho, Professor of Management, The University of New Orleans on 6/19/18

1. Text is relevant to Canada. Not the United States 2. Needs to cover resources available to entrepreneur, e.g., federal government agencies, trade associations, chambers of commerce, economic development agencies. 3. Discuss local economy or... read more

1. Text is relevant to Canada. Not the United States 2. Needs to cover resources available to entrepreneur, e.g., federal government agencies, trade associations, chambers of commerce, economic development agencies. 3. Discuss local economy or economic area relevant to this proposed business. 4. Business model ok as a guide. 5. Suggested mission statement to cover: product/business, target customer, geographical area covered. 6. Need detailed promotion plan, e.g., personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, networking publicity, and social media. 7. How do you find the target market? 8. Chapter 6 too much detail on debt and equity financing. 9. Discuss how to find sources of financing, e.g., angels. 10. Expand coverage of bootstring, crowdfunding. 11. Chapter 4 – good checklist. 12. Chapter 3 - overlaps. 13. Chapter 7 – 3 pages of executive summary – double or single spaced typing. Number all tables, graphs. 14. Some references out-of-date, mostly academic. Bring in trade magazines such as Entrepreneur.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

In my opinion, the content is accurate and error free.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The material is relevant to writing a business plan. I wonder if the Porter, SWOT VRIO, etc. material is too high level for students who may not be seniors or have non-business degrees (e.g., liberal arts). Porter has been around for a while and does have longevity. The author has to be more alert to changes in promotion, e.g., social media and sources of financing, e.g., crowdfunding.

Clarity rating: 3

As noted in No. 9, the tone of the writing is too academic, thus making the material difficult to understand. Paragraphs are too long. Need to define: Porter, TOWS Matrix, VRIO, PESTEL. A student less from a senior or a non-business major would not be familiar with these terms.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is internally consistent. The model approach helps keep the process consistent.

Modularity rating: 4

The process of developing a business plan is divided into blocks which are parts of the business plan. Paragraphs tend to be too long in some spots.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The topics are presented in a logical step-wise flow. The language style is too academic in parts, paragraphs too long. Leaves out the citations. Provides excellent check lists.

There are no display features which confuse the reader.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

The text has no grammatical errors. On the other hand, I found the writing to be too academic in nature. Some paragraphs are too long. The material is more like an academic conference paper or journal submission. Academic citations references are not needed. The material is not exciting to read.

The text is culturally neutral. There are no examples which are inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

This book best for a graduate class.

Reviewed by Louis Bruneau, Part Time Faculty, Portland Community College on 6/19/18

The text provides appropriate discussion and illustration of all major concepts and useful references to source and resource materials. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The text provides appropriate discussion and illustration of all major concepts and useful references to source and resource materials.

Contents of the book were accurate, although it could have benefited from editing/proofreading; there was no evidence of bias. As to editing/proofreading, a couple of examples: A. “Figure 1 – Business Plan… “ is shown at the top of the page following the diagram vs. the bottom of the page the diagram is on. (There are other problems with what is placed on each page.) B. First paragraph under heading “Essential Initial Research” there is reference to pages 21 to 30 though page numbering is missing from the book. (Page numbers are used in the Table of Contents.)

The book is current in that business planning has been stable for sometime. The references and resources will age in time, but are limited and look easy to update.

Clarity rating: 5

The book is written in a straightforward way, technical terms that needed explanations got them, jargon was avoided and generally it was an easy read.

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 5

The book lends itself to a multi-week course. A chapter could be presented and students could work on that stage of Plan development. It could also be pre-meeting reading for a workshop presentation. Reorganizing the book would be inappropriate.

The topics in the text are presented in a logical, clear fashion.

Generally, the book is free of interface problems. The financial tables in the Sample Plan were turned 90° to maintain legibility. One potential problem was with Figure 6 – Business Model Canvas. The print within the cells was too small to read; the author mitigated the problem by presenting the information, following Figure 6, in the type font of the text.

I found no grammatical errors.

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.

I require a business plan in a course I teach; for most of the students the assignment is a course project that they do not intend to pursue in real life. I shared the book with five students that intended to develop an actual start-up business; three of them found it helpful while the other two decided not to do that much work on their plans. If I were planning a start-up, I would use/follow the book.

Reviewed by Todd Johnson, Faculty of Business, North Hennepin Community College on 5/21/18

The text is a thorough overview of all elements of a business plan. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The text is a thorough overview of all elements of a business plan.

The content is accurate and seems to lack bias.

Content seems relevant and useful . It does not help an entrepreneur generate ideas, and is very light on crowdfunding and other novel funding source content. It is more traditional. This can be easily updated in future versions, however. "Social Media" appears once in the book, as does "Crowd Funding".

The book is comprehensive, but perhaps not written in the most lucid, accessible prose. I am not sure any college student could pick this up and just read and learn. It would be best used as a "teach along guide" for students to process with an instructor.

The text seems consistent. The author does a nice job of consistently staying on task and using bullets and brevity.

Here I am not so certain. The table of contents is not a good guide for this book. It does make the book look nicely laid out, but there is a lot of complexity within these sections. I read it uncertain that it was well organized. Yes there are many good bits of information, however it is not as if I could spend time on one swathe of text at a time. I would need to go back and forth throughout the text.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

Similar to the above. I did not like the flow and organization of this. An editor would help things be in a more logical order.

Interface rating: 2

The interface is just OK. It is not an attractice interface, as it presents text in a very dense manner. The images and charts are hard to follow.

I did not find any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

I a not certain of the origins of Saskatchewan, but I do feel this is a different read. It is more formal and dense than it has to be. This would be a difficult read for my students. I do not feel it is insensitive in any way, or offensive in any way.

I would not adopt this book if given the chance. It is too dense, and not organized very well, even though the information is very good. The density and lack of modularity are barriers to understanding what is obviously very good information.

Reviewed by Mariana Mitova, Lecturer, Bowling Green State University on 2/1/18

Though this textbook has a prescriptive nature, it is quite comprehensive. The author strikes a good balance between presenting concepts in a concise way and providing enough information to explain them. Many every-day examples and live links to... read more

Though this textbook has a prescriptive nature, it is quite comprehensive. The author strikes a good balance between presenting concepts in a concise way and providing enough information to explain them. Many every-day examples and live links to other resources add to the completeness of the textbook.

Content seems accurate.

Since the content is somewhat conceptual, the text will not become obsolete quickly. In addition, the author seems to be updating and editing content often hence the relevance to current developments is on target.

The text is very clear, written in clear and straight-to-the point language.

The organization of content is consistent throughout the entire text.

The textbook is organized by chapters, beginning with overview of the model used and followed by chapters for each concept within the model. Nicely done.

The flow is clear, logical and easy to follow.

Overall, images, links, and text are well organized. Some headlines were misaligned but still easy to follow.

No concerns for grammar.

No concerns for cultural irrelevance.

Reviewed by Darlene Weibye, Cosmetology Instructor, Minnesota State Community and Technical College on 2/1/18

The text is comprehensive and covers the information needed to develop a business plan. The book provides all the means necessary in business planning. read more

The text is comprehensive and covers the information needed to develop a business plan. The book provides all the means necessary in business planning.

The text was accurate, and error-free. I did not find the book to be biased.

The content is up-to-date. I am reviewing the book in 2017, the same year the book was published.

The content was very clear. A business plan sample included operation timelines, start up costs, and all relevant material in starting a business.

The book is very consistent and is well organized.

The book has a table of contents and is broken down into specific chapters. The chapters are not divided into sub topics. I do not feel it is necessary for sub topics because the chapters are brief and to the point.

There is a great flow from chapter to chapter. One topic clearly leads into the next without repeating.

The table of contents has direct links to each chapter. The appearance of the chapters are easy to read and the charts are very beneficial.

Does not appear to have any grammatical errors.

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive.

I am incorporating some of the text into the salon business course. Very well written book.

Table of Contents

Introduction

• Chapter 1 – Developing a Business Plan
• Chapter 2 – Essential Initial Research
• Chapter 3 – Business Models
• Chapter 4 – Initial Business Plan Draft
• Chapter 5 – Making the Business Plan Realistic
• Chapter 6 – Making the Plan Appeal to Stakeholders and Desirable to the Entrepreneur
• Chapter 7 – Finishing the Business Plan
• Chapter 8 – Business Plan Pitches

References Appendix A – Business Plan Development Checklist and Project Planner Appendix B – Fashion Importers Inc. Business Plan Business Plan Excel Template

Ancillary Material

About the book.

This textbook and its accompanying spreadsheet templates were designed with and for students wanting a practical and easy-to-follow guide for developing a business plan. It follows a unique format that both explains what to do and demonstrates how to do it.

About the Contributors

Dr. Lee Swanson is an Associate Professor of Management and Marketing at the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan. His research focuses on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, Aboriginal entrepreneurship, community capacity-building through entrepreneurship, and institutional-stakeholder engagement. Dr. Swanson’s current research is funded through a Social Sciences Humanities Research Council grant and focuses on social and economic capacity building in Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Scandinavia. He is also actively studying Aboriginal community partnerships with resource based companies, entrepreneurship centres at universities, community-based entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. He teaches upper-year and MBA entrepreneurship classes and conducts seminars on business planning and business development.

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11.4 The Business Plan

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the different purposes of a business plan
• Describe and develop the components of a brief business plan
• Describe and develop the components of a full business plan

Unlike the brief or lean formats introduced so far, the business plan is a formal document used for the long-range planning of a company’s operation. It typically includes background information, financial information, and a summary of the business. Investors nearly always request a formal business plan because it is an integral part of their evaluation of whether to invest in a company. Although nothing in business is permanent, a business plan typically has components that are more “set in stone” than a business model canvas , which is more commonly used as a first step in the planning process and throughout the early stages of a nascent business. A business plan is likely to describe the business and industry, market strategies, sales potential, and competitive analysis, as well as the company’s long-term goals and objectives. An in-depth formal business plan would follow at later stages after various iterations to business model canvases. The business plan usually projects financial data over a three-year period and is typically required by banks or other investors to secure funding. The business plan is a roadmap for the company to follow over multiple years.

Some entrepreneurs prefer to use the canvas process instead of the business plan, whereas others use a shorter version of the business plan, submitting it to investors after several iterations. There are also entrepreneurs who use the business plan earlier in the entrepreneurial process, either preceding or concurrently with a canvas. For instance, Chris Guillebeau has a one-page business plan template in his book The $100 Startup . 48 His version is basically an extension of a napkin sketch without the detail of a full business plan. As you progress, you can also consider a brief business plan (about two pages)—if you want to support a rapid business launch—and/or a standard business plan.

As with many aspects of entrepreneurship, there are no clear hard and fast rules to achieving entrepreneurial success. You may encounter different people who want different things (canvas, summary, full business plan), and you also have flexibility in following whatever tool works best for you. Like the canvas, the various versions of the business plan are tools that will aid you in your entrepreneurial endeavor.

Business Plan Overview

Most business plans have several distinct sections ( Figure 11.16 ). The business plan can range from a few pages to twenty-five pages or more, depending on the purpose and the intended audience. For our discussion, we’ll describe a brief business plan and a standard business plan. If you are able to successfully design a business model canvas, then you will have the structure for developing a clear business plan that you can submit for financial consideration.

Both types of business plans aim at providing a picture and roadmap to follow from conception to creation. If you opt for the brief business plan, you will focus primarily on articulating a big-picture overview of your business concept.

The full business plan is aimed at executing the vision concept, dealing with the proverbial devil in the details. Developing a full business plan will assist those of you who need a more detailed and structured roadmap, or those of you with little to no background in business. The business planning process includes the business model, a feasibility analysis, and a full business plan, which we will discuss later in this section. Next, we explore how a business plan can meet several different needs.

Purposes of a Business Plan

A business plan can serve many different purposes—some internal, others external. As we discussed previously, you can use a business plan as an internal early planning device, an extension of a napkin sketch, and as a follow-up to one of the canvas tools. A business plan can be an organizational roadmap , that is, an internal planning tool and working plan that you can apply to your business in order to reach your desired goals over the course of several years. The business plan should be written by the owners of the venture, since it forces a firsthand examination of the business operations and allows them to focus on areas that need improvement.

Refer to the business venture throughout the document. Generally speaking, a business plan should not be written in the first person.

A major external purpose for the business plan is as an investment tool that outlines financial projections, becoming a document designed to attract investors. In many instances, a business plan can complement a formal investor’s pitch. In this context, the business plan is a presentation plan, intended for an outside audience that may or may not be familiar with your industry, your business, and your competitors.

You can also use your business plan as a contingency plan by outlining some “what-if” scenarios and exploring how you might respond if these scenarios unfold. Pretty Young Professional launched in November 2010 as an online resource to guide an emerging generation of female leaders. The site focused on recent female college graduates and current students searching for professional roles and those in their first professional roles. It was founded by four friends who were coworkers at the global consultancy firm McKinsey. But after positions and equity were decided among them, fundamental differences of opinion about the direction of the business emerged between two factions, according to the cofounder and former CEO Kathryn Minshew . “I think, naively, we assumed that if we kicked the can down the road on some of those things, we’d be able to sort them out,” Minshew said. Minshew went on to found a different professional site, The Muse , and took much of the editorial team of Pretty Young Professional with her. 49 Whereas greater planning potentially could have prevented the early demise of Pretty Young Professional, a change in planning led to overnight success for Joshua Esnard and The Cut Buddy team. Esnard invented and patented the plastic hair template that he was selling online out of his Fort Lauderdale garage while working a full-time job at Broward College and running a side business. Esnard had hundreds of boxes of Cut Buddies sitting in his home when he changed his marketing plan to enlist companies specializing in making videos go viral. It worked so well that a promotional video for the product garnered 8 million views in hours. The Cut Buddy sold over 4,000 products in a few hours when Esnard only had hundreds remaining. Demand greatly exceeded his supply, so Esnard had to scramble to increase manufacturing and offered customers two-for-one deals to make up for delays. This led to selling 55,000 units, generating $700,000 in sales in 2017. 50 After appearing on Shark Tank and landing a deal with Daymond John that gave the “shark” a 20-percent equity stake in return for $300,000, The Cut Buddy has added new distribution channels to include retail sales along with online commerce. Changing one aspect of a business plan—the marketing plan—yielded success for The Cut Buddy.

Link to Learning

Watch this video of Cut Buddy’s founder, Joshua Esnard, telling his company’s story to learn more.

If you opt for the brief business plan, you will focus primarily on articulating a big-picture overview of your business concept. This version is used to interest potential investors, employees, and other stakeholders, and will include a financial summary “box,” but it must have a disclaimer, and the founder/entrepreneur may need to have the people who receive it sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) . The full business plan is aimed at executing the vision concept, providing supporting details, and would be required by financial institutions and others as they formally become stakeholders in the venture. Both are aimed at providing a picture and roadmap to go from conception to creation.

Types of Business Plans

The brief business plan is similar to an extended executive summary from the full business plan. This concise document provides a broad overview of your entrepreneurial concept, your team members, how and why you will execute on your plans, and why you are the ones to do so. You can think of a brief business plan as a scene setter or—since we began this chapter with a film reference—as a trailer to the full movie. The brief business plan is the commercial equivalent to a trailer for Field of Dreams , whereas the full plan is the full-length movie equivalent.

Brief Business Plan or Executive Summary

As the name implies, the brief business plan or executive summary summarizes key elements of the entire business plan, such as the business concept, financial features, and current business position. The executive summary version of the business plan is your opportunity to broadly articulate the overall concept and vision of the company for yourself, for prospective investors, and for current and future employees.

A typical executive summary is generally no longer than a page, but because the brief business plan is essentially an extended executive summary, the executive summary section is vital. This is the “ask” to an investor. You should begin by clearly stating what you are asking for in the summary.

In the business concept phase, you’ll describe the business, its product, and its markets. Describe the customer segment it serves and why your company will hold a competitive advantage. This section may align roughly with the customer segments and value-proposition segments of a canvas.

Next, highlight the important financial features, including sales, profits, cash flows, and return on investment. Like the financial portion of a feasibility analysis, the financial analysis component of a business plan may typically include items like a twelve-month profit and loss projection, a three- or four-year profit and loss projection, a cash-flow projection, a projected balance sheet, and a breakeven calculation. You can explore a feasibility study and financial projections in more depth in the formal business plan. Here, you want to focus on the big picture of your numbers and what they mean.

The current business position section can furnish relevant information about you and your team members and the company at large. This is your opportunity to tell the story of how you formed the company, to describe its legal status (form of operation), and to list the principal players. In one part of the extended executive summary, you can cover your reasons for starting the business: Here is an opportunity to clearly define the needs you think you can meet and perhaps get into the pains and gains of customers. You also can provide a summary of the overall strategic direction in which you intend to take the company. Describe the company’s mission, vision, goals and objectives, overall business model, and value proposition.

Rice University’s Student Business Plan Competition, one of the largest and overall best-regarded graduate school business-plan competitions (see Telling Your Entrepreneurial Story and Pitching the Idea ), requires an executive summary of up to five pages to apply. 51 , 52 Its suggested sections are shown in Table 11.2 .

Are You Ready?

Create a brief business plan.

Fill out a canvas of your choosing for a well-known startup: Uber, Netflix, Dropbox, Etsy, Airbnb, Bird/Lime, Warby Parker, or any of the companies featured throughout this chapter or one of your choice. Then create a brief business plan for that business. See if you can find a version of the company’s actual executive summary, business plan, or canvas. Compare and contrast your vision with what the company has articulated.

• These companies are well established but is there a component of what you charted that you would advise the company to change to ensure future viability?
• Map out a contingency plan for a “what-if” scenario if one key aspect of the company or the environment it operates in were drastically is altered?

Full Business Plan

Even full business plans can vary in length, scale, and scope. Rice University sets a ten-page cap on business plans submitted for the full competition. The IndUS Entrepreneurs , one of the largest global networks of entrepreneurs, also holds business plan competitions for students through its Tie Young Entrepreneurs program. In contrast, business plans submitted for that competition can usually be up to twenty-five pages. These are just two examples. Some components may differ slightly; common elements are typically found in a formal business plan outline. The next section will provide sample components of a full business plan for a fictional business.

Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide an overview of your business with key points and issues. Because the summary is intended to summarize the entire document, it is most helpful to write this section last, even though it comes first in sequence. The writing in this section should be especially concise. Readers should be able to understand your needs and capabilities at first glance. The section should tell the reader what you want and your “ask” should be explicitly stated in the summary.

Describe your business, its product or service, and the intended customers. Explain what will be sold, who it will be sold to, and what competitive advantages the business has. Table 11.3 shows a sample executive summary for the fictional company La Vida Lola.

Business Description

This section describes the industry, your product, and the business and success factors. It should provide a current outlook as well as future trends and developments. You also should address your company’s mission, vision, goals, and objectives. Summarize your overall strategic direction, your reasons for starting the business, a description of your products and services, your business model, and your company’s value proposition. Consider including the Standard Industrial Classification/North American Industry Classification System (SIC/NAICS) code to specify the industry and insure correct identification. The industry extends beyond where the business is located and operates, and should include national and global dynamics. Table 11.4 shows a sample business description for La Vida Lola.

Industry Analysis and Market Strategies

Here you should define your market in terms of size, structure, growth prospects, trends, and sales potential. You’ll want to include your TAM and forecast the SAM . (Both these terms are discussed in Conducting a Feasibility Analysis .) This is a place to address market segmentation strategies by geography, customer attributes, or product orientation. Describe your positioning relative to your competitors’ in terms of pricing, distribution, promotion plan, and sales potential. Table 11.5 shows an example industry analysis and market strategy for La Vida Lola.

Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis is a statement of the business strategy as it relates to the competition. You want to be able to identify who are your major competitors and assess what are their market shares, markets served, strategies employed, and expected response to entry? You likely want to conduct a classic SWOT analysis (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats) and complete a competitive-strength grid or competitive matrix. Outline your company’s competitive strengths relative to those of the competition in regard to product, distribution, pricing, promotion, and advertising. What are your company’s competitive advantages and their likely impacts on its success? The key is to construct it properly for the relevant features/benefits (by weight, according to customers) and how the startup compares to incumbents. The competitive matrix should show clearly how and why the startup has a clear (if not currently measurable) competitive advantage. Some common features in the example include price, benefits, quality, type of features, locations, and distribution/sales. Sample templates are shown in Figure 11.17 and Figure 11.18 . A competitive analysis helps you create a marketing strategy that will identify assets or skills that your competitors are lacking so you can plan to fill those gaps, giving you a distinct competitive advantage. When creating a competitor analysis, it is important to focus on the key features and elements that matter to customers, rather than focusing too heavily on the entrepreneur’s idea and desires.

Operations and Management Plan

In this section, outline how you will manage your company. Describe its organizational structure. Here you can address the form of ownership and, if warranted, include an organizational chart/structure. Highlight the backgrounds, experiences, qualifications, areas of expertise, and roles of members of the management team. This is also the place to mention any other stakeholders, such as a board of directors or advisory board(s), and their relevant relationship to the founder, experience and value to help make the venture successful, and professional service firms providing management support, such as accounting services and legal counsel.

Table 11.6 shows a sample operations and management plan for La Vida Lola.

Marketing Plan

Here you should outline and describe an effective overall marketing strategy for your venture, providing details regarding pricing, promotion, advertising, distribution, media usage, public relations, and a digital presence. Fully describe your sales management plan and the composition of your sales force, along with a comprehensive and detailed budget for the marketing plan. Table 11.7 shows a sample marketing plan for La Vida Lola.

Financial Plan

A financial plan seeks to forecast revenue and expenses; project a financial narrative; and estimate project costs, valuations, and cash flow projections. This section should present an accurate, realistic, and achievable financial plan for your venture (see Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting for detailed discussions about conducting these projections). Include sales forecasts and income projections, pro forma financial statements ( Building the Entrepreneurial Dream Team , a breakeven analysis, and a capital budget. Identify your possible sources of financing (discussed in Conducting a Feasibility Analysis ). Figure 11.19 shows a template of cash-flow needs for La Vida Lola.

Entrepreneur In Action

Laughing man coffee.

Hugh Jackman ( Figure 11.20 ) may best be known for portraying a comic-book superhero who used his mutant abilities to protect the world from villains. But the Wolverine actor is also working to make the planet a better place for real, not through adamantium claws but through social entrepreneurship.

A love of java jolted Jackman into action in 2009, when he traveled to Ethiopia with a Christian humanitarian group to shoot a documentary about the impact of fair-trade certification on coffee growers there. He decided to launch a business and follow in the footsteps of the late Paul Newman, another famous actor turned philanthropist via food ventures.

Jackman launched Laughing Man Coffee two years later; he sold the line to Keurig in 2015. One Laughing Man Coffee café in New York continues to operate independently, investing its proceeds into charitable programs that support better housing, health, and educational initiatives within fair-trade farming communities. 55 Although the New York location is the only café, the coffee brand is still distributed, with Keurig donating an undisclosed portion of Laughing Man proceeds to those causes (whereas Jackman donates all his profits). The company initially donated its profits to World Vision, the Christian humanitarian group Jackman accompanied in 2009. In 2017, it created the Laughing Man Foundation to be more active with its money management and distribution.

• You be the entrepreneur. If you were Jackman, would you have sold the company to Keurig? Why or why not?
• Would you have started the Laughing Man Foundation?
• What else can Jackman do to aid fair-trade practices for coffee growers?

What Can You Do?

Textbooks for change.

Founded in 2014, Textbooks for Change uses a cross-compensation model, in which one customer segment pays for a product or service, and the profit from that revenue is used to provide the same product or service to another, underserved segment. Textbooks for Change partners with student organizations to collect used college textbooks, some of which are re-sold while others are donated to students in need at underserved universities across the globe. The organization has reused or recycled 250,000 textbooks, providing 220,000 students with access through seven campus partners in East Africa. This B-corp social enterprise tackles a problem and offers a solution that is directly relevant to college students like yourself. Have you observed a problem on your college campus or other campuses that is not being served properly? Could it result in a social enterprise?

Work It Out

Franchisee set out.

A franchisee of East Coast Wings, a chain with dozens of restaurants in the United States, has decided to part ways with the chain. The new store will feature the same basic sports-bar-and-restaurant concept and serve the same basic foods: chicken wings, burgers, sandwiches, and the like. The new restaurant can’t rely on the same distributors and suppliers. A new business plan is needed.

• What steps should the new restaurant take to create a new business plan?
• Should it attempt to serve the same customers? Why or why not?

This New York Times video, “An Unlikely Business Plan,” describes entrepreneurial resurgence in Detroit, Michigan.

• 48 Chris Guillebeau. The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future . New York: Crown Business/Random House, 2012.
• 49 Jonathan Chan. “What These 4 Startup Case Studies Can Teach You about Failure.” Foundr.com . July 12, 2015. https://foundr.com/4-startup-case-studies-failure/
• 50 Amy Feldman. “Inventor of the Cut Buddy Paid YouTubers to Spark Sales. He Wasn’t Ready for a Video to Go Viral.” Forbes. February 15, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2017/02/15/inventor-of-the-cut-buddy-paid-youtubers-to-spark-sales-he-wasnt-ready-for-a-video-to-go-viral/#3eb540ce798a
• 51 Jennifer Post. “National Business Plan Competitions for Entrepreneurs.” Business News Daily . August 30, 2018. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6902-business-plan-competitions-entrepreneurs.html
• 52 “Rice Business Plan Competition, Eligibility Criteria and How to Apply.” Rice Business Plan Competition . March 2020. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2020%20RBPC%20Eligibility%20Criteria%20and%20How%20to%20Apply_23Oct19.pdf
• 53 “Rice Business Plan Competition, Eligibility Criteria and How to Apply.” Rice Business Plan Competition. March 2020. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2020%20RBPC%20Eligibility%20Criteria%20and%20How%20to%20Apply_23Oct19.pdf; Based on 2019 RBPC Competition Rules and Format April 4–6, 2019. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2019-RBPC-Competition-Rules%20-Format.pdf
• 54 Foodstart. http://foodstart.com
• 55 “Hugh Jackman Journey to Starting a Social Enterprise Coffee Company.” Giving Compass. April 8, 2018. https://givingcompass.org/article/hugh-jackman-journey-to-starting-a-social-enterprise-coffee-company/

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How To Write A Business Reference Letter (With Examples)

• Personal Reference Letter
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Business reference letters are exactly what they sound like: a letter recommending a business. Being asked to write a business reference letter is pretty uncommon, meaning that if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. Letters of this type are generally used by people just starting a business as a way to get off the ground.

The stand rules of business writing still apply, meaning that you should treat it like any other professional writing. If you’ve been asked to write a business reference letter, or are considering asking someone to do so, this article will explain what a business reference letter is and what goes into writing one.

Key Takeaways:

A business reference letter is also referred to as a letter of recommendation written on behalf of a professional or a business to let other people know that you believe in the quality of their work.

When writing a reference letter, you can only write a good business reference for an individual or company with whom you had a positive professional relationship.

It’s important to remain as professional as possible when writing these letters, and not to lie just because they are your friend.

Include any specific instances of the person’s skills when writing the letter.

What is a business reference letter?

How to write a business reference letter, tips for writing an excellent reference letter, business reference letter example, who to ask for a business reference letter, how to ask for a business reference, business reference letter faq.

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A business reference letter, or business recommendation letter, is just like a reference letter for an employee: it recommends the subject to someone else. In the case of a business reference letter, you’re explaining how the business is professional, has employees with a strong work ethic, and completed the contract to specifications.

These letters can have a couple of different purposes, including:

Encouraging job candidates to apply for or accept a job. If there is a lot of positive buzz about a business, then they’re more likely to attract top-tier candidates. Having good reference letters on their website or a job board can make people more inclined to work there.

Highlight the quality of the goods or services provided. This is a way to appeal to customers, potential employees, and investors. If the business is exceptionally good at what it does, it implies you’ll get a good return on investment.

Attract new customers. Knowing that a business offers high-quality goods and services makes it much more attractive to potential customers. If there are trustworthy references that they can refer to, then they’ll be more inclined to give the business a try.

Advance the career of the owner. If the owner of the business gets enough recommendations it can help advance their career. Not only can they expand their business, but they might be able to move into a different part of it — or a higher level of business.

As with all business writing, there’s an expected format for a business reference letter. If you’ve written either a personal or professional reference for someone, then it’s quite similar. A business reference focuses more on the services or goods a business offers than on personal traits — though positive personal traits aren’t off the table.

A business reference letters should include the following sections:

Your contact information As with all business letters, you want to make sure that you include your name and contact info. Including an address can sometimes be seen as bit old fashioned, but you absolutely want to have your phone number and/or email address, or a social media handle if that’s how you prefer to be contacted.

In emails, contact information is sometimes put at the bottom of the letter, after your name.

Date. Putting the date down is a must. It’s important to record when letters like this were written or submitted.

Recipient’s contact information. If this is an actual letter — even a printed one — then you need to include their contact info. In most cases, letters like this are sent via email, in which case you can omit it. Especially if you know they’re planning to post it on their website or social media page — then they’d just end up removing the address anyway.

Salutation. You always need to include a salutation. Usually Dear is a safe bet, but if this is someone you know well, you can use a less formal greeting, such as hello.

Body of the letter. This is where the majority of the information goes. In a business reference, there are certain things you want to include. Such as:

How you know the person. This should be a professional relationship, as this is a business letter. If you know them outside of their business, don’t focus on that aspect.

What work they did for you. This is important in terms of your recommendation. You want people to know what they did and why they did it well.

Your feelings about the work they did. Don’t write a letter of recommendation for someone if you aren’t happy with the work they did for you. It should be a glowing review — and an honest one.

Would you hire them again. If you’re writing a business reference, the answer had better be yes. It’s important to be as honest as possible in these letters, so you want to actually be willing to recommend their services to others.

Offer to speak with them if they have questions In this case, that’ll be whoever your’e recommending the business to. So be sure to be ready to answer questions or discuss the service you received in more detail. It’s not a bad idea to include your preferred contact info here as well.

Closing If this is a physical letter, be sure to sign it. If it isn’t, then add a closing and type your name. For the closing salutation, it’s best to be fairly formal, using something like Sincerely, or best regards.

While the basics of writing a business reference letter have been covered, there are still some things to keep in mind to make sure your reference letter catches people’s attention. It’s important to be sure that you’re on board with the idea of writing the reference — if you don’t put time and effort into it, it’ll show.

Do people really conduct reference checks ? It’s true, they don’t do it as much as they should. Reference checks are important for any business, but they’re often skipped steps. That said, you still need to be prepared to respond to people if they do call or email.

Keep it positive. Only point out the good things. If Dave showed up late all the time, it’s better not to mention that and to focus on something he did well. You should also always tell the truth. If you feel you can’t give a good review of someone’s work, their professionalism, and the end results — then you should let them know that you don’t want to write the letter.

Ask the person first. It’s a good idea to have a brief conversation with the person asking for the reference before you write it, just to get on the same page.

If it’s going to a specific person, you want to know who, what the scope of the job is, and what they feel would be a good thing to mention to make them stand apart from the competition. If it’s a more generic letter, ask them what they want to highlight. You’re not asking them to write it for you, but a little guidance never hurt.

Be as professional as possible. This might not be something you do regularly, but a little effort will go a long way to help the person who requested the letter. They think enough of you to ask, so it’s your job to do it right.

Keep it short. As with most business letters, it shouldn’t be longer than a page. Make sure you say everything you need to concisely so that the recipient will actually read the entire letter.

Make yourself available. It’s possible that you’ll be contacted by the recipient of the letter to ask for further details. Make sure that you are ready and willing to talk about your recommendation in more detail. Remember that sending this letter — with your contact information — means that you agreed to be contacted.

Proofread. This is necessary for all times of writing, but in business writing it’s an important aspect of professionalism. Make sure that your letter is free of errors, typos, or grammatical issues.

Pat Patterson 123 Main Street Austin, TX 73301 (111) 222-3333 [email protected] September 24, 2020 Mr. Peter Bigwig 456 Park Street Austin, TX 73301 Dear Mr. Bigwig, It is with great confidence that I am writing to recommend the services of Dave Handy. I have known Dave and his family for many years, and he has always been a helpful and enthusiastic young man. Recently, he began his own handyman company and I was happy to hire him for some work around my home. I was so completely satisfied with the work he did cleaning and repairing a few of my windows that I immediately hired him to build a corner breakfast nook in my kitchen. I can’t express enough how happy I was to have both of those projects finally done and with such professionalism, too. Dave was always on time and I felt his bid was quite fair. I am certain that I will hire him again when I need more work done. I’m happy to recommend his services. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Pat Patterson

Business Reference Letter Template [Your Name] [Your Address] [Your Phone Number] [Your Email address] [Date] To Whom It May Concern: It is with great confidence that I am writing to recommend [job title] of [Person you are recommending] . I have been acquainted with [Person you are recommending] for [years worked with] and was happy to hear that he had started his own business doing [job title] . [Include traits and why he will be good at the business.] . [Include specific instances to add credibility to your recommendations. Also include why you are credible to give him a recommendation. This could be a sentence or two depending on qualifications.] . If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Sincerely, [Your name]

This article is primarily dedicated to individuals writing business reference letters, but it’s useful to briefly touch on who you can write a business reference letter for. You can only write a good business reference for an individual or company that you’ve had a positive professional relationship with.

This includes:

Former or current direct supervisors

Mentors who have experience with your work

Former professors (for recent graduates)

Clients you’ve done substantial work for (the main topic of this article)

Vendors and other businesses your business has interacted with professionally

The more recent your professional contact, the better. Whether you’re trying to convince a hiring manager, recruiter , or potential clients to believe in your business, people like to know what you’ve done lately, as opposed to what you did five years ago.

Plus, it’s pretty hard to write a compelling reference for someone if you barely remember the nature of your relationship. If someone approaches you for a business reference letter, make sure you know precisely what they want out of it so that you can draft a document that speaks directly to their target audience.

Even if you’re being asked to write a business reference, it’s helpful to know what to expect from your referee. To ask for a business reference, follow these steps:

Contact your top choice for referral. It’s common to reach out with a brief phone call or email just to feel out your potential referral’s interest in helping you. A referee should approach their referral as soon as possible, to give that person time to write a stellar reference letter.

Explain your needs. As a referee, it’s incumbent on you to basically outline the reference letter. If the reference is for a specific opportunity, the referee should provide all the relevant details (e.g., the job description, their resume , the details of a business proposal, etc.).

Put the reference letter in a broader context. The referee should also tell you their larger goals for the letter. For instance, what are your business’s long-term goals, and what skills need to be highlighted to reach those goals?

They can also fill you in on what aspects of their business they want to be made most plain in the contents of the letter.

Thank your reference. Finally, you should always thank your reference for taking the time and energy to help take your business to the next level.

How long should a business reference letter be?

A business reference letter should be approximately a page in length. That’s a fairly standard length in most business writing. At least, in terms of referrals, references, and other correspondence of that nature. You want to make sure that the recipient can read it quickly, but that it has enough information to answer their questions.

How do you write a good business reference letter?

A business reference letter should be concise, professional, and positive. It’s also important to follow the standard format, as that’s part of what makes it a business letter. Good business reference letters make ti clear why you’re recommending the business, how to contact you, and what the business offers.

What is a business reference letter used for?

Business reference letters are typically used as a way to get a business off the ground, but they have several different possible applications, including:

An established business looking to stand out via positive testimonials.

Someone leaving their job but looking for similar work — such as starting their own business.

As a way to draw in customers.

Bring in new job candidates to a business.

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Kristin Kizer is an award-winning writer, television and documentary producer, and content specialist who has worked on a wide variety of written, broadcast, and electronic publications. A former writer/producer for The Discovery Channel, she is now a freelance writer and delighted to be sharing her talents and time with the wonderful Zippia audience.

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Introduction

Direct quotations & paraphrasing, basic citation styles, books (print & online), journal articles (print & online), audiovisual media, other online sources.

• Questions? Ask a Librarian!

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association provides detailed guidelines for using APA style. The current edition (7th edition) of the APA Publication Manual , published in November of 2019 is  kept at the Reference Desk.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association . (7th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Copies are available for use at the library circulation desk.

• The Basics of APA Style A free tutorial for those who are new to APA style
• Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University
• APA style guide from U of North Carolina
• Sample APA 7 paper (pdf via Purdue U Online Writing Lab)
• How to Cite a Webpage or Piece of Online Content in APA 7 format (from Purdue Online Writing Lab)

In-Text Citations

APA Style uses parenthetical, author-date citations. After a quote, add parentheses containing the author's name, the year of publication, and the page number of the work.

Example: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (Seuss, 2007, pp. 7-8).

If you use more than one work by the same author, use the letters a, b, etc., after the year.

Example: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (Seuss, 2007a, pp. 7-8).

If more than one author has the same last name, add their first initial.

Example: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (D. Seuss, 2007, pp. 7-8).

If two or more authors wrote the work, see the chart below.

If using the author's name in your text, do not include it in the parentheses.

Example: In his scholarly study, Dr. Seuss observed that "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (2007, pp. 7-8). Example: In 2007, Dr. Seuss suggested that "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (pp. 7-8).

If no author name is available, use the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title). Use quotation marks around titles of articles or web pages and italicize titles of books, periodicals, etc.

Example: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ( Fox in Socks , 2007).

If no pagination information is available, use paragraph numbers instead.

Example: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (Seuss, 2007, para. 5).

Note: When paraphrasing or mentioning another work, it is helpful to still provide pagination information if the source text is long or difficult, or if it would help the reader find the text being paraphrased.

Source: American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.: Author.

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2024 total solar eclipse is Monday: What to know less than a week out

Editor's note: An updated cloud forecast for the April 2024 total solar eclipse is in. Read the latest eclipse forecast and news as of Wednesday, April 3 .

The 2024 total solar eclipse is now less than one week away, and forecasters are getting a clearer picture of what the skies will look like. It's not all good news for people who want to see the spectacle.

On Monday afternoon, April 8, a total eclipse of the sun will cross over a dozen states as it traverses from Texas to Maine.  Millions of people are expected to travel  to see it.

The  full total solar eclipse experience  will plunge people along a narrow path into darkness midday, but people outside  the path of totality  can still use eclipse glasses (maybe  free eclipse glasses ) to see the moon pass in front of the sun — if it's not blocked by clouds.

Meanwhile, those planning to order glasses online may be rapidly running out of time to do so in order to have them delivered on time .

Here's the latest weather forecast for the day of the eclipse:

A grim forecast for Texas

Unfortunately, the weather is looking iffy for folks in some places, especially Southern areas: The cloud cover forecast "shows fairly high probability of clouds in Texas up through the Mississippi Valley," wrote meteorologist Matt Lanza on his blog The Eyewall.

The National Weather Service in Dallas said there's only a dismal 15% chance for favorable viewing conditions in Dallas on April 8. "The outlook for favorable viewing conditions continues to deteriorate as the event approaches," the weather service said.

Indeed, the computer models that meteorologists use to forecast weather show a grim forecast for Texas: "The operational runs of both the GFS and European models have, consistently, shown nearly 100 percent cloud cover across much of the state during the early afternoon hours on Monday," said Eric Berger, a Houston-based meteorologist on the blog Space City Weather .

Another forecaster, Marc Chenard of the Weather Prediction Center, confirmed the gloomy forecast to USA TODAY: "Cloud cover is most likely in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas," he said. In fact, "varying degrees of cloudiness" are likely all the way to the Ohio Valley, he said.

Could there be storms on Monday?

Monday may not only be cloudy in some areas, it could also be stormy, forecasters said: "At this time, specifics about hazardous weather are unknown," the Weather Prediction Center said. "However, rain and thunderstorms do appear possible in and near the path of totality in Texas, southeast Oklahoma, and Arkansas."

Where is the best chance for clear skies for the total eclipse?

For the total eclipse, the best chances for clear conditions are in New England and upstate New York, Chenard told USA TODAY.

"If I’m picking a place right now, it’s probably like Watertown, New York," Lanza said.

The National Weather Service in Buffalo is also bullish on the chances for good weather, with a caveat: The forecast continues to suggest dry weather for Monday with high pressure over the eastern Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, "however it is FAR too early to forecast cloud cover with any confidence or reliability," the weather service wrote in its forecast discussion.

Ironically, the prediction of clouds in Texas and clear skies in the Northeast are the opposite of  historical trends for cloud cover .

Where is the cloud forecast best for the partial eclipse?

There will also be ample opportunities for folks to view the partial eclipse: "The best locations for viewing can be the Southwest and the East, especially east of the Appalachians," AccuWeather lead long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok said. "Cities like El Paso, Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York City and Raleigh should all have great views."

Although not in the path of totality, regions in the Southwest also look to have ideal weather.

"The area from West Texas to southern Arizona should also have favorable viewing conditions," Pastelok added. "These areas will be close to the path of totality with the least amount of cloud cover anticipated."

Order eclipse glasses online now to have them delivered on time

If you're buying your specs through American Paper Optics, the nation's largest supplier of eclipse glasses, the company makes it easy for you with  a countdown at the top of its website  for how much longer you have to procrastinate. As of Tuesday morning, customers have little more than three days to make their purchase and take advantage of the company's  express shipping  across the country.

That's about the same amount of time allotted to  Walmart+ online shoppers , as well as Prime members looking for reputable  glasses on Amazon .

Many eclipse websites like  GreatAmericanEclipse.com  and  NationalEclipse.com  also sell a variety of eyewear products, along with plenty of other gadgets — but double check that estimated delivery date before checking out.

How do I watch the 2024 solar eclipse, if clouds don't block it?

There are a few ways of watching the eclipse:

• Get the full experience in person : If you're in a narrow band of U.S. land that spans from Texas to Maine, you could see the moon block the sun and its shadow cast a night-like darkness over Earth for a few minutes. You could briefly be able to look up without eye protection and see the moon block the sun.
• Watch from outside the path of totality : Much of the U.S. could get a partial view of the eclipse that isn't nearly as impressive as being in the path of totality. Earth won't be plunged into complete darkness and you'll have to wear protective eyewear to see the moon partially block the sun.
• Watch a livestream : Check back on April 8 for a video feed from the path of totality. It's not the same as being there in person, but hey,  at least you won't have to sit in traffic .

What time is the solar eclipse on April 8?

The eclipse will begin in Texas at 1:27 p.m. CDT and end in Maine at 3:35 p.m. EDT, but the exact time of the eclipse varies by where you are in its path.

Here are the major cities in each state where you can expect to experience totality (note that the included times do not account for when the partial eclipse begins and ends):

• Dallas, Texas: 1:40-1:44 p.m. CDT
• Idabel, Oklahoma: 1:45-1:49 p.m. CDT
• Little Rock, Arkansas: 1:51-1:54 p.m. CDT
• Poplar Bluff, Missouri: 1:56-2:00 p.m. CDT
• Paducah, Kentucky: 2-2:02 p.m. CDT
• Carbondale, Illinois: 1:59-2:03 p.m. CDT
• Evansville, Indiana: 2:02-2:05 p.m. CDT
• Cleveland, Ohio: 3:13-3:17 p.m. EDT
• Erie, Pennsylvania: 3:16-3:20 p.m. EDT
• Buffalo, New York: 3:18-3:22 p.m. EDT
• Burlington, Vermont: 3:26-3:29 p.m. EDT
• Lancaster, New Hampshire: 3:27-3:30 p.m. EDT
• Caribou, Maine: 3:32-3:34 p.m. EDT

Will clouds really ruin the eclipse?

Clouds are just part of weather, and as noted in the latest forecast, it's likely that some of the millions of people  in the path of totality for April's total eclipse  will have to  endure overcast skies that will impact the experience .

But determining how clouds would change your view depends on the types of clouds – and which expert you ask. Some advise eclipse watchers to not worry about the skies, others say an overcast sky can ruin the experience.

Before last year's annular solar eclipse, National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Daldrup told  Oregon Public Radio  that if clouds are in the forecast, you should hope for the "right kind of clouds."

“If we want to see it, we’ll want the higher-level clouds,” Daldrup told OPR. “Those tend to be the more feathery cirrus clouds that can still be seen through. They might obstruct the eclipse but you can still see it.”

Cirrus clouds would be in contrast to some of the more eclipse-unfriendly clouds, such as a thick deck of lower-level stratus or cumulus clouds that would likely completely block the sun.

New York inmates say a prison lockdown for the eclipse violates religious freedom

Inmates at a New York prison who are being prevented from witnessing  next week's total solar eclipse  have filed a lawsuit against the state corrections department, claiming that the decision violates their religious freedoms.

The  celestial phenomenon , which has not passed over New York since 1925 and will not be seen again in the state until 2079, "is a significant religious event for people of many different faith backgrounds," according to the complaint, which was filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York.

However, New York corrections officials put a lockdown in place at its facilities  for April 8 , the day the eclipse will  pass over a long stretch of North America , including New York, as the moon blots out the sun. Among them is the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, the prison in Woodbourne where six men of varying religious faiths jointly sued the corrections department over the policy.

The plaintiffs – a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist, two practitioners of Santeria and an atheist – are asking a judge to order the corrections department to immediately rescind the lockdown memo and provide  eclipse glasses  to all inmates who wish to view the eclipse, as it did when a partial eclipse was visible in 2017  in New York.

"This should not be controversial and was previously allowed during the last solar eclipse viewable in New York State," the lawsuit stated, arguing that the lockdown is unconstitutional.

'Devil' comet to make an appearance this month

As if a solar eclipse weren't enough, observers on April 8 may also get a glimpse of a rare "horned" celestial show , a dazzlingly bright comet with a scary name.

A comet designated 12P/Pons-Brooks got the much more interesting name “devil comet” when it had an outburst, a large ejection of dust and gases, in July 2023.

On the day of the Great American Eclipse , the devil comet may become visible to the unaided eye, astronomers say.

Amateur and professional observers in the Northern Hemisphere will get a unique opportunity to view the comet, which is renowned for its periodic eruptions of gas and dust.

Watch CBS News

See the evidence presented at Michelle Troconis' murder conspiracy trial

By Emily Wichick Hourihane

Updated on: April 7, 2024 / 2:31 AM EDT / CBS News

Michelle Troconis was convicted of helping her boyfriend Fotis Dulos murder his estranged wife. Prosecutors say she helped plan the murder , destroy evidence and create an alibi for Fotis Dulos. 

Here's a look at the evidence presented at her trial.

Testimony began in the trial of Troconis, 49, on Jan. 11, 2024. She was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, along with tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution.  Over the next six weeks, prosecutors would present evidence they say proves Troconis hated Jennifer Dulos and wanted her gone.       

How the story began

On May 24, 2019, Jennifer Dulos vanished. The mother and writer was last seen near her New Canaan, Connecticut, home after dropping her five children off at school.  She was reported missing around 7 p.m. that evening.  Police soon launched a massive search.  

Blood in Jennifer Dulos' garage

When New Canaan Police arrived at Jennifer Dulos' rented home, they found blood on the floor of the garage. A little over an hour later, detectives found her Suburban SUV — also containing blood evidence — abandoned by nearby Waveny Park.

Fotis and Jennifer Dulos' contentious divorce

Detectives learned that Jennifer Dulos was embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle with her husband Fotis Dulos, a luxury home builder. The couple was living separately at the time of Jennifer Dulos' disappearance. Former Connecticut State Police Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca told "48 Hours" that Fotis Dulos didn't help with the search and "never seemed concerned about his wife."

A new love interest for Fotis Dulos

Detectives also learned Fotis Dulos had a new woman in his life —  live-in girlfriend Michelle Troconis, who he had met at a waterskiing club in Miami.

Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis on Albany Avenue

Police soon learn that Fotis Dulos and Troconis drove around Albany Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, together the evening of the day that Jennifer Dulos disappeared. They spotted Fotis Dulos on surveillance footage throwing away black garbage bags. 

Michelle Troconis seen on surveillance footage

At one of the stops, Troconis is seen leaning out of Fotis Dulos' vehicle. She would later tell police that she had spit out gum and since her hand was sticky, she decided to wipe it on the sidewalk. Police didn't believe her — especially after they saw what was in those garbage bags.

Investigators discover more bloody evidence

Detectives descended on Albany Avenue and began digging through the trash discarded by Fotis Dulos. They found clothing in Jennifer Dulos' size, ponchos and cut zip ties (pictured). The items were covered in blood matching Jennifer Dulos' DNA, convincing detectives of what they already suspected: this was a homicide. They believed Fotis Dulos was responsible for her murder, and that Troconis helped plan the murder and dispose of incriminating items.    

Michelle Troconis and Fotis Dulos charged     

Troconis was many things — a mother, former ESPN reporter in South America, horseback rider — but now she was an alleged conspirator in her boyfriend's wife's disappearance. She was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and Fotis Dulos was charged with murder. Fotis Dulos would never stand trial. He died by suicide eight months after Jennifer Dulos disappeared, leaving Troconis to face the consequences alone.

Michelle Troconis' trial begins

To prove that Troconis conspired with Fotis Dulos to commit murder, prosecutors first had to prove there was a murder, and then, that it was Fotis Dulos who murdered her.  The State took the jury step-by-step through what they believe happened, telling the story through surveillance videos. Their timeline began with this old red Toyota Tacoma truck belonging to one of Fotis Dulos' employees. Police believe Fotis Dulos took it without permission on May 24, 2019, and drove it to New Canaan.  

Evidence captured on bus video

Police found this video from a passing school bus of the Tacoma on the side of the road near Waveny Park in New Canaan at 7:57 a.m. It was approximately 100 feet from where Jennifer' Dulos' Suburban was later found.

A mysterious cyclist caught on camera

The State showed the jury this surveillance video of a figure in dark clothing. Prosecutors believe Fotis Dulos had brought a bicycle with him in the Tacoma, and that it shows him biking the last three miles to Jennifer Dulos' house. Prosecutors believe Fotis Dulos was lying in wait and assaulted her in her garage. 

An alibi for Fotis Dulos  

Authorities believe Fotis Dulos spent the next couple of hours cleaning up, but that he left behind evidence—his DNA on a doorknob and a mixture of his and Jennifer Dulos' DNA on a faucet in the kitchen. Meanwhile, prosecutors say, Troconis was at the home she shared with Fotis Dulos, helping him create an alibi. Fotis Dulos had left his phone at home and prearranged a call with a friend. Prosecutors believe Troconis picked up the call to make it appear that Fotis Dulos was home, an allegation she denies.    

Evidence in the Tacoma

Police then think Fotis Dulos drove Jennifer Dulos' SUV to Waveny Park and transferred her body or bloody evidence into the Tacoma. They later tested a fabric sample from a seat in the Tacoma and it came back positive for Jennifer Dulos' blood.

Michelle Troconis talks to investigators

The next part of the police theory comes from Michelle Troconis. During a series of three interviews, she told investigators that she and Fotis Dulos had lunch together on the afternoon of May 24. Afterwards, she said that she and Fotis Dulos went to one of his properties to clean it for a showing that was scheduled for the next day. Prosecutors believe they were bagging up evidence and cleaning the Tacoma, before heading to Albany Avenue to throw away those incriminating items. 

Smoke rising from Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis' home

Prosecutors say that same day, Troconis was caught burning evidence in the home she shared with Fotis. They point to this surveillance footage from a home across the street showing smoke rising from the chimney — on what was a mild spring day in May. 

Fotis Dulos at the car wash

Prosecutors showed the jury video of Fotis Dulos once again driving the Tacoma. Five days after Jennifer Dulos went missing, he brought the truck to a local car wash and detail shop. That's him paying for the cleaning. Troconis met him there.

Jennifer Dulos' clothing shown in court

One of the most emotional moments of the trial was when Prosecutor Michelle Manning held up some of the evidence police recovered from the bags Fotis Dulos had dumped on Albany Avenue, including a bloody shirt that belonged to Jennifer Dulos.  Jennifer Dulos' close friend Carrie Luft was in the courtroom.  She told "48 Hours," "being in … the same space and time as Jennifer's clothes just really drove home that she's not here."

Jon Schoenhorn delivers closing arguments

After six weeks of testimony, it was time for closing arguments.  Troconis' attorney Jon Schoenhorn told the jury that Troconis was not involved in any plan to murder Jennifer Dulos and that the State's case was based on "speculation." He said that Fotis Dulos had simply invited her to go on a Starbucks run the day he was dumping evidence, and Troconis didn't know what was inside the bags. He also said that Troconis would often light the fireplace and was burning nothing more than firewood that day.  

The prosecution's final statements

During Prosecutor Sean McGuinness' closing arguments, he focused on one simple word: "coincidence."  "Is it just a coincidence that the defendant answered Dulos' phone … when he was murdering his wife in New Canaan?" he asked the jury.  "Is it just a coincidence that the defendant travels with Dulos to Hartford as he disposes of the evidence on the same day?"

Troconis family reacts to guilty verdict

After deliberating a little more than two days, the jury reached a verdict: guilty . Outside, Troconis' family, who had sat behind her throughout the trial, made an emotional statement to the media.  "We don't know what happened to Jennifer," said Troconis' sister, Claudia Troconis-Marmol, through her tears.  "And choosing and putting my sister as the guilty person is not the right thing to do because she's innocent." 

Jennifer Dulos: Five years gone

In May 2024, it will be five years since Jennifer Dulos disappeared. Police have been unable to find her body. "And that's what's the most painful... We don't know where she is," Luft told "48 Hours." "Jennifer's still here in so many ways. But I think it would bring some peace to be able to let her rest in peace."

• Michelle Troconis
• Fotis Dulos
• Jennifer Dulos

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Remarks by President   Biden on His Student Loan Debt Relief Plan for Tens of Millions of Americans| Madison,   Wisconsin

Madison Area Technical College Madison, Wisconsin

1:26 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Wisconsin.  (Applause.)  Hello, hello, hello.  Please, have a seat if there is — you have one.  (Laughter.) Gov, thank you.  Thank you for that nice introduction. 

And thank you, Ashley, for tha- — introducing me and sharing your story.  I, like an awful lot of people in this audience had — was the first in my family to go to college and watched my dad struggle to help me get there and get all the kids there.  And it wasn’t easy. But, you know, I ask the rhetorical question: How can we be the leading country in the world without the best education system in the world and access to it? You and Sam are from rural Wisconsin, first in your families to go to college — life partners, business partners, hardworking, paying off your loans — only to see your dreams being crushed by student debt. 

But now, thanks to what we’re doing, that student debt is no longer holding you back.  (Applause.)  With this new freedom, you started your own business that helps women and minority-owned businesses right here in Wisconsin.  (Applause.)  That’s what this is all about.  I think we all, in this room, share one goal: Give everybody a fair shot — just a shot — freedom to chase their dreams. 

You know, you’ve got some of the great leaders of Wisconsin here as well.  And I mean that sincerely.  I think Tony knows this: Your governor — I think he’s one of the best governors in the United States.  (Applause.)  And not just — you really are, Tony.  And what progress we’ve made, and we’ve made a lot, is in no small part because of Tony.  (Applause.) And the bad news for Tony is, we’ve become friends.  (Laughs.)  (Applause.)

And, Mark, thank you, Representative.  Thanks for the passport to get into the district.  I appreciate it.  You’re doing a hell of a job.  And Madison Mayor, thank you — where is she?  There you are.  Stand up.  (Applause.)  I get instructions from my wife, who’s a schoolteacher.  She said, “Make sure you say hello to the mayor.  I really like being with her.”  Thank you, Mayor, for taking care of her.  (Applause.) And the state and local [and] Tribal leaders here today, thanks for making it available.  (Applause.)  Where are you?  There you — stand up, Chief.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

And, by the way, it’s Indian Nations. And while she couldn’t be here, I’m always grateful for one of the best senators in the United States Senate, Tammy Baldwin.  (Applause.)  She really is.  She’s a great partner on education, infrastructure, buy American, and so much more.  She’s done so much. And when Kamala and I ran this led in — in this lead county, we made a commitment to fix our broken student loan system.  Because while a college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive — much too expensive. 

In fact, things are a lot different from when college tuition was more affordable and borrowing for college was — repaying those loans was re- — more reasonable. 

Today, too many Americans, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for a college degree.  The ability for working- and middle-class folks to repay their student loans has become so burdensome that a lot can’t repay it for even decades after being in school.  And I mean that sincerely.  Many of you know that, sitting in front of me.  Even when they have worked hard and pay their student loans, their debt increases, not diminishes. 

Too many people feel the strain and stress, wondering if they’re going to — can get married, have their first child, start a family, because, even if they get by, they still have this crushing, crushing debt. 

That’s not — you know, it’s not just a drag on them, it’s a drag on our local economies.  It’s a rag on — no, it really is.  It’s a drag on the economies when you can’t afford to buy a home, start that small business, chase that career that you’ve been dreaming about for a long time. That’s why, early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide more than 40 million working- and middle-class Americans student debt relief.  Tens of millions — (applause) — tens of millions of people’s debt was literally about to get canceled, but then some of my Republican friends and elected officials and special interests sued us, and the Supreme Court blocked us. 

But that didn’t — AUDIENCE:  Booo — THE PRESIDENT:  Well, that didn’t stop us.  No, I mean it sincerely.  We continue to find alternative paths to reduce student debt payments — (applause) — that are not challengeable.

And altogether, my administration has taken the most significant action to provide student debt relief ever in the history of this country.  (Applause.)  We started by fixing two existing programs to get more people the student debt relief than their — that they were entitled to. 

First, we fixed what was called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was designed — (applause) — to make sure those in public service — schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers, faith leaders, public servants — you get the student loan forgiven in 10 years if they’ve made their payments for those first 10 years.  And after 10 years, in the student — in public service, they would have their loan forgiven. 

When I took office, 7,000 public service [servants] had their debt — 7,000 had their debts forgiven.  But the program wasn’t wor- — working very well, so I called in the Department of Education and other departments and said, “We got to fix this and fix it now.”  Thanks to our reforms, nearly 900,000 have had their debts forgiven — (applause) — including 16,400 right here in Wisconsin — right here in Wisconsin.  (Applause.)

Second, we turned what’s called an income-driven repayment program, which I’ve renamed the SAVE program — the most affordable repayment plan ever.

Before I took office, student borrowers had to pay 10 percent of their discretionary income on a monthly basis from what they borrowed — 10 percent discretionary income.  That’s the income after you pay necessities like housing and food.  A lot of people didn’t have the means to pay 10 percent, so I was able to (inaudible) my authority to have the department cut that to 5 percent for undergraduate loans.  (Applause.)

Now, that means no one with undergraduate loans, whether a community college or a four-year college, would have to pay more than 5 percent of their discretionary income to repay those loans starting in July — starting in July of this year. 

And for millions of borrowers who make less than $32,000 a year now after they’re out, their monthly student payments will be dropped to zero as long as they’re that — (applause) — really.

And already, close to 8 million Americans have enr- — had enrolled in the SAVE Plan, including 135,000 here in Wisconsin.  (Applause.) 

Because of our reforms, 25,000 people a month nationwide have been receiving letters from me about their debt they had for four years — for all those years is finally going to be forgiven.  But I’m not stopping here. 

Today, I’m proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student debt for more than 30 million Americans since this — I started my administration. 

First, my administration will propose a new rule to cancel up to $20,000 in runaway interest for any borrower that owes more now — (applause) — owes more now than when they started paying the loan.  (Applause.)  That make — it’s a big difference. 

And for low- and middle-class families enrolled in my SAVE program, we’ll cancel all of your interest — all of your interest.  (Applause.)   

And second, we plan to cancel student debt for borrowers who still owe student loans even though they started repaying them more than two decades ago.  

Folks, third, we plan to cancel debt for about 2 million borrowers who would be eligible for debt forgiveness through the SAVE program, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or other debt-canceling programs but are not enrolled in these programs.  Some of you are only finding out after the fact, you’re — as you’re a teacher, a firefighter, a cop, that you qualify, but you just didn’t know about it before.  And now people are — but you’re eligible no matter how long it’s been — you’ve been out of the program.

Fourth, we plan to cancel debt for borrowers who the Department of Education determines were cheated by universities that left students with unaffordable loans and delivered little in benefits to students.  (Applause.)

And you know — you know one of those — you know one of those colleges was closed.  I won’t mention it.  (Laughter.)

And, finally, the Department of Education will propose a new rule to cancel student debt for Americans facing financial hardships, from childcare to healthcare, to [that] prevent them from paying back their loans.  

And over the coming months, the Department of Education will propose and then implement these plans. 

And starting this fall, we plan to deliver up to $20,000 in interest relief to over 20 million borrowers and full forgiveness for millions more.  (Applause.)

I can tell by the looks on some of your faces this relief — it’s not news to you all.  Because this relief can be life-changing — life-changing, just as you heard from Ashley.

Folks, I will never stop [fighting] to deliver student debt relief on [to] hardworking Americans.  And it’s only in the interest of America that we do it.  And, again, it’s for the good of our economy, that’s growing stronger and stronger — and it is. 

By freeing millions of Americans from this crushing debt of student debt, it means they can finally get on with their lives instead of being put — their lives being put on hold. 

That’s why every American making student loan payments should go to StudentAid.Gov — StudentAid.Gov to learn more about these plans and see if you’re — if — if any of them fit for you. 

Look, that’s not all.  People say to me, “It’s great you’re helping people [get] into college.  How about all those hardworking people who grew up and had no opportunity to go to college?” 

I get it.  That’s the neighborhood I come from. 

That’s why a big part of my economic agenda is investing in all Americans, whether you attend college or not. 

We’re expanding career and technical education at high schools — we — and think how many of these shop programs have been dropped, people not knowing whether they want to work with their hands, th- — not about being able to get started — to provide pathways to good middle-class jobs without college. 

My Labor Department is investing $200 million in grants for registered apprenticeship programs around the country — (applause) — so for- — folks can learn a skilled trade. 

And, by the way, parenthetically, you know all the money in the CHIPS program I put together?  Well, guess what?  It’s going to invest over $50 billion in new programs — new ability to make these chips here in America.  And in those “fabs” they call them, guess what?  You know what the average salary is?  A hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, and you don’t need a college degree — (applause) — but you need a skill.

Programs like the one that — taught right here at Madison Technical College that lead to good-paying jobs in high-growth fields — in clean energy, healthcare, and technology. 

These apprenticeship programs are four and five years before you qualify to have a license.  I love people saying, “Well, why are you — why are you so pro-union, pro-labor?” 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Wooo!

THE PRESIDENT:  The — well — (applause) — no — a lot of people think you can walk up and say, “I want to be an electrician,” and you’re an electrician.  Five years of apprenticeship.  It’s like going to college.  Five years.

I also want to make — and I’ve been pushing this, and if I’m reelected, I’m going to push it hard; we’re going to get it done next time — is I want to make community college tuition free — (applause) — so you won’t need loans at all.  It’ll cut in half the cost of going to college.

If we do this, the economic gains will far outweigh the cost.  And that’s not hyperbole; that’s the truth. 

This is in addition to the historic investments we’re making to moderfiz- — modernize our infrastructure: roads, bridges, high-speed Internet, clean — clean water for every American.  We need more qualified people doing this work to bring back manufacturing — back to America, to build new factories in your communities. 

And I’m investing in the American agenda.  We expect to create millions of jobs over the next decade.  We’ve already created over 15 million new jobs — 15 million new jobs.  (Applause.)  And a significant number of these do not require a college degree, including across Wisconsin. 

Let me close with this.  My dad used to say — and I’m — it’s not hyperbole.  My dad was a hardworking guy.  He re- — well-read man, got into college.  He’s from Bal- — they say — everybody thinks it’s “Baltimore.”  It’s Baltimore .  (Pronounced in an accent.)  (Laughter.)

He was from Baltimore.  He — and he — he got into college to go to Johns Hopkins.  I didn’t know that until after he had passed away.  But it was during the war — just prior to the war.  He was working in the shipyard.  And he couldn’t go.

But he used to always — he had this phrase.  He’d say, “Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck.  It’s about your dignity.  It’s about respect.  It’s about having a place in the community where you, in fact, are — feel like you belong.  It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay.’” 

That’s what we’re doing.  We’re giving people a chance to make it — not a guarantee, just a chance to make it.  And that’s why I’ve never been more optimistic about our future. 

We just have to remember who we are.  We are the United States of America.  And there’s nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together — nothing, nothing, nothing.  (Applause.)

May God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.)

1:40 P.M. CDT

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China's internet is filled with well-wishes for earthquake-stricken Taiwan — and veiled references that the PLA can help

• Taiwan's 7.2-magnitude earthquake has drawn seemingly friendly messages on China's social media.
• The well-wishes are a striking departure from the usual hostile rhetoric toward Taiwan.
• But they're also indicative of China's ambitions for Taiwan, and what Chinese people think of the island.

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning prompted a wave of concerned messages on mainland China's social media, diverting from the usual hostile rhetoric toward the self-governed island.

Footage posted online of the eastern Taiwanese county of Hualien, the quake's epicenter , showed collapsed buildings and a multi-story building tilted at a nearly 45-degree angle.

The quake has killed four people and injured about 50 as of Wednesday noon local time, with about 20 more people still trapped and needing rescue, Reuters reported.

On Weibo, China's version of X, the typical talk of war with Taiwan, gave way to thousands of comments wishing safety for those caught in the tremors. Like many of China's social media platforms, Weibo is heavily censored and moderated.

"This time, it feels like the earthquake was very strong in many places. Wishing for safety," one top comment said.

Discussion of the earthquake soared to the top of Weibo's trending topics, reaching 520 million views in an hour, per data seen by Business Insider.

The response is indicative of online attitudes toward Taiwan, with Beijing long maintaining that the island should come under mainland rule and that its people belong to China as "one family."

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has postured aggressively on matters of potential war to achieve that end — opening the way for a rise in hostile rhetoric online against Taiwan. However, kinetic conflict is still widely viewed on social media as only one of several options for unification.

Polls show that Taiwan's people are increasingly balking at the idea of being part of mainland China, and Chinese disdain for that opposition was on full display even amid the well-wishes on Wednesday.

"I hope everyone is safe (except the Taiwan independence separatist forces)," one person wrote in a top-liked comment for a state media report on the earthquake.

"May the patriotic Chinese be safe" was a frequently posted phrase on Wednesday.

Some suggested that the People's Liberation Army, China's armed forces, step in.

"In such a big earthquake, I personally feel that it is necessary for the People's Liberation Army to provide support," one person wrote.

It's a jab at Taiwan's autonomy that technically doesn't threaten invasion. In China, the PLA is typically mobilized to provide mass manpower for relief and rescue after major disasters.

In 2008, for example, the PLA scrambled some 130,000 troops in response to an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Sichuan province, though some of the soldiers were reportedly unprepared for the relief work.

Fears of a cross-strait war between Beijing and Taipei have burgeoned in recent years as Xi continues to step up talk of military readiness and Taiwan's ruling party builds support for resisting the mainland.

Observers warn that war is likely to drag the US into conflict with China, posing disastrous consequences for the global economy. One expert previously told BI that the effects could be worse for the world than the 1929 stock market crash.

Watch: China shows how it would attack Taiwan as tensions rise

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7 more states sue to block Biden's student loan handout plan as lawsuits pile up

18 states have now sued over biden's student loan plan.

Ted Cruz: Biden’s bid for student loan bailouts is a ‘vote buying scheme’

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joins ‘The Bottom Line’ to discuss President Biden pitching another massive student loan handout.

President Biden's administration faces yet another lawsuit as a growing number of states seek to block his student loan handout plan, with Missouri and six other states filing a complaint on Tuesday.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's lawsuit argues that Biden's "SAVE" plan, announced in February, is illegal and would cost American taxpayers $475 billion. Bailey's lawsuit comes just weeks after Kansas and 10 other states sued the Biden administration over the same plan.

"With the stroke of his pen, Joe Biden is attempting to saddle working Missourians with a half trillion dollars in debt. The United States Constitution makes clear that the President lacks the authority to unilaterally ‘cancel’ student loan debt for millions of Americans without express permission from Congress," Bailey told Fox News Digital.

"The President does not get to thwart the Constitution when it suits his political agenda. I’m filing suit to halt his embarrassing attempt to buy the 2024 election in direct violation of the law. The Constitution will continue to mean something as long as I’m Attorney General."

MORE STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS IS ON THE HORIZON, AS U.S. COLLEGES COMMIT TO COST TRANSPARENCY

President Biden's faces yet another lawsuit and a growing number of states seeking to block his student loan forgiveness plan, with Missouri and six other states filing a lawsuit on Tuesday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Joining Bailey in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and North Dakota.

Missouri and Arkansas both participated in the lawsuit that ultimately brought an end to Biden's previous student loan plan last year. The Supreme Court decided 6-3 that Biden's plan was unconstitutional.

BIDEN SANCTIONS ISRAELI SETTLERS IN WEST BANK AFTER SHOOTING OF US TEEN

"President Biden has already lost on this question once, and he is refusing to follow the law. The Supreme Court could not have been clearer: President Biden cannot unilaterally cancel student debt and force taxpayers to bear the multi-billion-dollar cost," Arkansas AG Tim Griffin told Fox News Digital.

Missouri and Arkansas both participated in the lawsuit that ultimately brought an end to Biden's previous student loan forgiveness plan last year. The Supreme Court decided 6-3 that Biden's plan was unconstitutional. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The lawsuit argues that Biden's SAVE plan is part of "a long but troubling pattern of the President relying on innocuous language from decades-old statutes to impose drastic, costly policy changes on the American people without their consent."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital, but the Biden administration previously defended the SAVE program against the lawsuit led by Kansas.

"The Department does not comment on pending litigation. However, Congress gave the U.S. Department of Education the authority to define the terms of income-driven repayment plans in 1993, and the SAVE plan is the fourth time the Department has used that authority," an Education Department spokesperson said at the time. "The Biden-Harris Administration won’t stop fighting to provide support and relief to borrowers across the country – no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us."

SOME STUDENT LOAN BORROWERS ARE GETTING REFUNDS ON TOP OF LOAN FORGIVENESS

President Biden has repeatedly tried to forgive student loans through executive action, only to be thwarted by the Supreme Court. ((Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) / Getty Images)

Tuesday's lawsuit lands just one day after Biden announced yet another plan to cancel student loan debt. This latest one focuses on cutting loans that have exceeded their principal amount due to interest. It would cut up to $20,000 in accrued interest for borrowers, but borrowers who make less than $120,000 or couples who make less than $240,000 would be allowed to cut all of their accrued interest beyond the principal amount.

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The result would see roughly 23 million Americans having their loans cut down to the principal amount.

While Bailey has no legal action to announce regarding the interest cut, he said his office is monitoring it.

"We beat his unlawful student loan plan in court last summer, so he quickly rolled out Plan B. Now that we’re challenging that, he’s panicked and is rolling out a Plan C. We will continue to watch him closely and take action whenever he’s overstepped his authority," Bailey told Fox.

Read the full Missouri lawsuit below: (Mobile users click here)