Questions you need to answer before writing your Business Plan
The Team
Who is in the team, what knowledge and resources do they bring together?
What makes them the right team to develop the idea?
Objectives and Goals
What are the objectives of the proposed enterprise?
The business model
What is the proposed business model?
The problem or need being addressed
What is the nature of the problem?
How widespread is it?
How serious or important it is?
Description of the product or service (or combination of the two)
How will it address the identified need?
How will it be developed and produced?
What intellectual property is inherent in in or needed to create it?
Description of the market
Who is the end user, and what are they like?
If they are different, who are the customers who are between the producer and the user, and what are their characteristics?
What are the channels through which the customer is likely to purchase and how they will be accessed?
How many/much of the product or service will be bought?
Competitor analysis
How are the needs identified already being addressed?
How is what you are proposing significantly different to what is already available?
What might be the response of competitors to the launch of this new product or service?
Financial predictions and analyses
What are the predicted costs of developing the product and introducing it to the market?
What are the predicted sales?
When will breakeven occur?
What cash flow and profits are predicted, over what time period?
How much investment and working capital is needed?
What will the return on investment be?
Contingencies and sensitivities
What happens if the market is smaller or larger than predicted?
What happens if costs are higher or lower?
What happens if competitors respond in a different way?
