Test-drive Your Business Plan Hypotheses
Now that you have your business plan, here are three simple ways that you can use it:
- Use this simplified plan to pitch investors. It goes hand in hand with your elevator pitch.
- Test drive your thinking. Get out in front of as many potential clients, partners and suppliers as possible. In presenting and discussing your offering with them you will receive immediate feedback. This kind of first-hand market research will be invaluable as an early indicator as to whether or not your business plan is on track to becoming a profitable enterprise.
- Review your plan on a monthly basis to see if you are still on track and revise if need be. It’s also easy to change things up if you decide a certain product or process is no longer relevant to or working for your business.
- Share the business plan with your management team so that you’re all working towards the same goals
Useful Tips
- Find out more about the investor you are pitching to make sure that they don’t prefer more detail in a plan
- Do enough research to validate your objectives and strategies. You need to be able to answer any questions about your idea, your market and your finances.
- Pair your business plan with your business model canvas to give investors and your team a better idea of how the business will work
- Use the plan to build yourself and your team a to-do list
- Consider the lean start-up model if you are developing a new product or service offering and are unsure about whether it’s what your customers are looking for.
Feel the Need to Elaborate?
If you feel that a the business plan is not enough to get your business started then there is the option of writing a longer, more detailed business plan without drowning in countless pages.