How to develop a business plan that brings in the investors

I should start by saying a business plan does not necessarily mean a written document because this depends on the circumstances that surround its development. An entrepreneur seeking funding from a venture capitalist firm will be required to draw up a business plan (of course on paper). In another instance the starter just needs information to guide the business and this information may be captured in their memory not on paper. I know of some investors who don’t work well with paper instead they will just fire questions based on SWOT analysis to determine if your head is in the game. I delve deeper into this argument about written and unwritten business plans in my coming articles but for this let’s go back on topic and develop a business plan that gets you the financing.

So basically you are targeting a bank, venture/angel investors or family member the aim here is to highlight the benefits of your venture. For banks and other investors the benefit has to outweigh the risk and the principle followed here is the greater the risk the greater the benefit (for some not all).

To develop a business plan that attracts such attention you need to perform a SWOT analysis on your entire operation. You need to assess your strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats with regards to the business. From this, one can tell whether the venture will be a success or a flop or what is required to ensure that the venture is successful by eliminating or reducing the risks.

Points to guide the business plan

•   Get a pen and paper and write down the unique points of your business for example patents or uniqueness of the idea (your strengths)
•   Understand the market size, demographics, geography and how your business offers a solution or how it will fit in the market
• Look into the members of you team and their different skills and expertise to guide the business
• State the business model and how you expect to make money (if already making money state your financials i.e cash flow, profit & loss and balance sheet)
• State your competition (if you have any) here you address the question of how you expect to deal with the competition
• Show the threats or risks that are associated with your chosen line of business
• Show opportunities for future growth

Once all these bases are covered you can start the write up of the business plan and since you are doing an official document it needs to adhere to a structure read about business plan for entrepreneurs you can get the structure there.