how to make a one page business plan

How to Write a One-Page Business Plan

Noah Parsons

5 min. read

Updated January 30, 2024

What’s the most challenging part of writing a business plan? Getting started. That’s why you should create a one-page plan as a starting point.

The one-page business plan is simple to create, easy to update, and built for adaptation. It includes all of the essential components of a traditional plan but is far briefer and more focused.

Think of it like you’re tweeting about your business. You have a limited number of characters to work with and are intentionally making it easy to digest. If you need additional support, try downloading our free one-page plan template .

• What is a one-page business plan?

The one-page business plan is a simplified version of traditional operational plans that focuses on the core aspects of your business. While it may be a shorter business plan, it still follows the structure of a standard business plan  and serves as a beefed-up pitch document.

There’s really not a lot of difference between a single-page business plan and a good executive summary. In fact, as you create a more detailed plan you may even be able to use it as your executive summary .

• What to include in your one-page plan

Here are the eight necessary sections to include when developing your one-page business plan.

Try and keep each section limited to 1-2 sentences or 3-4 bullet points to ensure that you stay within one page. It’s always easier to add more later rather than cutting back from lengthy sections.

The problem

A description of the problem or need your customers have and any relevant data that supports your claim.

The solution

Your product or service and how it solves the problem.

Business model

How you will make money—including the costs of production and selling, and the price that customers will pay.

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Target market

Who is your customer and how many of them are there? Define your ideal customer by starting with a broad audience and narrowing it down. This provides investors with a clear picture of your thought process and understanding of the greater consumer market.

Competitive advantage

What makes you different from the competition? Explain how this will lead to greater success, customer loyalty, etc.

Management team

The management structure of your business, including currently filled roles, ideal candidates, and any management gaps.

Financial summary

Key financial metrics include your profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast. This section may be the most difficult part to condense, so try and focus on visualization and standard business ratios to get the point across. You can always share broader financial information if requested.

Funding required

Have what funding total you need front and center to clearly display what you are asking from investors.

Why you should start with a one-page plan

There are plenty of good reasons to write a business plan . There are even more reasons why your first step should be writing a one-page plan.

1. It’s faster

Instead of slogging away for hours, days, or even weeks tackling a formal business plan—the one-page format helps you get your ideas down much faster. It removes the complex formatting,

2. A great format for feedback

Need quick feedback from business partners, colleagues, potential customers, or your spouse? Provide them with a one-page plan instead of a lengthy in-depth version for better results.

The one-page plan is more likely to be read and reviewed. And since all of your business information is available at a glance, you’ll receive far more valuable and timely feedback.

3. Easy to update

Entrepreneurs never get things right the first time. You’ll constantly be learning and receiving feedback—requiring you to iterate and revise your business concept. Instead of updating a large document every time, you can do it in minutes with a one-page plan.

4. Direct and to-the-point

Learning to communicate your ideas clearly and directly is critical. You need to be sure that anyone can really understand the essence of your business. Delivering your entire business concept on a single page is a great way to practice this, as it forces you to be succinct.

5. Works as an idea validation tool

Initially, your business is just a set of assumptions that you need to validate. Do your potential customers have the problem you assume they have? Do they like your solution and are they willing to pay for it? What marketing and sales tactics will work?

As you validate these assumptions, you leave them in your plan. But, assumptions that end up being wrong will quickly fall off the page.

6. Becomes an outline for your detailed plan

By “detailed” we don’t mean “long.” If you do need to create a detailed business plan document for investors or business partners, you can use your one-page plan as your core outline. You will just expand and provide more details for each section.

7. No one really reads long business plans

A common problem with traditional business plans is that they are simply too long and overly complex. Even when investors ask for a detailed document, chances are that they won’t actually read every word. They may read certain sections, but often just want to see if you’ve thought through the details of your business, how it will operate, and how it will grow.

8. Useful for any business stage

A one-page plan is useful for business owners that are mulling over ideas, just starting, actively managing, or looking to grow a business. It can help validate a business idea, work as an internal strategy document, or as a flexible management tool that can be adapted over time.

Resources to help write your one-page plan

Check out our guide for quickly writing a one-page plan and download our free one-page plan template to kickstart the writing process.

How to write your one-page plan in under an hour

Still feeling a bit overwhelmed about creating a business plan? Check out this step-by-step guide to write a useful one-page business plan in as little as 30 minutes.

One-page business plan template

Download a free one-page business plan template to make the plan writing process simple and easy.

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Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Why start with a one-page plan

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One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide

By Joe Weller | April 6, 2020

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In this article, we’ve gathered a variety of free, one-page business plan templates for you to download in Excel, Word, and PDF formats. 

Included on this page, you’ll find a one-page business plan template for a service business , business plan template for a product business , business plan for a real estate agent , a Lean business plan template , and more. To help get you started, we’ve also included an example of a one-page business plan , and  a quick guide on how to create your one-page business plan .

One-Page Business Plan Template

Download One-Page Business Plan Template

Excel  | Word  |  PDF | Smartsheet

Use this one-page business plan template — designed to be simple, organized, and easy to use — to immediately get started on your plan. Write down your thoughts and key ideas as you decide if your business concept is viable, and adjust it as circumstances change. You can also use this template as a basis to build a more detailed and elaborate plan.

One-Page Business Plan for a Service Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for a Service Business Template

Excel | Word | PDF

This business plan template is designed specifically for businesses that provide a service. The one-page plan provides space to list the essential information about your strategy, including the service you offer, the problem you are solving for customers, your mission and vision statements, target audience, staffing requirements, key objectives, and much more. This template also includes a timeline at the bottom for you to add key milestones.

One-Page Business Plan for a Product Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for a Product Business Template

Use this one-page template to develop a strategic roadmap for your organization’s product offerings. This template provides space for you to include a business overview, a description of your target market, your competitive advantage, a list of marketing channels and materials you plan to utilize, as well as your pricing strategy, distribution channels, and success metrics. You can also use the visual timeline of milestones at the bottom to enter key dates and events.

One-Page Business Plan for Real Estate Agents Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Real Estate Agents Template

This one-page business plan template is created for real estate agents to set objectives and put together an action plan. Enter your overarching goal at the top of the template, and establish three high-level activities you need to complete to achieve the goal. The template also includes a strategic action plan that breaks down each high-level activity into tasks and deadlines, with an accompanying visual timeline to ensure you stay on track.

One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template

This one-page business plan is designed for a nonprofit organization, with space to detail your mission, vision, and purpose statements, as well as who you serve, the problem(s) you solve, and programs and resources you offer. Additionally, the template includes space to detail your financial plan, marketing activities, costs, and more.

One-Page Business Plan for Startup Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Startup Template

This one-page business plan template is intended for an entrepreneur or a small startup business to document a plan as they determine if an idea is feasible. This template provides space to describe the problem and solution, the product or service, the target customer, existing alternatives, the unique value proposition, a marketing and sales plan, success metrics, and other information. You’ll also find room to detail sources of funding and how the funds will be used.

One-Page Business Plan for Small Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Small Business

Use this one-page small business plan template to outline the essential aspects of your business strategy. Provide details on your organization’s vision, mission, product or service offering, and management team. Then identify the target audience, market size, competitor offerings, and your competitive advantage. This plan also includes room to detail your marketing and sales strategy, key objectives, and financial plan.

One-Page Lean Business Plan Template

Download One-Page Lean Business Plan Template

This one-page template uses a Lean approach to develop your business plan. Use this customizable template to detail the crucial elements of your strategy, including a brief business and industry overview, your product or service offering, options from your competitors, and your competitive advantage. Plus, this template includes room to detail your marketing plan, success metrics, financial plan, and a visual timeline of milestones.

One-Page Business Planning Template with Timeline

Download One-Page Business Planning Template with Timeline

Excel | Smartsheet

Use this business planning template to organize and schedule key activities for your business. Fill in the cells according to the due dates, and color-code the cells by phase, owner, or category to provide a visual timeline of progress.

One-Page Business Plan Example

This one-page business plan covers all the essential elements and offers a visually appealing presentation. Information for each aspect of the plan is concise, with details about the business mission, management team, product offerings, key marketing activities, competitors, and financial projections. This plan also provides links to additional resources so that stakeholders can easily find information to support the specifics of the plan.

How to Write a One-Page Business Plan (with Sample Outline)

A one-page business plan takes a standard business plan and extracts the fundamental aspects, then condenses the essential information down to one page. To determine the key elements to emphasize in your one-page plan, consider the type of business you operate, as well as the financial (and other resources) needs of your business.

To streamline your business plan into a one-page document, follow the steps below.

• Create a simple outline for your plan using bullet points. Below, you’ll find an example of an outline for a one-page business plan. You can add or remove sections according to the needs of your business. 
• Business mission
• Problem you are solving
• Funds needed (if applicable)
• Product or service positioning statement
• Unique value proposition
• Target customers
• Market size
• SWOT analysis
• Direct competitors
• Existing alternatives
• Competitive advantage
• Key marketing strategy (e.g., channel or method that will yield the best results)
• Key sales strategy
• Specialized equipment or facilities
• Staffing requirements (e.g., key personnel, skills, and training needs)
• Distribution method
• Sales projection
• Profit and loss projection 
• Gather all your findings on your business and industry.

Compile all the current information you have gleaned from market research, interviews, surveys, and various teams in your business (e.g., the marketing and finance teams). Comb through each document and extract the information that is fundamental to your business’s operation and relevant to the bullet points on your outline.

• Write two to three brief sentences for each main bullet point.

Once you create your outline and gather information, write two to three sentences for each main bullet point that expands on and summarizes the sub-bullet points for that section. For example, the plan summary section could say the following:

Donny’s Food Truck will offer a variety of fresh food at an affordable price in a convenient location. Increased traffic in the Hungry Town area, combined with severely limited dining options, provides an opportunity to offer customers a quick, nutritious meal at a competitive price. A food truck with the necessary equipment has already been acquired, so we are seeking $200,000 to cover wages, emergency repairs, and licenses needed to fund our first year of operations.

• Ensure you are able to support all the information provided in your plan.

Since a one-page plan omits many of the details provided in a traditional business plan, be sure you have market research and other supporting documentation on hand to show stakeholders in case they have questions as they review your plan. In addition, make sure you thoroughly understand the supporting information and know how to restate it in your own words before you disburse the plan. 

• Ensure your plan answers all the vital questions .

At a minimum, an effective one-page business plan should answer the following questions:

• What product or service do we offer?
• Who will use the product or service?
• What problem does our offering solve?
• How will the product or service get to our customers?
• What alternatives do our customers use, and why are we superior?
• What is our unique value proposition?
• What strengths and opportunities can we use to our advantage?
• What resources do we need to get up and running?
• What will our sales look like for the first few years?
• When do we expect to be profitable?

In addition to the steps provided above, you can save time and get started on your plan by downloading one of the templates provided on this page. You can also check out “ Free Executive Summary Templates ,” which can serve the same purpose as a one-page business plan.

Benefits of a One-Page Business Plan

Organizations and stakeholders can unite behind a strategic direction when they have a business plan in place. Developing a traditional business plan can be a daunting task, so many entrepreneurs, small startups, graphic designers, freelancers, and consultants find a one-page business plan a less intimidating place to start. 

Creating a one-page business plan benefits your organization in the following ways:

• Push you to prioritize and focus on key ideas.
• Enable your audience to quickly scan and grasp the core concepts of your plan.
• Allow you to easily share and pitch your business idea to prospective investors and stakeholders (e.g., email attachment, single piece of paper).
• Accelerate business setup, especially businesses that don’t need a loan or investment to get going.
• Provide a solid starting point to expand upon at a later time.
• Enable you to document your thoughts and ideas to see if you have a feasible plan.

Tips for Creating a One-Page Business Plan

Now that you know how to create a one-page plan and the benefits in doing so, here are some tips to get you started:

• Set a time limit (up to one hour) to focus and work on your plan.
• Use a one-page business plan template (you can choose from the options above), or refer to the sample outline provided on this page.
• Ensure your plan details only the core aspects that are fundamental to running and operating your business. 
• Remember that this is a living document — continue to revisit and adjust it as strategies and objectives change.
• Expand on your plan as your business size and needs grow. 

When the time comes that you need more space to lay out your goals and strategies, choose from our variety of free simple business plan templates . You can learn how to write a successful simple business plan here . 

Visit this free non-profit business plan template roundup  or download a  fill-in-the-blank business plan template  to make things easy. If you are looking for a business plan template by file type, visit our pages dedicated specifically to  Microsoft Excel ,  Microsoft Word , and  Adobe PDF  business plan templates. Read our articles offering  startup business plan templates  or  free 30-60-90-day business plan templates  to find more tailored options.

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How to Write a Viable Business Plan on One Page

Posted march 10, 2021 by noah parsons.

If you’ve been putting off writing your business plan, you are not alone. Writing a business plan can seem like a daunting task and an easy one to avoid.

But, it doesn’t have to be. An easy way to start is with a one-page business plan .

Advantages of a one-page business plan

Narrowing down your business idea to a single page is a good exercise. It’s also a more useful way to create a viable business plan in under an hour. Still not convinced? Here are a few other benefits to starting with a single-page plan.

It’s faster to create and iterate

A one-page plan is designed to be done quickly and easily. The short format ensures that you don’t get too caught up in developing a lengthy explanation of your solution, and instead forces you to keep moving through the sections of your plan. 

It’s also a plan that’s not meant to be perfect, meaning you’ll likely revisit it. Luckily, keeping everything to one-page makes it fast and easy to update or adapt specific sections or even your entire plan. 

It provides the clearest picture of your business

There will be plenty of moments over the life of your business where you need to streamline your messaging. From advertisements to pitching to investors, you need to be clear and concise in order to get people on board. That can be difficult to do if you start with overly lengthy explanations of the different elements of your business.

This is why a one-page plan can be so beneficial. It encourages you to keep your descriptions brief and to think more critically about what you need to say about your business. You can always build up from there. 

How does a one-page plan differ from other business plan formats?

There’s really not much difference between developing a business plan on one page and a good executive summary . The only real possible difference is that if you set out to write a business plan on one page, it must absolutely fit on that one page and must be in a font that most people can still read. A traditional executive summary, on the other hand, can extend to two or three pages, but really should never be longer than that.

If you can condense your executive summary to one page, that’s great. Investors don’t have lots of time to read and a one-page executive summary will get the idea of your business across succinctly. It’s actually a very good exercise to trim down your executive summary to the absolute minimum. This will force you to trim needless words and communicate your business idea clearly and with minimal clutter.

In many ways, a one-page plan serves as the perfect starting point for developing a one-page plan. Starting with one page ensures that your points are brief, clear, and to the point. It also helps you identify what sections you need to elaborate on, whether it’s your milestones, operations strategy, or financial forecasts .

Who is a one-page business plan intended for?

Single-page business plans aren’t meant for just one type of person or business. They can actually be viable in multiple scenarios. Here are just a few business types that can benefit from starting with a simplified business plan:

Building a business plan on one page is ideal for companies that are in the early stages of figuring out how their idea might work. Instead of spending days on a detailed business plan, working through a simple, one-page plan will provide a solid overview of the business in a format that’s easy to change and adjust. 

As you learn more about your business and figure out how your idea is going to work, you’re going to be making lots of changes to your plan. So it’s much better, and easier to keep all your ideas on a single page.

Startups and pre-revenue businesses

Experimentation and testing are at the core of most startup organizations. It helps keep your organization agile, innovative and reduces risk. A traditional business plan doesn’t really allow for that methodology to thrive — it’s too hard to update and takes too long to write. But starting with a single page provides the flexibility to explore multiple options for your business.

The most important thing is to discover your ideal business strategy. A one-page plan helps you do that and can easily transition into a more refined growth plan.

Established businesses 

Even if you’re not a startup, a single-page business plan can be an extremely helpful tool for documenting your business strategy. You can guarantee that your business plan will be read by your team and get everyone on the same page quickly. Allowing you to spend more time on budgeting, forecasting, and tracking your key business numbers.

In many ways, you actually have a leg up on startups when developing a simple one-page plan. You already know your business, you have actual financial data to input, and can kickstart the process of tweaking and refining your strategy while measuring progress toward your goals.

Business expansions

Expanding your business is incredibly similar to starting one. You’re either launching in new locations, seeking new customers, or even launching a new product or service. And you can use your business plan to effectively plan for the expansion.

Think of it as a checklist for success. You’ve already used it once to launch your original business. With the right tweaks and focus you can use it again. Or if necessary just start fresh, after all, it’s only a single page.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When sitting down to write your business plan, there are a few things you can do to simplify the process. 

Outline the elements of a single-page business plan

First, outline the elements you need to include in your plan. The elements you need to cover include:

• Value proposition
• Market need
• Your solution
• Competition
• Target market
• Sales and marketing
• Budget and sales goals
• Team summary
• Key partners
• Funding needs

Knowing these pieces upfront ensures that you won’t miss any key components as you write your plan. It also helps enforce how much room you actually have to work with when writing out each section. If you’ve only covered four components and almost have a full page, you may need to simplify things. 

For more detailed instructions on how to fill out these sections, be sure to check out our step-by-step guide .

Stick to bullet points and short sentences

To help avoid the need for cutting material out of your plan be sure to stick to bullet points and single sentences. This is meant to be a streamlined strategy guide for yourself, your team, and any third party that needs to understand your business. So, at this point, it doesn’t need to be overly detailed, and eventually, you can elaborate on specific sections if necessary.

A good rule of thumb is to treat each section as a single tweet. How would you describe your value proposition in just 280 characters? Can you explain what marketing channels will you be using in just three bullet points? Challenge yourself here, and try to streamline your messaging as much as possible. It’s always easier to expand on something rather than having to cut elements out.

Focus on the content

Don’t forget, the content of your business plan is far more important than the formatting. Too many companies spend time focusing on the presentation and graphical display of their plans when what they are saying and how they are saying it is really the most critical aspect of your executive summary. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to have an ugly presentation, but focus on the content more than anything else.

Remember that you can always come back

If you’re in the early stages of your business you may not have exact ideas of who your larger team will be, what milestones you’ll need to hit in three years, or even an accurate expense budget. That’s perfectly ok. 

This one-page plan is meant to be an exercise for you to establish the core elements of your business. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to have every single thing laid out. Just the general elements that can give you, and anyone else, a clear picture of what your business is and does. 

The intention is for you to come back and revisit this plan . To expand on necessary components and turn it into a one-page document that helps you manage your business . 

Start crafting your one-page business plan

Writing a business plan on one page is a great jumping-off point to work on a more detailed business plan. Once you have a summary of your idea figured out on one page, you’ll be ready to validate, expand and provide more details in a more thorough business plan—if you need to write one. 

For some businesses, a simple plan written on only one page might be enough. Especially if you’re just using it internally and don’t need to share lots of details with outsiders. For other businesses, especially those trying to get loans and investments, they’ll need to provide more details in a larger business plan.

If you need help putting together a simple business plan that you can fit on one page download our one-page business plan template . Or, if you’re looking for a more modern business planning option, you may want to try out a tool like LivePlan . It will walk you through every planning step and help you develop a plan that grows with your business.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2012. It was updated for 2021.

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Create a Business Plan One-Pager (+ Proven Templates )

Learn what to include in a business plan one-pager & the best doc format. Learn how to write a one-page business plan, either from scratch or using a template.

Dominika Krukowska

14 minute read

Short answer

What to include in a business plan one-pager.

• Title slide
• Unique value proposition (UVP)
• Company overview
• The problem you are solving
• Market analysis
• The solution you offer
• Marketing and sales plan
• Main objectives and success metrics
• Key team members and their roles and accreditation
• Request for funds and use of funds
• Next steps (small concession)

Even the best business plan can be badly received if not presented well

If you make it too complex, dry, or fail to spark the investors’ interest, you’ll bury your chances of securing the funding necessary to get your business off the ground.

Your success lies in how you’re going to structure and deliver your business plan.

This post will provide you with essential tips and templates for creating a winning business plan one-pager .

You'll learn what to include, how to structure, and how to design a visually striking business plan that grabs attention and gets results.

Read on to build your confidence and empower yourself to present any business idea persuasively and stand out from your competition.

Let’s see how it’s done!

What is a business plan one-pager?

A business plan one-pager is a document that summarizes the key elements of a full business plan onto a single page.

It includes an outline of your company's mission, target market, products or services, revenue streams, competitive advantage, marketing and sales strategy, and financial projections.

Business plan one-pagers are often used as a pitch deck for investors, a proposal for business partnerships, or as an executive summary for internal use.

Why use a one-page rather than multi-page business plan?

Compared with traditional multi-page business plans, a one-pager has 3 significant advantages.

• It's concise and to-the-point. This makes it easier for investors and partners to grasp your vision quickly.
• A one-pager business plan has limited space. This forces you to present only the most important aspects of your business plan which makes your case more clear and compelling.
• It's more share-worthy. Because it's just one page, it's more likely to be read and shared.

Can I use a one-page business plan as a substitute for a more comprehensive business plan?

Probably not. Your business plan one-pager is not meant to replace a full business plan, but rather to supplement it.

While your one-pager provides a high-level overview of your business idea, it may not provide the level of detail some investors or partners require.

TIP: You can use a business plan one-pager as a way to test your business idea and get feedback before investing time and resources in creating a full-scale business plan.

How to write a one-page business plan

Let’s see how you can distill your business idea into a compelling format that makes you stand out and leave a lasting impression.

By the end, you'll be equipped with the skills and knowledge to make others believe in your vision with just one page.

What to include in a business plan one-pager

We've identified 11 key elements that should be included in every highly effective business plan one-pager.

11 critical slides included in a business plan one-pager:

1. Title slide

The title slide of your business plan one-pager is your first chance to make a great impression on potential investors, so make it count!

Adding a video in your cover slide can boost engagement by 32% , get people to read your one-pager 37% longer, and make them 17% more likely to take the desired action at the end.

TIP: You can add the average reading time in the cover slide (right below your company name and logo). This simple little fix can shrink your bounce rate by 24%.

2. Unique value proposition

The Unique Value Proposition (UVP) slide of your business plan one-pager is where you get to showcase what sets your business apart from the competition. You can do it in the form of a tagline that encapsulates your company's essence.

A vision statement that speaks to the heart of your business can capture the interest of investors and entice them to read on.

The mission statement should be snappy, catchy, and memorable.

Example UVPs:

"Transforming the future of sustainable energy"

"Innovating personalized healthcare solutions."

3. Company overview

The company overview slide should tell investors the story behind your business.

A company overview should answer 3 critical questions:

• how it came to be
• what it stands for
• and where it's headed

This slide should give investors a clear understanding of the type of business you're running, the problem you're trying to solve, and how your business aims to succeed in the marketplace.

By providing a succinct and compelling overview of your company, you can demonstrate that you have a solid understanding of your business, its strengths, and its potential for success.

A strong company overview slide can set the tone for the rest of your one-pager and make a great impression on investors.

4. The problem you are solving

This section should outline the pain points of your target market and explain why a solution is needed.

Presenting a compelling case for a real-world problem helps convince investors of the potential market demand for your solution.

TIP: Focus on the customer's perspective. Highlight the challenges they face and the impact those challenges have on their lives or businesses.

5. Market analysis

The market analysis slide is your opportunity to showcase your knowledge of the competitive landscape and your potential market.

It should describe your customer segments, the size of your target market, the current players in the market, and any gaps or opportunities that your business can leverage.

A strong market analysis slide demonstrates to investors that you've done your homework and that you have a deep understanding of the market you're entering.

6. The solution you offer

The solution slide should present the key features and benefits of your solution and demonstrate how it uniquely addresses the pain points of your target market.

A strong solution slide is the heart of your business plan one-pager.

It should showcase the innovation and value of your product or service. It should transport investors into a better world brought on by your business solution.

TIP: Carefully choose your words and visuals to describe your solution as transformational. The most successful business plans build excitement and anticipation and leave investors eager to learn more.

7. Marketing and sales plan

Your marketing and sales plan slide is your opportunity to showcase your strategy for reaching your target audience, generating interest in your product or service, and ultimately driving sales.

From pricing strategy and promotion to distribution channels, the marketing and sales plan slide should provide a comprehensive overview of how you plan to turn your vision into reality.

A well-crafted growth plan demonstrates your creativity and strategic thinking, you can inspire confidence in investors and show that you have what it takes to succeed in the competitive world of business.

8. Main objectives and success metrics

Your business plan one-pager's objectives and success metrics slide is where you define your key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives. It’s important to add this slide early on, as it serves as a roadmap for your business's growth.

Presenting a well-defined set of objectives and metrics will show investors that you have a solid understanding of what it takes to succeed in your industry, as well as a strategic mindset and commitment to achieving your goals.

9. Key team members and their roles

The team slide is where you showcase the people behind the business, including relevant skills, experience, and accreditation. Investors want to see a team that has what it takes to bring the business to life and drive its success.

This slide should highlight each team member's unique contributions, including their roles and responsibilities, as well as any relevant accomplishments. I recommend that you include a brief bio and corporate headshot to add personal depth.

TIP: Remember, you are selling you and your team just as much as you’re selling your business idea. Business success relies on a great team. What takes business from good to great is first “Who” then “What” .

Show that your team brings a diversity of thought, a wealth of experience, and a passion for the business that can inspire investors and make them fall for your team even more than they fall for your business idea.

10. Request for funds and use of funds

When you're asking for funding, it's essential to be crystal clear about how much you need and why.

Whether you're planning to launch a new product, hire more staff, or boost your marketing efforts, make sure to provide specific details and supporting data to back up your request.

In the use of funds section, break down precisely how you plan to allocate the funds you receive.

This involves outlining how much you'll spend on product development, marketing, hiring, or other expenses.

Remember, investors want to see a clear return on investment (ROI). Whether you bringing in a dedicated development team or buying a comprehensive tool stack, by prioritizing your spending based on your business goals and demonstrating how the funds will help you achieve them, you'll show investors that their money is in good hands.

11. Next steps

Don’t end with a thank-you slide! Instead, end your business plan one-pager by providing a clear and actionable call-to-action.

This slide should leave no doubt in investors' minds about what you want them to do next and how they can get involved in your business.

By providing a compelling call-to-action, you can increase the likelihood of securing funding and gaining valuable support for your business.

Our research shows that decks with a clear, singular next step have a 27% higher conversion rate than those which end with a generic “thank you” slide.

Business plan one-pager possible next steps:

• Scheduling a meeting to discuss the plan in more detail
• Scheduling a live demo of the product
• Downloading additional materials (market research, positioning, marketing plan, user research, product technical documentation, etc.)
• Signing a letter of intent
• Making an investment (mostly good for small donations/investments)

Here’s an example of a business plan built with this structure:

Business plan one-pager

This one-page business plan presentation template covers your company, market, product and services, and growth plan as an interactive visual story that's easy to follow and highly engaging.

How to effectively fit a business plan on just one page

Let’s see the concrete steps you need to take to effectively condense your entire business strategy onto a single page without sacrificing critical information or losing sight of your goals.

1. Limit what you have to say

It's essential to prioritize the most vital information that investors need to know about your business. This means being strategic about what you include and what you leave out.

Rather than trying to cram every detail of your business into a single page, focus on the core information that defines your business.

Your core information is most often your unique selling proposition, target market, and financial projections.

2. Say what you have to say with fewer words (but avoid jargon and acronyms)

Since you're limited to just one page, it's important to be concise and to the point.

Avoid using complicated jargon or industry-specific acronyms that may be difficult for investors to understand. Instead, use clear and simple language that gets your message across quickly and effectively.

TIP: Write your message as if you're talking to a friend with no previous knowledge of what you do.

3. Give summaries and link to read full content

While it's important to be concise, you also want to ensure that you're providing enough information to give investors a good understanding of your business.

One way to do this is to provide brief summaries of key information and then provide a link to more detailed content.

4. Limit your use of visuals

Visuals can be a powerful tool for conveying information quickly and effectively, but they can also take up a lot of space on a one-page business plan.

Use visuals sparingly and only when they add value to your message. Consider using graphs, charts, and infographics to illustrate key points and data.

5. Move from PDF one-pager to web-based one-pager

Unlike PDFs, which require readers to constantly pinch in and out of content to make it legible, web-based one-pagers create an interactive experience with scrollable documents.

You can also use multimedia elements, such as videos and animations, to enhance your message and make the information more engaging.

With a web-based business plan one-pager , you can break up dense text into smaller, more comfortable chunks, creating a better reading experience for your audience.

Web-based one-pagers are designed to be mobile-friendly, so your audience can easily view your content on any device, from anywhere.

How to make your business plan one-pager stand out

First impressions are everything. An impressionable business plan one-pager can be the difference between securing investment and being left in the dust.

Here are some tips on how to make your business plan one-pager stand out:

1. Use motion

Including animation or video into your one-pager can be a powerful way to grab investors' attention and keep them engaged. Use motion to highlight key points or demonstrate how your product or service works.

To learn more about how it’s done, check out our article on how to use video animations to create engaging content .

2. Use original designs

Using original designs is a key element for standing out.

Avoid falling into the trap of using generic designs. Instead, take the time to create something that is truly unique and eye-catching.

This can be as simple as using your branding or as complex as creating your own infographics or custom illustrations such as Procreate color palettes .

3. Personalize

Personalization is the most effective way to make you stand out and leave a lasting impression.

Effective personalization:

• Including a personalized note
• Addressing the investor by name
• Referencing their previous investments (to show that you've done your research)

Tailor-made decks are read in full 68% more often , 41% longer, and are shared internally 2.3x more often.

4. Customize according to the investor’s preferred format

Customizing your one-pager to the specific investor's needs and preferences is the best way to get and hold their attention.

Look for guidelines on their website, ask previous candidates, or ask the investors directly.

Fit your plan to their format and highlight aspects of your business that align with their investment portfolio or industry expertise.

5. Tell a story with data visualization

Data can be overwhelming, but presenting it in a visual format can make it more accessible and compelling.

Use infographics, charts, and other data visualization elements to tell a story about your business's growth and potential.

Here’s our selection of the best data visualization tools to get you started.

How to make a persuasive business plan one-pager

If you want your business plan one-pager to persuade investors to get on board with your vision, you need to make sure it hits all the right notes.

We've got you covered with tips for making a highly-persuasive business plan one-pager.

1. Define a unique audience with an acute problem

You should define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and the problems they face, and how your solution can help them solve these problems.

2. Describe your uncopyable solution to said problem

When describing your solution in your one-page business plan, it's important to emphasize what makes it unique and difficult to replicate by others.

3. Show traction or potential traction

To make your business plan one-pager more persuasive, it's critical to show evidence of traction or the potential for it.

Consider sharing metrics such as customer acquisition rates, revenue growth.

4. Incorporate social proof

You will never get funded without earning investors’ trust. Social proof is the best tool for building trust (other than a face-to-face meeting).

You can include customer testimonials, case studies, or awards to showcase your business's credibility and success.

5. Display your authority and expertise

Include any notable achievements,awards, or acknowledgement your team or product have received.

6. Tie your business goals with universal values

Consider connecting your business goals with universal values that resonate with investors.

This could include making a positive impact on society or the environment, supporting underrepresented groups, or promoting innovation and growth.

Some investors will appreciate the positive impact beyond ROI, others will care only about profitability. Do your research.

How to optimize business plan one-pager UX

When it comes to creating a one-pager business plan, choosing the right document format can make all the difference. Here are some crucial factors to consider:

1. Move from static to interactive

Static formats like PDFs and Word documents can kill engagement and interest with your one-pager.

On the other hand, interactive formats like web pages or Storydocs offer a more immersive, engaging, and memorable experience.

With interactive formats, you can include videos, animations, and other multimedia elements to help showcase your business in a more engaging way.

Interactive

2. Move from pinch and zoom to scroll

Pinch-to-zoom gestures on PDFs are annoying for most people. They make navigating the one-pager frustrating and make reading needlessly hard

A scroll-based interactive one-pager gives investors a familiar and easy way to read through your business plan. Just like they're accustomed to do with any other online content (that’s also mobile-friendly).

3. Become mobile-friendly

Static document formats like PDFs and Word documents are difficult to read and navigate on mobile devices, while web-based formats offer seamless mobile experience.

4. Move from local file to online docs

Local files, such as PDFs or Word documents are being replaced with web pages or cloud-based documents.

Online docs offer your readers easy access from anywhere and from any device, a better reading experience, reduced exposure to virus and malware, and easy sharing.

Best business plan one-pager document types

You have various document formats to choose from when creating your business plan. Each format has its own set of benefits and limitations that can affect how it's received by investors and stakeholders.

Let’s run through the important differences.

Best document type for a business plan one-pager:

Business plan one-pager do’s and don’ts.

✅ Keep it conversational and easy to understand.

✅ Use data to support your claims.

✅ Tell a story.

✅ Talk about your solution in the context of your audience's needs.

✅ Use interactive formats with multimedia.

✅ Focus on your unique selling proposition.

✅ Show that you have a plan for execution.

✅ End with your ask and a call-to-action.

✅ Clearly present your market positioning.

✅ Address major obstacles and provide plans to overcome them.

❌ Don't use buzzwords, jargon or go into technical detail.

❌ Don't make unrealistic claims.

❌ Don't spout out facts.

❌ Don't talk about your product (we, we, we).

❌ Don't use static formats.

❌ Don't focus on what makes your competitors bad.

❌ Don't make wild moonshot promises.

❌ Don't end with a “thank you” slide.

❌ Don't ignore your competition.

❌ Don't overlook potential risks and challenges.

Create your business plan from interactive template

If you want to create a business plan one-pager that will cut above the noise and get results, it will require a lot of hard work to get right.

What's worse, you run the risk of losing potential investors or stakeholders if you get it wrong.

A poorly designed or incomplete business plan could make it difficult for others to understand your vision or see the potential in your business.

To save time and frustration and remove the risk, consider using our interactive templates.

With Storydoc's business plan one-pager templates , you can focus on the content and messaging of your business plan, rather than spending hours formatting and structuring it.

Pick a business plan one-pager template:

Create story from scratch

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

Make your best business plan to date

Try Storydoc for free for 14 days (keep anything you make for ever!)

One Page Business Plan for Word, PDF

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Template Highlights

• Eight (short) sections: Business Opportunity, Industry Analysis, Target Market, Company Description, Timeline, Marketing Plan, Financial Plan, and Funding Requirements.
• Easy instructions for each part.
• Zhuzh it up a bit with your company logo and branding.
• Download it as a PDF or Word file.
• Print it, email it, send it via Morse code.

Why all businesses should create a business plan

For startups and enterprises alike, there are many reasons to create a one-page business plan. For example, it can help you:

• Show your progress and how you intend to grow : Your business plan lists vital information on your company, such as your goals, market research results, and success milestones.
• Determine a realistic budget to ensure success : If you don’t create a proper plan, you might underestimate fixed and variable costs and, therefore, lack the financial capacity to succeed.
• Provide concrete information to potential investors : By having a detailed business plan in place, you’ll be able to effectively convey your business goals to internal stakeholders, and you’ll stand a better chance of winning over investors.
• Fulfill the requirements for securing a business loan : Many financial institutions won’t even consider giving you a loan without seeing your plan.

Should you create a business plan from scratch?

You can do this, but it’s often more hassle than it’s worth. If you’ve never made a business plan before, you’ll need to do a lot of research on what to include and ensure you create a professional and eye-catching document.  If you download our free one-page business plan template, you’ll save time and ensure you cover every relevant detail.

How to use the one-page business plan template

Here are the steps for filling out our template:

• Enter your contact details to download the template in Microsoft Word or as a PDF.
• Gather your relevant business documents, such as market research results and financial statements, in case you need to include details from them.  
• Add information to all the fields, including Company Description, Target Market, Industry Analysis, Implementation Timeline, Funding Required, and Financial Summary.
• Get feedback from business partners, employees, or other parties to ensure that all information is correct and up to date.
• Proofread to ensure there are no errors. These look unprofessional, leaving a bad impression of your business.  
• Save your business plan in various locations and formats. This helps you share your plan with stakeholders via email or present it at company meetings.

Template Preview

One page business plan.

One-Page Business Plan Template

This brief business plan template encourages you to stick to your core message and provide investors with just the information they need to know about your new venture.

The Business Opportunity

What is the problem your business will solve? Focus on the customer’s needs.

Give your elevator pitch. Be succinct, clear, and persuasive.

Be sure to include your value proposition -- What do you offer that no one else does?

Industry Analysis

List key factors for success in your industry.

Who is your main competition?

Company Description

Identify important facts about your business:

• Founding date

• Mission statement

• Type of organization

• Core strengths

• Main leadership

Target Market

Describe your customer segments.

Will you serve a particular geographical area?

Implementation Timeline

Provide a brief summary of how you will roll out the business. Consider depicting the different phases in a diagram. You can use the timeline below as a template.

Marketing Plan

Describe what methods you will use to acquire new customers.

Why would your target market prefer your product or service to another option?

Financial Summary

Cost Structure: What are your fixed and variable costs?

Revenue Streams: How will your business make money?

Funding Required

Present the amount of funding that you are seeking from investors and how it will be used.

HubSpot Tip: Be sure to edit and review your plan for typos before distributing it. Errors in a short document can be distracting to the reader and make you look unprofessional.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should i create a business plan, what types of companies need a business plan, how do i write a one page business plan, what should my business plan focus on, is this template free, can i edit this template, related tags:.

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Starting a Business | How To

One-Page Business Plan: The Step-By-Step Guide

Published July 2, 2020

Published Jul 2, 2020

WRITTEN BY: Blake Stockton

This article is part of a larger series on Starting a Business .

Right now you likely have a business idea. Awesome! Now you need to think through that idea by getting your thoughts on paper. The One-Page Business Plan will walk you through each step of planning your business idea. Once you know your financial projections, you can finish the basics of this plan in less than 15 minutes. Planning is a great way to thoroughly understand the costs and income potential of your business idea.

Before continuing, download our one-page business plan template:

Download the template and save it to your desktop for easy access. The fields in the PDF are editable. You can also print out the document and write by hand. Answer each question with one or two sentences—feel free to write in incomplete sentences.

If you need additional space to write then place your basic ideas on the template, and continue writing on a personal document.

Question: What problem will your business solve?

Every business solves a problem. What specific problem will your business solve for a customer? Try to get down to the core issue your customer is having.

For example, for a landscape company, “time wasted” maintaining a lawn may be a problem for your customer; however, if possible, make it more specific. For example, the specific problem may be an unkempt lawn. You can visually see an unkempt lawn—it’s much harder to see “time wasted.”

2. Solution

Question: What will your business provide to solve that problem?

You’ve identified the problem, now you need the solution. What specific action will you take to resolve the customer’s issue? This solution is your product or service. Don’t be afraid to get specific with your solution.

Going back to the landscaping example, your solution is to improve an unkempt lawn and maintain it. However, I challenge you to go one step further with your solution. Perhaps you’re creating a lawn that makes neighbors jealous, which is a solution tied to an emotion—very powerful.

Tip: If you’re starting a new type of business , try to test your solution on a small scale without spending a lot of money. This test makes sure customers will pay you for the solution. In entrepreneurship, a common saying for a struggling new business is that it created “a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.” Don’t be that business.

3. Business Model

Question: How will your business make money?

For many businesses, its business model is straightforward. A product is sold or service is provided, and the company is paid.

You also want to outline how and where the products and services will be sold. Will they be sold in your own business or office. Someone else’s store or office? Will you be engaging in ecommerce—on your own website or an online marketplace such as Amazon?

During this step, you should also set your pricing—which basically means, how much will you charge? This can be difficult to figure out. Consider browsing competitor websites for pricing. You may want to call a competitor and ask for a quote.

4. Target Customers

Question: Who will purchase your products or services?

Your target customers are your ideal customers. The worst answer to who is your target customer is “everyone.” Not even some of the most popular companies started out for everyone—Facebook was for college students, Amazon sold books. Also, a common marketing saying is that if you’re “marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one.”

When thinking about who your target customers are, think demographics. Think about features such as age, income, gender, hobbies, and location.

When you’re clear on your target customers, your marketing strategy will become apparent as well—you’ll understand where and how to spend your marketing dollars.

5. Promotion

Question: How will target customers learn about your business?

List any strategies you will use to get potential customers to learn about your business. As a new business, it may be challenging to reach and persuade your first customers. How will you do it?

In-person networking and marketing for your business are often more effective than online marketing. However, some online marketing is free and can have the ability to reach a lot of people.

If looking for local customers, consider claiming and optimizing your free Google My Business (GMB) listing . Additionally, once you create your GMB listing, set up your free one-page website. Affordable!

6. Competitive Advantage

Question: What will your business do better than the competitors?

Before you can state your competitive advantage, study your competitors—learn their strengths and weaknesses. Once you know you can do better than competitors, choose one or two areas where you know you can outperform them.

For example, if you notice they have poor online reviews, you can have exceptional customer service. In fact, your marketing can even call that out, such as a satisfaction guarantee.

Or maybe you can be faster than your competitors—“done in two days or less!” Don’t be afraid to call out your competitors and state why your business has the best “X.”

7. Financial Projections

Question : How much money do you need to start?

One part of financial projections is called startup costs —how much money you need to open your doors. For this cost, simply list all the items and services you need to get your business started.

When estimating the startup cost, you’ll want to overestimate on the amount, rather than underestimate. Often, a new business owner may be unaware of certain startup costs. If you underestimate costs, you could run out of cash before you get your first customer.

Question : How much will you spend every month?

Calculate how much money your business is likely to spend every month. Make the calculations for the first 12 months.

This may take research. You may have to pick up the phone and request a quote for items such as raw materials, equipment, and insurance.

Question : How much will you earn every month?

Now for the fun part—the amount of money you expect to make. How many customers do you plan on having every month for the first 12 months? You should have your pricing from the business model step. Take the number of customers times the price to come up with an estimated income every month.

Depending on your type of business, you may expect to grow your customer base every month. You may expect to only have a few customers in your first month—by 12 months, dozens of new customers. However, you don’t have to grow. Some companies may be content with a few consistent customers every month.

8. Funding Required

Question: How much money do you need to both start and operate your business?

Funding required is the total amount of money you need to start and operate your business for at least six months. You typically should have more funding than just the amount to start.

What if the company doesn’t get the sales you initially predicted? Or a natural disaster hits such as a hurricane or pandemic? Does your business have enough funds saved up to get through a difficult time?

Now that you have the amount of funding required to start and operate for at least six months, you can go out and raise that money through various sources, such as:

• Personal funds
• Family and friends
• Crowdfunding
• Business credit cards
• Personal loan

The One-Page Business Plan Alternative

If you’d like to create a more in-depth business plan after reading through this guide, remember, there are different types of business plans . For example, if you’re seeking funding from a bank or investor, you will need to create a traditional business plan . This type of plan requires more thorough market research and financial forecasting.

Bottom Line

Now that you have your one-page business plan created don’t put it in a drawer never to be looked at again! As you move forward with your business, revisit your plan often.

It’s a best practice to keep track of your income and expenses to see if your predictions played out correctly. Did you outperform your goals? What’s working well or not so well? Use your one-page business plan to reflect on your business’s current state and update it if necessary.

About the Author

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Blake Stockton

Blake Stockton is a staff writer at Fit Small Business focusing on how to start brick-and-mortar and online businesses. He is a frequent guest lecturer at several undergraduate business and MBA classes at University of North Florida . Prior to joining Fit Small Business, Blake consulted with over 700 small biz owners and assisted with starting and growing their businesses.

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How to Write a One-Page Business Plan

Written by Dave Lavinsky

The one-page business plan is one of the most popular tools for entrepreneurs, startups, and established companies. It’s also one of the simplest to develop. This article will walk you through a description of a one-page business plan, the purpose of this type of plan, and how to create a one-page business plan for your company.  

What is a One-Page Business Plan?

A one-page business plan is a compressed version of a traditional business plan that fits neatly into a single page. Creating a one-page business plan requires significant research, strategizing and financial modeling on the front end to be effective. In that respect, rather than being easier or simpler to create than a full-length business plan, the single-page business plan actually requires an additional distillation effort for the entrepreneur.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

As always, utilizing a business plan template provides the basis for you to clearly communicate your value proposition, business concept, business strategy, services, product offerings, etc., and improve your business planning process. ​  

Benefits of Using a One-Page Plan

A one-page plan is easier to read, share and understand.

By boiling down your business plan into one page with only the most important elements, you are better able to 1) focus on the key action items your business must accomplish and 2) present your vision and plan to your team in a way that won’t overwhelm them and will allow them to most easily understand it.

The reward is that the brevity of a 1 page business plan is very attractive to prospective investors, who are usually pressed for time. Because it is so brief, it is also an effective tool to share among your management team and employees to get your team motivated and working towards the same goals. A strong one-page business plan proves you grasp the crux of your business and appreciate what is most critical for audiences to quickly understand about it.

Below, we walk through the content of a one-page business planning template.  

The One-Page Business Plan Template

Whether you are starting a service business or a product-focused business, your one-page business plan should include the following 7 items:

• Business Model
• Market Analysis
• Competitor Analysis
• Financial Projections
• Funding Required & Uses of Funds

Each of these items are detailed below.

Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

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With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

How to Create a One-Page Business Plan

Each of the key elements included in a traditional business plan retains its position in the 1 page business plan. You need only provide a few words, phrases, or sentences in the description for each of the sections and move on to the next. The following are the essential elements:

For example, Netflix in its budding days identified a problem with video stores. It was time consuming and inconvenient to go to the video store every time you felt like watching a new movie.

2. Solution

Again, looking at Netflix, the company initially solved the problem of time consumption and inconvenience by delivering movies directly to customers’ homes.

3. Business Model

Consider the example of YouTube. YouTube’s business model hinges on users who by and large engage on the platform for free. YouTube leverages this ever-increasing user base to attract advertisers, which provides revenues.

4. Market Analysis

For example, Swedish furniture brand Ikea’s US target market could be described as urban young professionals who like the Scandinavian style and are willing to put in a little setup work themselves to save money on quality furnishings. These individuals spend, on average, $8,000 on furnishing when they move into a new home or apartment.

5. Competitive Analysis

Take the example of coffee giant Starbucks. Their competitor analysis would yield large brands like Dunkin’ Donuts, Panera Bread and McDonald’s McCafé, as well as boutique coffee shops on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. Starbucks differentiates itself through providing specialty coffee products of consistent quality under a national brand.

6. Financial Plan & Projections

See below for example graphs that show a growth in topline revenues year over year as well as the projected revenue distribution by service area for a hair salon:

7. Funding Required & Uses of Funds

See below for an example table of fund uses for a startup hair salon:

Free Downloadable One-Page Business Plan Example PDF

Download our one page business plan template pdf here.

Download Growthink’s One-Page-Business-Plan-Template for Microsoft Word  

Final Thoughts

Remember to focus on your business’ strengths as much as you can. If your market analysis reveals you have a strong position then highlight it more in the single-page plan. Likewise, if your financial projections come out stronger then elongate the financial section.

Editing the enormity of a business plan into a single page is a daunting task but doing so will bring clarity to the core idea and value of your business and help you pitch well in front of potential investors.  

One-Page Business Plan FAQs

What are the benefits of one-page business plans.

Traditional business plans are sometimes 25-50 pages long. It's hard to read that many pages for one company, let alone dozens of them.

One-page business plans are more digestible. 

They provide key points on what you do, why you do it, and how you plan for growth. 

What is the difference between a one-page business plan and a lean business plan?

A one-page business plan is a reduced version of a traditional business plan that can be easily wrapped onto a single sheet of paper.

The key elements included in a one-page business plan are:

On the other hand, a lean business plan is a short-term planning method that allows you to more quickly and accurately develop your business plan based on actual customer feedback and interactions. A lean business plan is focused more on helping you build a better business and testing a variety of strategies to assess if they are effective for your chosen business model. 

Also in a single-page format, the key elements included in this type of plan are:

• Business Overview
• Value Proposition
• Key Partnerships
• Key Activities
• Key Resources
• Customer Relationships
• Customer Segments & Channels
• Cost Structure
• Revenue Streams

A typical rule of thumb for these types of plans is that every sentence should be meaningful and useful for orientation purposes in order to appease investors in an efficient way while retaining their interest long enough to make an informed decision about investing in your business. 

Looking for more information? Lean Business Plan: How-To Guide & Template

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One-Page Business Plan Templates

One-Page Business Plan Templates for Entrepreneurs

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

Having a business plan is a must , whether your goal is to start a one-person freelancing business or a multi-million dollar enterprise. However, if you are looking to start a simple product or service business as a sole proprietor or one-person corporation you don't need a 50-page business plan . A shorter plan will suffice. A quick and easy one-page business plan templates can get you started. 

If your business is a partnership  or requires multiple employees, you may need a more robust business plan. Similarly, a one-page plan will not be sufficient if you are in need of  debt  or  equity financing  and wish to impress financial institutions or potential investors. Lenders and investors will require you to provide more in-depth information in the plan such as:

• Your relevant industry background, business, and management experience 
• A more thorough description of your target market , proof of sufficient demand for your products or services, and how you will meet that demand and turn a profit
• Thorough analysis of the competition and how you will compete in the marketplace
• Detailed, realistic financial projections , including projected income statements, cash flow projections, and  breakeven analysis
• An in-depth operating section with details on facilities, leases, equipment, and staffing.

Step-by-step guidance on how to write a business plan  can lead you through each section of a full-sized plan.

Keep in mind that a business plan is a living document and you can always start with a one-page plan and enlarge it with additional detail as required. You may be able to articulate the business overview, vision , objectives, and concise action items in a single page, but you might want more detail in the financial and marketing sections. For example, you might want to add an extra page to your pricing strategy section for income and  cash flow statements and another for breakeven analysis in advertising and promotion.

Structure of a Business Plan

A one-page business plan needs to provide concise answers to several basic questions that must be addressed such as:

• What is the need for your product or service?
• What is your competition and how will you differentiate yourself in the marketplace ?
• How will you make money, for example, in terms of sales versus expenses?
• How will you market your business?
• How will you get started? What are your  capital  requirements?

How to Use the Templates

The sample templates can be copied into a Word, Excel or similar office document by selecting the text and using copy/paste—using Windows, outline the text to be selected with the mouse, and hit CTRL-C to copy and CTRL-V to paste. 

One-Page Business Plan Template for a Service Business

This template is suitable for freelance businesses that provide services, such as consultants, graphic designers, landscapers, and delivery services. For a one-page plan, the answers to questions should be one or two sentences.

One-Page Business Plan Template for a Product Business

This template is suitable for businesses that sell products, such as food services, beauty products, and bike shops. For a one-page plan, the answers to questions should be one or two sentences.

• Lean Startup Business Plan Guide

How to Create a Lean Canvas

• Startup Basics

Last Updated: January 17, 2024 By Michaela Dale

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

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

Writing a Lean Business Plan for a Startup

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

What Is a Lean Startup Business Plan?

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

Lean Startup Plan Pros

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

Lean Startup Plan Cons

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

Lean Plan vs. Traditional Business Plan

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

Lean Canvas vs. Business Model Canvas

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

Lean Business Plan Sections Explained

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

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

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

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

Key Metrics

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

Unique Value Proposition

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

Unfair Advantage

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

Marketing Strategy

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

Customer Segments

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

Cost Structure

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

Revenue Streams

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

Steps After Creating a Lean Startup Plan

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

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

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

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

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How to Write a One-Page Business Plan (By Asking the Right Questions)

Home » Blog » How to Write a One-Page Business Plan (By Asking the Right Questions)

French author-philosopher Voltaire once wisely said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

The same can be said for your business plan.

Every entrepreneur, business owner, inventor, and visionary started their business journey with an inquisitive question.  

Yours now might be how do I write a one-page business plan ?

If so, we have the answers.  

Writing a business plan can seem like a daunting task, but this guide will provide you with the right questions you need to ask in order to get started.  

The Steps of Writing a One-Page Business Plan

It doesn’t matter whether you’re opening a coffee shop, bed and breakfast, or a construction company. The elements you need to write a one-page business plan remain the same.  

Best-selling author Paula Nelson put it this way:

“The best business plans are straightforward documents that spell out the who, what, where, why, and how much.”

To clarify, I’ll use a guest house I opened in 2018 as an example. It quickly became the regional number one online listing, attracted guests from 33 countries, and secured bookings one year in advance.

My small guest house grew into the success it was because I had a strong business plan. It targeted a specific audience, identified a need and provided a solution, held a competitive advantage, a definitive sales strategy, and so on. Basically, my small business was successful because I had a solid business plan as a foundation.

How is a One-Page Business Plan Different From a Regular Business Plan?

A regular business plan is a formal presentation that must include certain elements and quality standards.

Also called a traditional business plan, it is on average 50+ pages written in business language. You need this document to impress others outside the company, such as investors.  

So, if you are meeting with a potential investor, you would present them a regular business plan as opposed to a one-page plan.  

A one-page business plan answers the questions you need to know.  

It’s quick to write, provides you with a resource to rely on, helps set your goals and implement the strategy to reach them. It shows you where you are and what’s required to achieve success.

The first question you need to answer: Is there a market need?  

1. Is there a market need?

“If dogs don’t like your dog food, the packaging doesn’t matter.” – Stephen Denny, author and competitive strategy/marketing consultant.

Every successful business has to first confirm the market need . Without a market need, you don’t have a viable business.

A market need is a problem that a specific demographic has, also known as their pain point. When you identify a pain point and an audience craving a solution, you’ve found your market need.  

Let’s review a few strategies you can use to confirm market need:

Validate the demand. First step, prove your idea has potential. Validation provides accurate data telling you exactly how many people search for your product/service over a set time – and showing whether your market’s growing or declining.  

Assess your competition. Your competitors’ success can also prove the market need. What products/services do they provide? What solution do they solve? And how high is consumer demand?

Listen to your future customers. Look at your prospective customers’ positive and negative reviews to find out what they think. Check out review sites like Trustpilot, Amazon, social media, and your competitors’ websites.

Going back to that guest house I mentioned earlier, I confirmed consumer demand by assessing competitors’ online booking availability at peak and off-peak times. I then determined the gap in the market (AKA, what type of accommodation to offer) by reading customer reviews, finding out what visitors wanted, and what the competition failed to provide.  

2. How will you solve the market need?

“Don’t find customers for your products. Find products for your customers”.   – Seth Godin, author, and entrepreneur.

Now you must identify how you’ll solve the market need and prove why your solution is better than what’s already available.

To provide a winning solution, first find what is called in marketing your unique selling point (USP). It’s a strategy informing customers about how your product is superior to competitors.  

Your USP could be a better product or service, a lower price, a simplified buying process, exceptional customer service, or a new and revolutionary solution to an existing problem. No two successful businesses have the same USP because if they did, they wouldn’t be unique.

When I was determining the guest house’s unique selling point, I looked at others in the market. My competitors were primarily focused on maximum income for minimum cost, and not necessarily on getting customers to return. Identifying that gap is how I found my USP, resulting in hundreds of 5-star reviews and a return client base (not via a third-party site), increasing my profits by 15%.

3. Which products or services will you offer?

Before choosing a product or service to sell, ask yourself the following questions:

What are my customers’ hidden desires?  

What’s the most significant benefit my product/service can give my customers?

What problems do my prospects have with my competitors, and how can I solve them?

Because it’s not your products that interest people, it’s the results they provide. Put your customers first and fulfill their implicit desires with excellence, and your choice of product or service will become apparent.

The guest house I opened offered exceptional customer service.

Sure, the beds were comfortable, the food excellent, and our view amazing. But most folks remembered the superb service and feeling attended to.  

The guest house’s level of service gave value to my customers – providing an instant return to my business by increasing reviews, cultivating a loyal clientele, referring others, and attracting people happy to pay more.  

4. What's your business model?

The late Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef, author, travel documentarian, once said:

A business model outlines how your company will turn a profit selling a product/service to a target audience within a specific marketplace.  

However, with so many new businesses models coming online every day, they’re constantly evolving, so no one size fits all. For example, traditional business models include brick-and-mortar stores, franchising, and direct sales.  

Hybrid models (businesses like my guest house) combine internet sales with a physical location.  

Your business model’s purpose is to ensure you’ll profit using the proper marketing channels and payment gateways for incoming revenue.  

Now’s the time to be ruthless with the numbers. Account for every outgoing, like set-up costs, fixed costs, product production and packaging, sales, and shipping. Research your competitors to find the base price point for what you’re offering.

For the guest house, I had a hybrid model using online marketing to rent vacation rooms through third-party holiday booking sites. I then added Google My Business, a website, and local off-line physical marketing materials as my customer base grew. It was heavily focused on return customers and referrals to reduce third-party percentage sales costs, increasing revenue. Payment gateways included online payments via third-party sites, my website, and on-site.

5. Who's your competition, and how will you beat them?

“I’ve been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.” – Walt Disney, you know the guy!

Without competition, you’ve got one of two things: A business idea no one wants, or one no one yet knows they need.

Both are unsuitable business models for a small business. The ideal business model should have high customer demand, healthy competition, and room for a savvy innovator like you to move in.  

You beat your competitors by identifying them, what they offer, and which marketing channels they use to engage their target audience. And you find those by running a competitor analysis .

A competitor analysis identifies your competition’s strengths and weaknesses, their marketing strategies, advertising platforms, and any crucial marketing opportunities they may be missing. Doing so gives you a competitive advantage.

The guest house I opened had 42 established competitors, all with a long booking site history and hundreds of reviews.  

However, average review scores were low (8.2 on Booking.com and 3.8 on Google), the negatives being customer service, facilities, and breakfast. Most competitors weren’t taking advantage of visuals, using low-quality photographs. Fewer still were active online, failing to reply to customer comments and testimonials.  

6. What's your competitive advantage?

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”   – Jack Welch, ex-CEO of General Electric.

A competitive advantage is your company’s ability to outperform your competitors in one or more ways. That is called a unique value proposition (UVP).

Your unique value proposition is the solution and benefit your USP provides. Your UVP’s an in-your-face marketing statement describing exactly how you’ll bring value to your audience, highlighting what makes you unique to the marketplace.

Ask these questions to find your answers:  

Relevancy: How does your product or service solve your customers’ pain points or improve their situation?  

Quantified value: In what way will you deliver those specific benefits?  

Differentiation: Why should your ideal customer buy from you and not from your competition?  

The guest house’s unique selling point was superior service, stunning views, comfortable bedrooms with extra facilities, and a 5-star quality breakfast using local produce, catering for all food intolerances.  

Our unique value proposition was marketing.  

I was at an immediate disadvantage to our competitors. Our location was 2 miles from town, which meant customers needed transport, so I promoted a free taxi service. It became one of our leading USPs.  

I took beautiful photographs and wrote engaging descriptions of the property, breakfast, and facilities down to the last detail – removing any doubt from my target audience’s mind.

And, I created a cohesive and recognizable brand by using the same images, bio, and family pictures on all our marketing platforms.  

7. Who's your target market?

“Everyone is not your customer”.   – Seth Godin, yep him again!

Your target market is the consumers who you’ve proven want what you’re selling.  

By identifying your target market and their preferred marketing channels, you can define your marketing strategy around their needs – at the same time, highlighting your UVP to engage and connect with them at every opportunity.

You gain an understanding of your target market by creating a buyer persona . It’s a fictional character created using accurate research data that provides relevant information about your audience.

The aim is to identify a niche audience you’re confident your marketing will convert into paying customers.  

My guest house was located at a hot spot for bachelor and bachelorette parties. There were businesses providing a service catering to their specific needs. It was clear that local couples and families were unhappy sharing facilities with an overly jubilant crowd.

I’d found our target market. We quickly gained the reputation as the go-to property for those wanting a quiet, relaxing holiday. My target market is less trouble, more appreciative, stay longer, and pay more for our service.  

8. What marketing strategies will you use?

“Good marketing makes a company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.”   – Joe Chernov, ex-VP of marketing at HubSpot.  

Now your goal is to define your marketing (sales) strategy to maximize your ROI (return on investment) and create a highly optimized presence within your niche.  

You define your marketing strategy by identifying the channel your target audience uses most to search for and buy your product.  

You identify it by looking at your competitors’ websites and social media platforms, and by checking out third-party sales websites such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or in my example, Booking.com.  

I opened the guest house in the height of summer after establishing Booking.com as my target audience’s preferred platform. And although the site charges a hefty 15%, the pay-off was worth it.

By focusing on my target audience and using the highest converting booking platform, I took 67 bookings in my first 4 days. And by providing unparalleled service (on a platform driven by reviews), I had 104 primarily 5-star reviews by the end of the summer, resulting in a 9.8 score.

This enabled me to spread my marketing net to include Google My Business and website. With all 3 marketing platforms working, I booked out one year in advance and could raise the prices.  

9. How will you cover your costs?

“Never take your eyes off cash flow because it’s the lifeblood of business.”   – Richard Branson. He signed the Sex Pistols, built an airline and a spaceship, and flew to space!

Did you know most new businesses fail due to a lack of cash flow?  

It’s critical to know your numbers and write up a financial summary (budget and sales goals) to stay afloat.

A financial summary could be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet, and includes your setup costs, running costs (products, shipping, utilities, rent, marketing, etc.), and most importantly, your break-even point. Your break-even point is when your credit equals your debit, and if you run your business correctly, profit soon follows.  

Your cash flow is the net balance of cash moving in and out of your business at a specific point in time and the amount you need to keep your business running. And by maintaining a balance sheet, you keep your eyes on your cash flow.

Include these in your one-page business plan:

Expenditure and budget. Account for every expense, no matter how small (and keep the receipt)!

Sales goals. The quantity of products/services you’ll sell and at what price to surpass your break-even point and make a profit.

Net profit. Your estimated end-of-tax-year profit after you’ve subtracted all your debits.

When I did this for the guest house, I required an initial investment for renovations, fitting out, and stock (food and beverages, etc.).  

I reduced the outgoings by doing all the construction work myself and living on pasta! And as I used a free marketing strategy (Booking.com only charge after rentals), my advertising costs were almost zero. Bookings were in advance, so I could accurately forecast credit, debit, break-even point, and the gross/net profit.

10. Who do you need to scale and succeed?

“You’re only as good as the people you hire.” – Ray Croc, who gave the world fast food and McDonald’s. Thanks, Ray!

Now’s the time to think about who you’ll need to help scale your business, because hiring people with the right talent produces successful results.  

Look at each step of your one-page business plan, such as accounting, marketing, product development, and ask yourself, do I need support to make that happen? If so, seek out people wiser and more experienced than you in those areas.

From one small business owner to another, don’t hire in-house at this early stage. You can outsource on a contractual basis, ensuring you’ve got who you need when you need them – helping you reduce costs and put your business plan into action.

Use our template to build your own business plan!

We’ve created a downloadable template for you to use. Check it out and click the link below to download: 

Write Your Own One-Page Business Plan!

A one-page business plan is the blueprint that will guide your business towards achieving its goals.  

For anyone starting a business, creating a business plan is an important first step.  

Follow this guide to write your very own business plan, and you’ll have a document that will set your business on a path for success.  

This portion of our website is for informational purposes only. The content is not legal advice. All statements, opinions, recommendations, and conclusions are solely the expression of the author and provided on an as-is basis. Accordingly, Tailor Brands is not responsible for the information as well as has not been evaluated the accuracy and/or completeness of the information.

Terry OToole

Terry is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building businesses across multiple industries – construction, real estate, e-commerce, hotelier, and now digital media. When not working, Terry likes to kick back and relax with family, explore Taoism’s mysteries, or savor the taste of fine Italian red wine.

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• Sample Business Plans

One Page Business Plan

Writing a 30-page long business plan can look like a huge hassle if you are just starting with your business. You might even feel like skipping the planning process altogether.

But you don’t have to. There’s a quick and easy solution to your problem.

Free One Page Business Plan Template

Download our free business plan template now and pave the way to success. Let’s turn your vision into an actionable strategy!

• Fill in the blanks – Outline
• Financial Tables

With the help of a page-long plan, you’ll neither have to spend days planning your business nor skip the planning process completely.

A business plan can be of great help to your business, and a one-page plan can become your plan’s foundation as you expand your business.

Read on to find out everything about a one-page business plan.

How Can a One-Page Business Plan Help You?

A one-page business plan can help you with the following:

• It can help you understand the market you are getting into.
• It can help you set clear and precise goals for your business.
• It gives form and structure to your business idea.
• It acts as a foundation stone for your business model.

And most importantly, a page-long plan can be written in a short time.

Although you’ll eventually need a detailed and comprehensive plan in the future, a one-page plan is a good place to start.

One Page Business Plan Outline

This is the standard one-page business plan outline which will cover all important sections that you should include in your business plan.

• What will you sell?
• Who will buy it?
• How will your business idea help people?
• What will you charge?
• How will you get paid?
• How else will you make money from this project?
• How will customers learn about your business?
• How can you encourage referrals?
• The project will be successful when it achieves these metrics
• Specific concern or question #1
• The proposed solution to concern #1

Say goodbye to boring templates

Build your business plan faster and easier with AI

Plans starting from $7/month

Now, let’s understand in detail what you should write each section of this business plan.

How to Write a One Page Business Plan?

Though, you might wonder, is it even possible to fit all the details about a business on just one page?

It surely is. Also, it is a more compact and faster way of writing a business plan.

The following sections will help you write a compact and well-rounded business plan:

This section would consist of a brief overview of all that your business stands for. It would mainly include your vision and mission statement.

As your business plan is going to be super short, you need to sum up this section in two to three lines. Remember to be as clear and precise as possible.

For example, if you are a fashion designer, your business’s overview might look like this.

“ We design clothes to give something new and something special to everyone.”

Target Market

Including information about the target market is crucial for any business plan.

Knowing your target market not only helps you serve them better, but also helps you in streamlining your marketing efforts.

You can separate your target market based on age, gender, income, geographical location, and occupation.

Market Needs

Before you enter any market, it is a good practice to evaluate how valid your business idea is.

Also, what market needs does your product or service fulfill? In this section, you’ll precisely cover the market gap that exists. And how do you aim to fulfill it with your product or service?

Writing this section helps you understand how much optimization your product needs. And if it is needed in the market at all.

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is immensely helpful for any business.

It helps you decide how you will reach out to your target audience and how you’ll convince them to buy your product or use your service.

It is also important to evaluate whether your marketing campaign would resonate with your target audience or not.

Obstacles/Challenges

This section would consist of the potential market threats that your business would have to face, and how would you overcome them.

For this section, you can carry out a SWOT analysis and include its results in your plan.

Knowing the threats that exist in the market helps you in being better prepared while facing them.

Having milestones to achieve helps you keep better track of your business journey.

Milestones give you something tangible to work upon. Hence, you become more organized and motivated.

Moreover, it also helps you in knowing whether you are working in the right direction or not. In this way, it helps you steer clear of roadblocks and dead ends in your business journey.

Competition

Before you enter any industry or market, it is important to analyze your competitors .

Include what are their strengths and weaknesses. Also, include what sets you apart from them and would help you create your unique place in the market.

Funding Needs

The financial section consists of the funds you’ll need to keep your business going. Writing this section clearly and backed with strong facts can help you in getting funded.

Especially when you are just starting, getting funded can act as a big plus.

Download a sample one-page business plan

Need help writing your business plan from scratch? Here you go;  download our free one-page business plan pdf  to start.

It’s a modern business plan template specifically designed for your one-page business. Use the example business plan as a guide for writing your own.

The Quickest Way to turn a Business Idea into a Business Plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

One Page Business Plan Summary

All in all, summing up your entire business idea on a single page is very much possible and feasible.

A plan can give form and structure to your idea even if it is only a page long.

After getting started with Upmetrics , you can copy this sample one-page business plan template into your business plan and modify the required information and download your one page business plan pdf or doc file.

It’s the fastest and easiest way to start writing a business plan.

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About the Author

Upmetrics Team

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One-Page Business Plan Template (with Examples)

The first step of scaling a business is planning, and one of the easiest ways to create a scaling plan is to use the One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). Originally introduced by Verne Harnish in his books Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up , the One-Page Strategic Plan makes it simple to keep everyone on the same page to achieve business goals.

We’ll share with you how to create your own One-Page Strategic Plan, how companies have used these plans to scale a business , and templates to guide the strategy of managing people and processes.

These templates can be used throughout the rest of the Hub articles on scaling a business to help you implement your calling with more success. Let’s start by examining what is included in the One-Page Strategic Plan.

One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP)

The One-Page Strategic Plan is normally two pages, but I guess the decision was made to call it a One-Page Strategic Plan because it sounds better. The first page focuses on people and long-term vision, while the second focuses on processes and quarterly results. We’ll look at each page separately.

Download the OPSP . If you print it, please use landscape mode and fit-to-page for the best results. Then use the template to follow along.

Long Term Plan

The first page of the One-Page Strategic Plan is focused on people and is broken into six sections:

• Strengths and Weaknesses
• People that Drive Your Reputation
• Core Values
• 3 to 5-Year Targets
• 1-Year Goals

We’ll look at each of these to help you understand how they help business leaders scale a business for success.

Strengths and Weaknesses (Bottom)

I’ve included the strengths and weaknesses first because the One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) was created with the intent for people to work their way from the bottom to the top. The first step of solving any problem is recognizing there is one.

Given that we’re using it to scale a business, you’ll probably want to focus on areas where you are:

• Struggling to meet core customer demands
• Spending too much time
• Reaching a point that you need to hire more people

If your strength is serving customers but you’re spending 20 hours a week performing accounting tasks, your weakness is likely your accounting process. By reducing the time spent on accounting, you can focus more on serving your core customer base.

Take this portion seriously, as it will drive the rest of the plan. While you’re working on it, check out our interview with Mike about writing business plans.

People Drive Reputation (Top)

People are the key to running a successful business. Whether the people are employees, customers, or owners, they can impact the business’s success. Let’s look at each concept and how they affect planning to scale a company.

The creator of the One-Page Strategic Plan intends for you to use metrics that show the company is succeeding, but you need to understand the stakeholder expectations to create meaningful metrics. So we’ll discuss expectations.

Employees (1st Question)

If the scaling opportunity you are working on only involves certain employees or divisions, you might want to include who they are in this section. You will probably want to consult with employees as you develop the scaling strategy because they will be the key to success during the implementation stages. 

The Harvard Business Review outlines why change management fails —ultimately, all of the reasons focus on the inability of management to get employees to buy into the strategic plan. Include employees early and often to get the most out of your scaling plan.

If it is the whole company, you may want to include information on how you measure success. If you have never created metrics before, the Academy to Innovate HR lists 21 employee performance metrics that help measure employee success. I suggest reading it.

Customers (2nd Question)

Without customers, there is no company. It’s just a glorified hobby. You’ll want to include customers in various ways when scaling a business. Consider drawing upon customer knowledge and opinion in the following ways:

• Customer service surveys
• Beta testing
• Market research
• Requests for new product features. Craft.io has a blog on collecting feedback , and it sounds like many product managers love their feedback portals.

If you’re going to include customer metrics in this section, you may want to have ones like Net Promoter Score, Customer Satisfaction Score, and Churn Rate. Check out Hubspot’s 15 customer success metrics to learn more about customer metrics .

Owners and debt holders (3rd-6th Question)

This section was called shareholders in the original One-Page Strategic Plan, but in today’s business world, there are many more potential stakeholders than just shareholders.

Scaling opportunities might need approval for business decisions from:

• Shareholders
• Debt holders

You may also need to disclose your new strategies and risks in quarterly or annual reports.

Make sure to include anyone who can help or hinder your scaling strategies. The executive team will be the driver that ties the company’s core values with the brand promises and a Big Hairy Audacious Goal® (BHAG). Without them on board, this powerful tool may not achieve the key results.

Boston Research Group surveyed 60 CEOs to understand what the most important metrics are for new members of their executive teams and found that the three most important measures of executive success are:

• Exceeding performance goals
• Establishing a reputation as an expert, both within the company and externally
• Fitting the company’s culture

The same can be used to establish whether owners provide measurable results to help the company achieve scaling goals that improve revenue and profitability. Keep reading for information on how core values guide a growing firm.

Core Values (Column 1)

Core values are the first column in an OPSP tool because the scaling strategy owners implement should stay in line with the core values and vision. Reminding the team of how the company sees the world is key to keeping the implementation in line with the company’s focus.

If you have a mission statement and values, include them in this column. Also, include behaviors and values the team should and should not emulate as they implement the strategy. Here is an example of an email Elon Musk sent emphasizing how important it is for every team member to keep the brand promise:

Be clear, compassionate, and honest when communicating core values with your company and customers. This column and the next are driven entirely by the small business owners, CEOs, or the executive team.

Keep reading to learn about how the purpose column fits into the one-page personal plan and how it guides the company scaling strategy.

Purpose (Column 2)

The purpose column in the one-page plan focuses on why you are doing what you are doing. It is meant to be inspirational. When originally written, the column was meant to be worked on from bottom to top. It takes an approach where you must build the foundation first and then build upon it. 

The foundation is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal ®, a term registered by Jim Collins and introduced in his book Built to Last . The next step is how the company wants to measure profits, followed by actions, and finally, the purpose, which is the summary.

An example of what the purpose might look like would look something like the statement below:

“XYZ LLC aims to triple the number of millionaires in the US by providing content that makes starting and running a business more profitable. To drive revenue, we partner with companies with a Trust Pilot score of 4.5 or higher and provide referrals that help clients and partners create better results.

We are looking to scale the company revenue by using AI to identify, apply, and insert referral links into our blogs in meaningful places.”

The above statement summarizes how a company might try to scale revenue from blogging.

Big Hairy Audacious Goal ®

Big Hairy Audacious Goal ® is simply a statement of how you will change the world. An example is Meta’s (formerly Facebook) intended goal “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” It’s big and nearly impossible to achieve fully without merging us all as one.

Most people will create a BHAG using four strategies:

• Numerical: Hit a specific revenue, profit, or customer number.
• Aspirational: Attempt to be like another company, for instance, become the “Nike” of backpacks.
• Market Leader: General Electric once aimed to be one of the top two companies in the industry or exit the business.
• Transformational: Change how the industry operates. For instance, Airbnb and Uber changed their industries by making it so that homeowners and restaurants can earn additional income. Both companies’ main asset is tech playing the middleman between consumers and owners.

When you started your company, you probably had a meaningful reason. What was that reason? Write it down on your OPSP template.

We’ve given you a few ideas of what you should include as the foundation, so let’s go to the next section of the One-Page Strategic Plan, measuring profits.

Measuring Profits

Measuring profits can be done in a variety of ways, but the goal is to give a meaningful way of defining how much profit you want to make from a venture. For scaling a business, the primary goal, as discussed in The Ultimate Guide to Scaling a Business , is to reduce the marginal cost of sales. That means you might want to consider profit metrics like:

• Profit per Customer
• Profit per Transaction
• Profit per Employee
• Profit per Piece of Content

Once you’ve defined how to measure profits as the company grows, it’s time to look at the actions to achieve success.

The actions are the changes you make to reduce the marginal cost of increasing revenue. Include the high-level goals of your scaling projects in this section, such as comparing automated accounting, training people on process changes,  and implementing dashboards to monitor progress.

Paul Akers encourages focusing on making improvements that save 2 seconds per task completed. He finds this a great strategy to improve his company and life using LEAN mindsets. Listen to our interview with Paul to hear how easy it is for small improvements to build up.

Once you have some high-level priorities outlined, it’s time to look at what you want the company to look like in a few years.

3 to 5-Year Targets (Column 3)

In this column, you want to get more specific about where you want to be in the next three to five years.  At the top is a box for the date you want to accomplish everything by, the revenue you want to generate, profit margins, market cap, or cash on hand.

This column will consist of brand promises, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure them, primary capabilities, and the sandbox. Start from the bottom and work your way up. You’ll also want to update this section when the execution of the action items is complete.

Let’s look at each.

Brand Promises (Column 3, Bottom)

Brand promises are what you agree to deliver. The specifics will vary by industry, but there are six main ways of differentiating your company from competitors:

• Product: Explain your product features, performance, efficiency, warranty, etc.
• Service: Explain how your services compare to the industry.
• Channel: Explain how you deliver your product or service to the customer.
• Relationship: Explain how your customer service differs from the competition. Are you faster or friendlier? For instance, the HVAC company One Hour Air promises “ALWAYS ON TIME…OR YOU DON’T PAY A DIME!®”
• Reputation: This can be accomplished through marketing or by combining the differentiation strategies so when people ask about your service, your clients immediately think of you.
• Price: Are you a premium brand, a low-cost provider, or priced based on client needs?

Check out 6 Ways to Differentiate Your Business by MarketResearch.com to learn more about these strategies.

Once you have established your brand promises, it’s time to create KPIs to measure their success.

Measuring Brand Promises with Key Performance Indicators

Promises are only as good as the emphasis put behind them. To fulfill a brand promise, you’ll need to measure the results across the entire organization using key metrics. Jack Welch once said:

There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow.

No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.

Your business may need more KPIs than employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow to identify whether you are meeting the brand promise. Datapine has a list of over 300 KPIs to consider based on the job, industry, and technology you are using. Find the ones that drive your business to match the company identity you are trying to create.

Keep reading for information on how to define the primary capabilities of your organization.

Primary Capabilities

Primary capabilities are focused on what you want the organization to be able to achieve. As it relates to scaling, these might be steps like:

• Automate fulfillment
• Start using a phone app for employees to input receipts into the accounting system
• Create a database for customer feature requests

These are also referred to as key thrusts. As long as they align with the core purpose and can be verified with a measurable target, they should help the team complete its business goals.

The owner of Urbanity wrote nearly 100 page business plan and got a business loan without any experience in the boutique business. Find out how below.

Keep reading to learn how the sandbox impacts the ability to scale a business.

Sandbox (aka Target Market)

The sandbox is a term used in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits to describe what we more commonly call the target market. You likely already know the target market because most people looking to scale a business have already reached their ideal customers. The focus here is to remind the team of who the organization serves and who it doesn’t.

Keep reading to define the annual goals of an organization.

1 Year Goals (Column 4)

Fast-growing firms can see over 100% growth per year. An organization growing at this rate will need to define its goals and fast-track them to maintain the customer service and quality control level executives expect. 

The top of the column has space to input the targets for financial targets and should be updated before the beginning of each year. To give even more clarity to employees, I suggest including the percentage change over the last year, which we’ve included in the templates. The picture below shows what direction I would expect each to move.

This column includes sections on initiatives, critical personnel goals, and critical profit and loss numbers that the company needs to meet. We’ll look at each to help you create a strategic plan to scale a business.

Key Initiatives

Key initiatives break down the primary capabilities into smaller, more manageable tasks. For instance, you may want to break down fulfillment automation into:

• Research alternatives
• Plan layout for implementation
• Implement a fulfillment automation plan
• Train employees on the process

Critical Personal Numbers (Columns 4, 5, and 7)

In this section, you’ll want to include critical numbers for hiring to meet your annual revenue targets. Make sure to break it down to the skills, too. For instance, a construction company might want to add:

• 50 general construction workers
• Four project managers
• Two accountants
• Four delivery drivers

Verne Harnish’s OPSP separates critical numbers into four categories:

• Dark green: Meets 100% of the goal
• Light green: Can successfully meet the goal, over 75%
• Yellow: 25% to 75% of the goal
• Red: Under 25% of the way to the goal

You can use the color coding in an online dashboard to help the executive team quickly review the execution of the plan on a routine basis. Don’t check them daily, but weekly or monthly would make sense. You can emphasize action items with your team to meet the critical numbers based on the information in the dashboard.

Critical Profit  and Loss Numbers (Columns 4, 5, and 7)

Like the critical number for hiring, profit and loss numbers help identify what has been completed and what should be emphasized to meet future growth. In this section, you are looking for leading indicators that show whether the work is being performed to meet the objectives.

Some examples of leading indicators are:

• Emails collected
• Requests for bids
• Phone calls received
• The number of people who click on your ads
• Anything that can be used with other data to approximate the number of sales you can expect

Most industries average a 5% to 10% closing rate. Hubspot industry data shows that a 2% growth in traffic creates a 1% increase in transactions, but analytics will show better estimates.

That concludes the first page of the One-Page Strategic Plan. The second page focuses more on the actual actions to meet future growth expectations. Let’s look at the processes plan.

Process Plan

The process plan is where you get into the real details of how to scale your business. It covers industry trends, productivity drivers, quarterly actions, the theme of the quarter or year, and how to measure each person’s success. Create this page before the beginning of each quarter or after you successfully build the processes.

Let’s look at each to see how the One-Page Strategic Plan can help you scale a small business.

Trends (Bottom)

The process plan starts with a solid foundation at the bottom of the page. In every industry, some trends occur. How well you can recognize and respond to trends impacts how profitable the company can be.

List the ones you see going on in this section. If you aren’t already keeping up with the pulse of your industry, I suggest becoming more active on:

• Trade Organizations
• Location of searches
• Historical trends
• Related topics
• Related search terms
• Check out the picture below for what comes up with eCommerce:

Keep reading for more information about using a strategic plan to scale an organization.

Productivity Drivers (Top)

The top of the page is broken into three categories that drive productivity:

Make or Buy

Record and report.

Each of these should be focused on meaningful results that will help drive revenue and profitability during the quarter.

This section is focused on inventory and manufacturing. You may want to measure metrics like inventory per SKU, turnover per SKU, gross margin percentage, and loss. Remember, the goal is to increase revenue and profit by becoming more efficient.

In this section, you’ll focus on growth statistics in sales and marketing. You may want to include the sales leads, consultations, and closing percentages. You might also want to have or review metrics like average transaction value, average discount, and revenue per employee.

This section focuses on accounting and should include items like how long it takes for accounts receivable to be paid, EBITDA , and other metrics that show the company’s financial health.

Quarterly Actions (Column 5)

Column 5 is focused on the quarterly results. It includes a table with the financial goals for the quarter, followed by your “Rocks” and critical numbers. We discussed the critical numbers earlier, but be aware that each column will have different critical numbers.

Keep reading to learn about what Verne Harnish calls rocks.

Rocks are the goals you must accomplish to stay on track. They are things like hiring a new developer, increasing your seller ranking on Amazon, or completing 20 consultations with prospective clients. You will have some goals with which you must succeed. If you fail to meet those goals, you may have to cancel the initiative.

Make sure to specify who is responsible for each Rock.

Quarterly and Annual Theme (Column 6)

The theme needs to focus on helping motivate employees. It consists of a theme name, scoreboard design, celebration, and reward for meeting the goals. Depending on your company size, you might need to have a single theme or a theme for each division.

Your theme name should be catchy to get people’s attention. For instance, if you run a business in which most of the revenue is generated during the summer, you might want to run a quarterly theme in the spring called “Heating Up,” then “It’s a Scorcher” for the summer months. If the reward is specific, you can base the name on that, too.

Scoreboard Design

A scoreboard is a fun way to measure progress and what it should look like as you go. Common methods of showing the progress are with a thermometer scoreboard like the one pictured below. Alternatively, you can use a baseball diamond or a football field if you plan to take the team to a game.

You can also have a graphic designer and developer create something to view it in the company’s tech stack. Get creative and fun with it for the best results, but don’t spend a lot of time overcomplicating it.

Celebration and Reward

A celebration and a reward are similar but different. A celebration might be a pizza party, while a reward would be a bonus or taking the team to a sporting event. Doing both is a way of thanking the team and each individual. If you do a reward for individuals, try to make it something meaningful to them.

Keep reading for info on the accountability column.

Accountability (Column 7)

Accountability is about the individual and their performance. It should include the KPIs for the team and break them up based on each person. In addition, this section should spell out what each worker’s priorities are. At the bottom, it will include the critical numbers to meet.

Let’s look at individual KPIs and priorities to see how they impact when you scale a business.

Personal KPIs

You’ll want Personal KPIs that are meaningful to each position. As a writer, I might be judged on words per article, affiliate links clicked per blog, or an average Google ranking.

KPIs and priorities should be the basis for your promotions, reviews, and bonuses. Otherwise, they aren’t significant or specific and might easily be overlooked.

Personal Priorities

Personal priorities are the specific tasks to be accomplished for an employee to be successful. When focusing on how to scale a business, an accountant might need to have a personal priority of categorizing all vendor spending within the first eight weeks of the quarter. A salesperson might need to increase sales by 10%.

Scaling a business means you’ll consistently improve the processes, but that doesn’t mean you need an overly complex business plan to get great results. Once you’ve created the first page, you can use it until you surpass your three-to-five-year goals. Then, you just need to use the second page to plan new and improved processes. If you’re applying for financing you might want to go with a more traditional business plan .

What KPIs do you find most useful for scaling and managing your business?

Brandon Boushy

Brandon Boushy lives to improve people’s lives by helping them become successful entrepreneurs. His journey started nearly 30 years ago. He consistently excelled at everything he did, but preferred to make the rules rather than follow him. His exploration of self and knowledge has helped him to get an engineering degree, MBA, and countless certifications. When freelancing and rideshare came onto the scene, he recognized the opportunity to play by his own rules. Since 2017, he has helped businesses across all industries achieve more with his research, writing, and marketing strategies. Since 2021, he has been the Lead Writer for UpFlip where he has published over 170 articles on small business success.

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How to write a One Page Business Plan: templates, ideas, and a step-by-step guide

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Download our FREE one page business plan template + guide

The problem with business plans, using a one page business plan, vs. using no business plan at all, vs. a lengthy, drawn out business plan, the one page business plan bias, so what should you include in a one page business plan, examples of successful one page business plans, chris guillebeau’s one page business plan from the $100 startup, fizzle’s one page business sketch template, bplan’s one page business plan template, how to write a one page business plan from patrick bet-david of valuetainment, millo’s own one page business plan template & step-by-step guide, some final encouragement about your one page business plan, show me your one page business plans.

Writing a one page business plan (instead of a hundred-page, in-depth business plan no one will ever read) has become a popular and efficient way to get your small business moving in the right direction.

This article is meant to be an all-inclusive resource for anyone wanting to write their own one page business plan and use it to actually start a business .

I’ll include links to quality one page business plan templates, ideas for what to include in a business plan, and more resources to walk you through the process of building a one page business plan yourself.

If you’re ready to skip all of this and just want to download our one page business plan completely free, you can enter your email below and we’ll send it to you asap. Otherwise, keep reading.

Here’s the fundamental problem with business plans—I’m not talking about a one page business plan here, I’m talking about the typical business plan you might see in silicon valley or presented to a bank loan officer.

Therein lies the issue: if you’re looking for a one page business plan template, you’re most likely not headed to the bank to try and get some huge loan to start your business.

Like millions of people around the world, you’re probably a freelancer, a side-hustler, a solopreneur or aspiring to be one of these.

You’re not trying to start the next huge corporation. You just want to make some extra money on the side—and maybe eventually quit your job and work for yourself.

For this much more common purpose, a one page business plan is the exact perfect remedy.

Why? Because by putting all your business plans onto just one single page, you’re forced to do a few things:

• Prioritize: Limiting your business plan to one page means you can only include the most important elements of your new small business.
• Simplify: When you’re dreaming up what your business might look like in the future it can be really easy to get carried away. By limiting your business plan to one page, you force yourself to keep it simple.
• Organize: Instead of letting all your dreams and plans swirl around in your brain, putting them down into a simple one page business plan allows you to quickly organize and move forward.

By forcing yourself to prioritize, simplify, and organize, you’ll find you can get down to what’s more important in your business: actually getting work done and getting paid for the work you do.

Let’s compare what your first 6-12 months of business might look like with a one page business plan vs. no business plan at all vs. a lengthy, drawn out traditional business plan.

Your first 6-12 months might look something like this if you choose to develop a one page business plan:

You come up with an interesting business idea that you want to explore. You jot down a few ideas including how you’ll make money, what you’ll be selling, and how much you’d like to make doing what you’re doing.

After just a couple of hours total working on your one page business plan, you’re ready to get to work on the tasks that actually move your business forward.

Your first 6-12 months might look something like this if you choose to use no business plan at all:

You come up with an interesting business idea that you’d like to explore. Instead of writing anything down, you decide to sketch out what your logo might look like.

The logo sketching leads to a dead end but reminds you of another business idea you once had in college. So you talk to your friends about that business idea for a while.

A year later, you’ve followed a similar pattern with dozens of potential ideas, but without a business plan, none of them ever came to fruition.

Your first 6-12 months might look something like this if you choose to use a long, drawn-out business plan instead of something that fits on one page:

You come up with an interesting business idea that you’d enjoy exploring further. You start to crunch the numbers on what this might look like if it gets really big and successful.

Knowing you’ll need funding from angels or the bank, you decide to draft up a large document explaining what actions your small company will take over the next 5-10 years to ensure your lenders get their money back.

You go through so many revisions of this hundred-page document, you finally burn out and decide it’s easier just to keep your day job.

Ok, obviously, I’m biased toward the one page business plan scenario. It’s clean, it’s easy, it’s simple. But most of all, it gets you to take action…quickly!

When I was contemplating taking my own business full-time, I called up my dad who, my whole life, has been talking about entrepreneurship and inventing. If I had a dollar for every time my dad said something like “that’s a great business idea” or “I can’t believe no one has made a business out of that yet,”….well, I would never need to work again.

But my dad…he’s not in business for himself.

He never has been, really. He’s always been at a desk job. And I admire him for his persistence in taking care of our family.

One day I called him up and asked him: “why did you never try to build a business of your own?”

His response, among other things, was he couldn’t wrap his brain around how to build a business plan, get funding, and find the right manufacturing (all of which, might I add, were infinitely harder 30 years ago than they are today).

Why do I tell you this story? Because I’ve seen it a thousand times in lots of variations: people get overwhelmed with what they think they need in order to start a business.

One of those overwhelming tasks: building a 40-page business plan complete with competitive SWAT analysis, positioning statement, and blah blah blah.

So it kills your idea.

On the other hand, using a one page business plan lights a fire under you and pushes you forward into the work that matters more than the planning: the actual doing.

Okay, enough talking about a one page business plan. You’re convinced. Putting all your plans down on one simple piece of paper is going to be better than any other option.

But where do you start? What exactly do you put down in your one page business plan to really make it effective without being too complicated?

Remember, a one page business plan is much different from a 70-page plan primarily because this plan isn’t meant to be shown off to other people in an effort to gain support or get funding.

This business plan is primarily for one person: you.

That means there are lots of things you might find are recommended to go in a typical business plan. But that doesn’t mean they should be in your one page plan. Examples include “Executive Summaries,” “Management Organization” or “Funding Requests.”

Don’t waste your time on that kind of thinking for now.

Instead, include the most important elements of your new business only. Here are a just a few ideas to get you started:

• Company Description: What will your company do? What exactly will your company sell? Will you provide a service? Sell a product? To whom? Why?
• Products or Services: What products or services will you offer? How much will they cost in the beginning?
• Marketing and Sales: How will you get your first customers? Who will pay you for your service or product?
• Goals and Milestones: How many customers do you need to make this business “successful”? How long will it take to get the ideal number of customer or monthly revenue?

There are countless examples of business plans on the internet, but below, I’d like to highlight a few of my favorite approaches to one page business planning from some of the smartest people I personally know in the world of solopreneurship and small business.

Note: PLEASE don’t pay for an app or software to help you write a one page business plan. Maybe down the road you’ll need something like that, but keep it simple and download one of the free options below or just get out a blank sheet of paper and create your own.

Chris Guillebeau, author of one of my all-time favorite business books, The $100 Startup , offers a free one page PDF that’s pretty great.

It asks simple questions like: What will you sell? Who will buy it? And How will your business idea help people?  

I also love how Chris’s one page business plan focuses on success metrics—or what the business will look like if it’s “successful.” Will have it have a certain number of customers? A certain amount of monthly revenue?

This allows you to put an actual end point or goal on your one page business plan so that you know exactly what you’re working toward.

You can access Chris’s one page business plan here .

Another great resource to get you moving quickly toward your business goals is the Business Sketch Template provided my my friends at Fizzle.co.

Here’s what they have to say about one page planning:

“It might seem surprising or impossible to imagine that all of the most crucial pieces of your business can fit onto one page. At Fizzle, we call this plan a sketch: it’s meant to be completed quickly, if not a bit roughly, but the objective is still to put pencil to paper.”

What I like about Fizzle’s business sketch template is that it starts with the center focus on Key Metrics and prompts you to ask questions like “What will you measure to determine that this audience has this problem and wants this solution?”

As big proponents of building a small, lifestyle business, It’s no surprise this template also includes some unique sections like “personal fit” which force you to ask questions about how the business will interact with your daily life, personal passions, and life goals.

You can access Fizzle’s one page business sketch template here .

Another potential one page business plan is presented by Bplan.

Here’s what they have to say about “a new kind of business planning.”

“A business plan no longer needs to be a long document that takes weeks to write and research. It’s not something that you print, bind professionally, and then stick on a shelf. You probably only need a formal, traditional business plan if you’re seeking a bank loan or outside investment—you’ll be expected to provide one in those instances.”

With that, they offer some great advice on how to write a business plan in under 1 hour .

You can download their “lean business plan” template here .

If you prefer to learn by watching a video, I found this video is a pretty great resource to help you with your one page business plan. I don’t agree 100% with everything he says, but I like his overall approach to tackling business planning.

After studying this topic extensively—reading hundreds of articles and looking at lots of one page business plan templates, we’ve decided to include a free download of one of our own templates as well.

Our one page business plan template is tailored particularly to freelancers and solopreneurs—one-person businesses who want to stay small and build a healthy revenue for themselves and their loved ones.

Our one page business plan template is designed to be completed in less than 45 minutes and give you the ammunition you need to hit the ground running—instead of getting stuck in the details of starting a business.

You can download our free one page business plan template by entering your email below:

Before you go, here are some final words of encouragement and advice when it comes to planning your business.

First of all, you can plan everything you need to on just one page. At least for now.

Sure, one day you might need a more lengthy, in-detail plan to present to someone else, but for now, give yourself a break. You don’t have to write a plan that Mark Cuban would be proud of. You just have to write a plan that helps you get from point A to point B.

Secondly, don’t get stuck at this phase. If you have to, time yourself. Set a time limit of 45 minutes (or whatever amount makes sense for you). And when the timer’s up, it’s time to get back to work actually starting or building your business.

Finally, use this one page business plan as a compass, but be flexible. The point is to give yourself a roadmap, but just like your GPS has to “reroute” when there’s an unexpected obstacle, you might also need to pursue a different path, different method, or different goals as you go along.

In fact, I’d say it’s next to impossible to build a business plan of any kind and then stick to it 100% over any significant amount of time.

There will always be unforeseen obstacles and changes. There will always be hiccups. The idea is to just write your business plan .

Roll with the punches and something as simple as a one page business plan can take you far.

After you draft up your one page business plan, I’d love to see what you landed on. Share a link with me in our mastermind group , by leaving a comment below, or sharing on twitter .

I can’t wait to see what you’ve done. Good luck!

Keep the conversation going...

Over 10,000 of us are having daily conversations over in our free Facebook group and we'd love to see you there. Join us!

Written by Preston Lee

Editor at millo.co.

Preston Lee is the founder of Millo where he and his team have been helping freelancers thrive for over a decade. His advice has been featured by Entrepreneur , Inc , Forbes , Adobe, and many more.

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One-Page Business Plan Template

Focus on the core aspects of your business using a one-page business plan.

Updated September 22, 2023 Reviewed by Brooke Davis

A One-Page Business Plan is a concise and summarized version of a comprehensive business plan. It captures the essential elements of a business idea or proposal on a single page, serving as a high-level overview of its vision, objectives, strategies, and action points.

The brevity of a one-page plan makes it especially useful for quickly conveying a business idea without overwhelming the reader.

What is a One-Page Business Plan?

When to use a one-page business plan, who should use a one-page business plan, how to write a one-page business plan, one-page business plan sample, advantages and disadvantages of a one-page business plan, frequently asked questions.

A one-page business plan is a simplified version of a complete business plan. Although the plan is shorter, it still outlines the basics of your future company. It follows the same structure as the standard version but with less detail.

The one-page plan allows you to condense and present the information in an easy-to-read format.

Similar plans like a lean business plan or executive summary also allow you to present your business in a condensed format.

However, an accurate one-page business plan must fit on one page. It must also use a legible font size of 11 or 12 points.

A one-page business plan would be best when ready to present your ideas to others, such as potential investors. Instead of filling out an extensive business plan, you can start small to get started.

This lets you present your ideas cogently.

You should use a one-page business plan template to:

• Present a simple version of your business plan to interested investors
• Get started on writing a more comprehensive business plan
• Create a plan for a small business or one with a simple purpose
• Focus on your key ideas to generate interest
• Brainstorm and plan for your future company

One-page business plans aren’t limited to just one type of business; they can be used in a multitude of scenarios, including:

Businesses in the ideation stage

A one-page business plan is ideal for building a quick overview for people and businesses still brainstorming ideas. A simple plan allows it to be amended and updated as the concept is developed and keeps all the ideas on a single page.

When you start, you will want to constantly refer back to your business plan to ensure you stick to your goals and core objectives. A traditional business plan doesn’t quite fit into an agile startup because it can be time-consuming to update and tweak as you grow and learn.

Using a one-page plan means you can edit it easily and either create a traditional plan down the line or, if you’ve already made one, fully update it once you feel more concrete with your goals.

Established companies

A one-page business plan isn’t limited to new and developing businesses. Established companies can take advantage of adding a one-page plan to their business strategy.

You can share your existing strategy internally and externally in a snapshot that will be easily understood by all, helping everyone to get on board with your goals.

Writing a one-page business plan is simple, mainly when you use a template to help you get started. A one-page business plan should cover the following sections:

Step 1 – Business Overview

It would be best if you discussed essential facts about your business and its identifying information, such as:

• Founding date
• Mission statement
• Type of business (LLC, Corporation, Partnership, etc.)
• Owner and leadership contact information
• Service of process information

Makes It Easy to Read: Use a legible and professional font that is easy to read and the right size. Be sure to format your document so it flows well. A template one-page business plan can help with this.

Step 2 – Market Analysis

You need to identify who your customers are and where they are located. This section should also address how many potential customers are available in your business’s geographical area.

This should also include whether you will engage in primarily business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) transactions.

Step 3 – Your Business Model

A description of your business model should consist of information like:

• How you will make money
• Costs of production and sales
• Prices customers will pay for products or services
• Will your company sell products online?
• Will you have a storefront presence?

This section could quickly become lengthy. Focus on the critical components of your business for the single-page business plan.

Focus on Your Strengths: This short plan is likely a pitching tool to investors. Lead with the winning aspects of your business that set you apart from the rest—your value proposition.

Step 4 – Financial Forecast

This section should outline critical financial metrics like cash flow, profit and loss, and a sales forecast. This part is often difficult to condense, but you should focus on standard business ratios that help you get the point across.

You can always provide further details if you receive a request for financial projections.

Step 5 – The Team

This final section should detail each team member’s names, roles, and responsibilities.

Keep It Short: Keep each section short and to the point. Sections should be limited to 1 or 2 sentences or between 3 and 4 bullet points.

You can download a free one-page business plan template below, in Word or PDF format:

All types of business plans have their benefits and their drawbacks, including a one-page business plan:

Advantages of Using a One-Page Business Plan:

• See the big picture – There will be plenty of situations through the growth of the business that will require a snapshot of your business venture. A one-page plan shows multiple elements of your strategy but focuses on the big picture and what’s important.
• Consense your thoughts and ideas – Condensing your thoughts and ideas allows you to be more critical of your business and provide a brief overview of your plan. It will enable you to show investors, your management team, and potential partners a quick run-through of your business.
• Faster to create than a traditional business plan – Designed to be completed quickly and easily, a one-page plan is much quicker to produce than a full-length business plan and will see you running through each section of your plan. You’ll likely have to revisit it to make amendments, but luckily, with everything on one page, it won’t be time-consuming.
• Keep your core objectives at the forefront – As your business grows, processes and operations will become more challenging to manage and maintain. But when it comes down to making the big decisions, you can always refer back to your one-page business plan to keep your core business objectives in mind.

Disadvantages of Using a One-Page Business Plan:

• Not suitable for complex business ideas that require lots of supporting data – If your business idea is difficult or your financial projections are detailed, you might struggle to get all the vital information into a one-page plan.
• Not as detailed as a traditional business plan – Squeezing all your business plans onto one page often means you will miss out on essential details that could be crucial to getting investment or bringing additional partners on board.
• Hard to identify weaknesses and potential opportunities – Only seeing a snapshot of your business can make it challenging to identify any potential faults that could harm your business venture. The lack of in-depth customer and competitor information could also result in missing profitable opportunities.

Tips for Creating a One-Page Business Plan

Now that you’re ready to create your one-page business plan, here are a few tips to get you started:

• Use a one-page business plan template to simplify the process; you can download the template above in PDF and Word.
• Make sure your plan focuses on the core information key to running and operating a successful business.
• Revisit, tweak and change. This isn’t a static document; update it as your business grows and develops.
• Before writing your single-page business plan, understand your target market and where your product or service fits. Don’t forget your value proposition.
• Don’t skip the financial projections, especially if you require funding.
• Keep your core goals and objectives realistic and achievable.

What should a one-page business plan include?

A one-page business plan should include the important details about your business. It should contain brief information about the following:

• Business goals and mission statement
• Product or service offerings
• Target market and advertising strategies
• Identifying information
• Financial status and funding needs

Can I create my one-page business plan?

Yes, you can create your one-page plan. Just download the template and start building your business strategy’s big picture.

Alternatively, you could use our document builder, the fastest and easiest way to create your single-page business plan.

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How to Write a Business Plan, Step by Step

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What is a business plan?

1. write an executive summary, 2. describe your company, 3. state your business goals, 4. describe your products and services, 5. do your market research, 6. outline your marketing and sales plan, 7. perform a business financial analysis, 8. make financial projections, 9. summarize how your company operates, 10. add any additional information to an appendix, business plan tips and resources.

A business plan outlines your business’s financial goals and explains how you’ll achieve them over the next three to five years. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan that will offer a strong, detailed road map for your business.

ZenBusiness

A business plan is a document that explains what your business does, how it makes money and who its customers are. Internally, writing a business plan should help you clarify your vision and organize your operations. Externally, you can share it with potential lenders and investors to show them you’re on the right track.

Business plans are living documents; it’s OK for them to change over time. Startups may update their business plans often as they figure out who their customers are and what products and services fit them best. Mature companies might only revisit their business plan every few years. Regardless of your business’s age, brush up this document before you apply for a business loan .

» Need help writing? Learn about the best business plan software .

This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your business offers and a broad summary of your financial growth plans.

Though the executive summary is the first thing your investors will read, it can be easier to write it last. That way, you can highlight information you’ve identified while writing other sections that go into more detail.

» MORE: How to write an executive summary in 6 steps

Next up is your company description. This should contain basic information like:

Your business’s registered name.

Address of your business location .

Names of key people in the business. Make sure to highlight unique skills or technical expertise among members of your team.

Your company description should also define your business structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — and include the percent ownership that each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Lastly, write a little about the history of your company and the nature of your business now. This prepares the reader to learn about your goals in the next section.

» MORE: How to write a company overview for a business plan

The third part of a business plan is an objective statement. This section spells out what you’d like to accomplish, both in the near term and over the coming years.

If you’re looking for a business loan or outside investment, you can use this section to explain how the financing will help your business grow and how you plan to achieve those growth targets. The key is to provide a clear explanation of the opportunity your business presents to the lender.

For example, if your business is launching a second product line, you might explain how the loan will help your company launch that new product and how much you think sales will increase over the next three years as a result.

» MORE: How to write a successful business plan for a loan

In this section, go into detail about the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

You should include the following:

An explanation of how your product or service works.

The pricing model for your product or service.

The typical customers you serve.

Your supply chain and order fulfillment strategy.

You can also discuss current or pending trademarks and patents associated with your product or service.

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section , explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

Include details about your sales and distribution strategies, including the costs involved in selling each product .

» MORE: R e a d our complete guide to small business marketing

If you’re a startup, you may not have much information on your business financials yet. However, if you’re an existing business, you’ll want to include income or profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet that lists your assets and debts, and a cash flow statement that shows how cash comes into and goes out of the company.

Accounting software may be able to generate these reports for you. It may also help you calculate metrics such as:

Net profit margin: the percentage of revenue you keep as net income.

Current ratio: the measurement of your liquidity and ability to repay debts.

Accounts receivable turnover ratio: a measurement of how frequently you collect on receivables per year.

This is a great place to include charts and graphs that make it easy for those reading your plan to understand the financial health of your business.

This is a critical part of your business plan if you’re seeking financing or investors. It outlines how your business will generate enough profit to repay the loan or how you will earn a decent return for investors.

Here, you’ll provide your business’s monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimates over at least a three-year period — with the future numbers assuming you’ve obtained a new loan.

Accuracy is key, so carefully analyze your past financial statements before giving projections. Your goals may be aggressive, but they should also be realistic.

NerdWallet’s picks for setting up your business finances:

The best business checking accounts .

The best business credit cards .

The best accounting software .

Before the end of your business plan, summarize how your business is structured and outline each team’s responsibilities. This will help your readers understand who performs each of the functions you’ve described above — making and selling your products or services — and how much each of those functions cost.

If any of your employees have exceptional skills, you may want to include their resumes to help explain the competitive advantage they give you.

Finally, attach any supporting information or additional materials that you couldn’t fit in elsewhere. That might include:

Licenses and permits.

Equipment leases.

Bank statements.

Details of your personal and business credit history, if you’re seeking financing.

If the appendix is long, you may want to consider adding a table of contents at the beginning of this section.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

Here are some tips to write a detailed, convincing business plan:

Avoid over-optimism: If you’re applying for a business bank loan or professional investment, someone will be reading your business plan closely. Providing unreasonable sales estimates can hurt your chances of approval.

Proofread: Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can jump off the page and turn off lenders and prospective investors. If writing and editing aren't your strong suit, you may want to hire a professional business plan writer, copy editor or proofreader.

Use free resources: SCORE is a nonprofit association that offers a large network of volunteer business mentors and experts who can help you write or edit your business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers , which provide free business consulting and help with business plan development, can also be a resource.

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How to Write a One-Page Business Plan

• By Patrick Bet-David

For the longest time I didn’t like writing business plans. Here’s why. Because every time it came time to write a business plan, it was almost as if my school teacher from Jr. high school would say, “Patrick, go do your homework. Write up a business plan.” I said, “Wait a minute.” First of all, I didn’t know how to write business plans and secondly, didn’t think they worked. That changed once I realized how to write up a business plan that worked for me.

From there on, I couldn’t wait to write up my business plan for the following year.

So today we’re going to talk about two different types of business plans. One type is dissecting and spending six or more hours getting every single detail of a business plan in place, and then reading it once a month. Then from there you gather all the information and create a one-page business plan. You look at the one-page business plan multiple times a day.

What’s More Important Than Writing a Business Plan

Before you write up a business plan, let me tell you what's even more important than writing a business plan for 2017. Many times we will go through a past relationship. And the relationship didn't work. And then you go to the next relationship, which also didn’t work. This happens again and again. Four years goes by, and you ask yourself, “Why don’t I have a steady relationship? Why aren’t any of these relationships working out?”

This keeps happening to you because every time one of them doesn’t work out, you fail to ask yourself what you could have done differently. What will you change about the next one? Is there a trend that isn’t working for you?

It’s the Same with Business Plans

People do the exact same thing with business plans. All you think about is the next year, when the most important data is the year that just passed you by. In order to predict the future, you have to study history. What happened this year for you? What went right?

I gauge my year based on the percentage of goals that I wrote down a year ago became a reality. If less than 50% of my goals became a reality, that tells me something. It tells me that I either didn’t give my best effort or that I didn’t have the best strategy in place. And by the way, most of the time it’s the first thing, lack of effort.

Sometimes people blame their lack of success on the market or other factors beyond their control. Great. One percent of the time you’re forgiven for that. But 99% of the time you need to focus on what you can control and you can control most of it.

The Impact of Relationships on Business

Imagine trying to grow a business when you’re arguing night and day with your girlfriend. It’s hard to get into a sales presentation when you and your girl just got into a text fight. They won’t want to do business with you because they’ll feel something is wrong with you.

Everything That’s Connected to Business

So I started looking at my business with everything that’s connected to it. Personal relationships impact business. Financial issues impact business because I’m stressed out if my finances aren’t in order.

Poor health impacts business. If you’ve gained 40 pounds, you’ll have lower energy and get tired earlier. If you get a lot of headaches, you may need glasses. These physical things impact your business.

For those of you that are spiritual, that, too, is connected to your business.

So gauge how you did in all these different areas in the past year. Look at the good, bad and ugly. What would you have done differently? What didn’t work? Are there things that you can control and change?

The Good, Bad, and Ugly

With health you can look at what you could do differently. Did you eat too much bread? Too many sweets? Did you become lethargic? Maybe you used to walk, but you don’t any more. Why now?

Let’s say that you found all the mistakes you made. You said you were going to give up some things and make sacrifices, and you didn’t. You still watch a lot of T.V. Look at trends, and what you said you would do and didn’t.

This is facing the truth. It hurts. It sucks, and it isn’t fun. But facing it is what will help you have a better year next year. If you can get through this, heaven’s around the corner for you in business. But you have to go through hell first.

Do Your Research and Write Things Down for Each Category

Now you need to start writing things down. For instance, in the area of finances, let’s hypothetically say that you’re going to start saving $3,000 a month. Or you want to save $50,000 or $100,000. Whatever the number is, write it down.

With family, if you’re single, consider if you want to get married. If you’re married, consider if you want to have kids. When I assessed my 2006, I asked if I even wanted to get married. A lot of my friends were getting married and having kids. Some were happy and others were miserable. I studied it and made a decision. I do want to have kids. I'm the only Bet-David left in our lineage that can continue the family, so I do want to have  family. The book, 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged by Norman Wright helped me figure out what I wanted in a wife and helped me to determine the right person to marry. But I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my family.

What Needs to Change?

Next you need to look at what needs to change in the different areas. For example, in business you may need better systems. You may need to hire new people. Write those things down. How much do you need to expand your business? Write it down.

How Are You Going to Do It?

Next, you need to look at how you’re going to accomplish those things. This is the part where you write the long business plan. You need to create a mathematical formula. If I do x times y plus z, I will make a million dollars. So you give yourself a formula to hit that number.

The One-Page Business Plan

Once you’ve written out your detailed business plan, the next step is to write a one page business plan that you can laminate and look at every day.

Give Your Business Plan a Title

Every year is a new campaign. What will the coming year be for you? Here’s one of my favorite ones: 2017: The Year of Recreating Myself!

That’s a phenomenal start for anyone. But yours may be the year of explosion, the year of growth, the year of expansion, etc. You figure out your word, and give it a title. What will the new year represent to you?

Next, you’ll write down three habits and three goals for each of the six areas. For example, in ‘02, I created a habit of running my credit score, once a month. I also tracked every single one of my financial accounts - mutual funds, stocks, investments, etc. on the 19th of every month.

Three goals could be things like weighing 190 pounds, 13% body fat, and bench pressing 300 pounds.

Listen in here for more examples and the detailed explanation of what to put on your one-page business plan.

Daily Review and Sacrifices

The thing that this one sheeter does for you is it allows you to review it daily. You can use it to drive your initiatives. It’s in your face and reminds you of your habits and goals.

With this one pager, you have to make some sacrifices. What will you give up this year? T.V.? Drinking or smoking? Sleeping in? Everyone’s got a vice. What are you going to give up this year? Because that’s the effort and the strategy. And the more time you spend on the strategy the better one-pager you can write.

Your One-Pager

You may be saying, “Man, I wish I had this format.” I got it for you. All you need to do to get it is fill out the form below and we’ll email it to you.

Then you can print it, fill it out, laminate it, and review it every day. You’ll be amazed what a difference this will make in just a few weeks. You won’t be able to keep yourself from thinking about it, and somehow, some way, you’ll start hitting it. We have the strategy, and if you put in the time, this time next year you’ll say, “Oh my gosh. This is so exciting. I hit 80% of my goals.”

Book Recommendation

People ask me for book recommendations for this. And while it may sound like I’m self-promoting, I can tell you that I highly recommend reading this book I wrote called 25 Laws for Doing the Impossible . In it, I wrote out the exact formula I used to recreate myself. I tell you from pure experience how this cat went from having  a 1.8 GPA in high school, and being someone no one expected to do anything to being who I am today.

If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, about this video, comment on the bottom. And if you haven’t yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, click on the button below to subscribe.

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Easy-to-use one-page business plan template

A one-age business plan is a useful tool for providing an overview of your goals and targets and how you and your team will achieve them. Before you get into the details, a one-page business plan can help you feel out your ideas, set priorities, and provide an outline for a more extensive standard business plan.

You can also keep your single-page plan on hand to keep you laser-focused on the scope and objectives of your business at all times.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use a one-page business plan to create a robust foundation for your business and share some ready-to-use business plan templates .

Get the template

What is a one-page business plan template?

A one-page business plan encompasses your entire business strategy condensed onto one-page. A one-page business plan template is a document that outlines a business’s strategies and goals.

A traditional business plan goes into great detail and could be dozens of pages long. With a one-pager, the idea is to condense all the important information into one high-level document.

However, if it’s a one-page business plan to hand out to prospective investors, you’ll likely focus more on something like financial projections .

In general, your one-page business plan can include:

• Vision statements and strategic objectives of your business
• Customer segments your business will serve
• Overview of the product or service you’ll provide
• Sales goals and marketing strategy
• High-level business overview of financial projections

Why use a one-page business plan template?

Understanding the benefits of writing a single-page business plan helps keep you focused when condensing lots of important information onto a one-page template.

Provide an overview of your business plan

A one-page plan provides you with an overview of everything you need to consider about your business venture. One-page plans provide a snapshot of multiple moving parts of your strategy and operations to keep you focused on what matters.

One-page business plan templates are a very useful starting point for developing a more detailed standard business plan . By creating a high-level document, you can begin to sketch out your ideas and assumptions and test them before spending lots of time developing a long business plan that you end up rewriting. Once you’re satisfied with your one-page plan, you have a step-by-step outline for a more in-depth version.

Manage operations and finances

As you grow your business, the operations and finances side of things often become more complex and difficult to manage. In times like these, when you need to make important decisions, a one-page business plan helps keep the core objectives of your venture in mind at all times. Nailing down your template means you don’t waste time deciding what the most important details are, so you can focus your time and energy into growing your business instead.

Synthesize business information

Another key benefit of having a one-page business plan on hand is the ability to provide anyone with a snapshot of your business whenever needed. This situation could apply to your management team, potential business partners, or potential investors who want a fast, easy-to-digest rundown of your business.

While you might have an elevator pitch ready, a one-page plan helps back up your claims, especially when it comes to items like financial projections or your cash flow statement . A one-page business plan template means it’s easy for you to quickly synthesize relevant information for the required audience. Simply drop the latest information into your template and get ready to present.

What are some examples of one-page business plans?

Before you write a one-page business plan, it’s helpful to get familiar with the various types of templates available and decide which one is best for your needs.

Startup one-page business plan template

Writing a business plan for a startup is a very different process than creating a plan for an established business. Startups are beginning from the very start of their journey with little historical data to go on. By nature, they need to be a lot more flexible with their ideas and decisions as they decide what works.

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So a one-page plan for startups is more about laying the groundwork for more in-depth strategic analysis and taking an agile approach to developing a business model.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas is a well-known template for business plans. A single page is divided into squares, with each square representing an important component of the business strategy.

With a business model canvas, you’ll be able to quickly outline items like your target markets, value proposition, and revenue streams. Writing and comparing these sections on one-page allows you to validate your business model against your market analysis and quickly iterate on different elements of your business strategy .

Business idea action plan template

While many business plan templates focus on strategy and high-level objectives, some businesses require more focus on operations and action right from the start. In those instances, a business idea action plan template can be more beneficial.

This type of one-page business plan focuses on what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, rather than analysis and projections. It enables business owners to develop tactics for how they’ll design, develop, market, and sell their products or services.

Small business plan template

Small businesses are often operating with limited funding and narrow profit margins. These constraints make revenue targets and cost-effective operations critically important to success, especially for a service business.

When this is the case, a shorter business plan template for small businesses which focuses on defining your business niche, setting clear targets, and creating detailed timelines keeps your strategy aligned to the bottom line at all times.

monday.com’s one-page business plan template

Building a one-page business planning template from scratch involves a lot of key elements for consideration, but it doesn’t have to be a tricky process. Having a template to keep you on track enables you to effectively shape your strategy, goals, key activities, and targets in one place.

monday.com has created a one-page business plan template to help you create an effective one-page business plan that will keep your goals and targets at the front of your mind as you grow your business. The monday.com template includes:

• Digital visualization of your entire business strategy in one location, so you can easily share your plan and make updates
• Extensive customization options so you can create a business plan that aligns fully with your company branding
• The ability to add your own visuals such as tables, images, and videos that are relevant to your business plan
• The ability to collaborate in real-time with business partners and senior management on the creation and development of your one-page plan
• Integrations with popular business tools such as Excel and Outlook so you can move your business plan seamlessly from creation to execution

Have your one-page business plan created quickly and seamlessly with monday.com. Sign up for our free trial and select the one-page business plan template to stay aligned with your business objectives and core goals.

One-page business plan tips & tricks

Although a one-page business plan is not as extensive as a full-length business plan, there are some best practices you should follow to get the most out of it. With these tips and tricks, you’ll have a one-page business plan that’s realistic, accurate, and functional.

Understand your target market

Before you start outlining your business activities and tactics, it’s imperative that you fully understand your target market and your product-market fit. This understanding includes considerations such as customer price sensitivity, buying preferences, demographics, and more.

Without understanding your target market, building a business model can lead to sales targets and timelines that don’t materialize, a marketing plan or marketing materials that miss the mark, and unrealistic financial projections.

Fine-tune your products and services

Another key element of your business plan is the outline of the products and services you’ll offer. In this area, business owners need to thoroughly understand the cost of production, how to price products and services so they remain profitable, and how your offering measures up against competitors in the market.

By getting a firm grasp of your value offering, you can more accurately project costs, revenue, and profitability over the long term.

Keep your goals and projections realistic

When creating your one-page business plan, use the hard numbers regarding costs and budget to remain realistic about your business goals.

This approach applies to your timelines, too. Although your goals and targets may be ambitious, there needs to be an achievable timeline and resource allocation attached to them.

FAQs about one-page business plans

How do you write a business plan in one page.

It might be more beneficial for some business owners to start with a long business plan and then work on synthesizing it into a one-page template. That way, you can gain a deep understanding of your strategy before selecting the most important highlights for your one-page business plan.

You can also use visuals in place of written text where appropriate to save on space. For example, you can condense the highlights of your financial projections onto a single graph that’s understandable at a glance.

What is the primary characteristic of a one-page business plan?

The primary characteristics of a one-page business plan are clarity and brevity. Anyone who picks up your one-page plan should quickly get a clear idea of what your business does, its goals, and how you plan to achieve them. So it’s essential to keep all the information extremely clear and concise. Using a template like one on monday.com already gives you a leg up with a helpful outline.

What should a simple business plan include?

While every business is unique in some way, there are fundamental pieces of information you should incorporate into all simple business plans, including:

• Business mission and objectives
• Target audiences
• Competitor analysis
• Products/services outline
• Key operational considerations
• Time-bound financial projections

Depending on the purpose of your plan, you might choose to leave some items off the page. For example, if it’s for internal use by a wider team, you might omit elements like business financing plans, income statements, cost structure, etc.

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How To Write a Business Plan: A Step-By-Step Guide

April 23, 2024.

No matter how unique your ideas are, launching a successful business without a well-crafted plan is tough. That’s why learning how to write a business plan is key to seeing success from the start. 

An actionable business plan helps you and potential investors understand exactly where you want to go and how to get there. And if you aren’t trying to secure funding, a lean business plan can summarize the highlights to help you in other areas. Here’s everything you need to write a business plan that clarifies your company’s vision.

Business Plan Basics

A business plan outlines the company’s products or services, how it makes money, and its customers. It should also identify the business’s long-term goals and how it’ll achieve them.

But what does a business plan look like? There’s no singular format, but most contain the following core elements:

• Executive Summary . The executive summary is a high-level summary of your business plan’s key points. Include this early in the document, but write it last so you can accurately describe what’s in it.
• Company Description . This section covers your company’s mission, leadership team, and goals. If your business has operated for several years, include a history.
• Market Analysis . This is where you’ll write out your market research. Gather data on your industry. That includes target customer segments and the current competitive landscape. This info demonstrates the viability of your business idea. 
• Product and Service Offerings . Describe your company’s offerings and what sets them apart from competitors. This is your unique value proposition.
• Marketing Plan . Outline your marketing tactics and overall strategy. Mention your plan for pricing, promoting, selling, and distributing your products. This helps investors know you have a strategy in place to grow your business. 
• Logistics and Operations Plan . After describing your products and how you plan to generate demand, lay out how you intend to drive, accept payment for, and support sales.
• Management Overview . Potential investors want to know who they’re betting on. This section provides crucial information about who’s in charge. Include their track records of success, relevant expertise, and roles and responsibilities.
• Financial Analysis and Projections . If you have them, include any historical financial details and performance metrics. This includes assets, liabilities, expenses , projected financial statements, cash flow statements, and anything else offering insights.
• Appendix . This final section is a catch-all for any miscellaneous but valuable background information. Examples might be licenses or patents.’

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How To Create a Business Plan

With a clear understanding of these documents, it’s time to learn how to write one. Here’s how to put together a strong business plan for your company:

• Carry out a Market Analysis on target demographics, competitors, industry trends, and market.
• In the Company Description and Products and Service Offerings sections, explain what makes your offerings unique.
• Outline your Marketing Plan and sales strategy. Describe your target market and ideal customer. Include factors like geographic region, age range, and education level.
• Map out your Financial Analysis and Projections. If you’re an established business, include data like profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet delineating your assets and liabilities, and cash flow statements or projections. If you’re still in the early stages, focus just on financial projections instead. Mention anticipated startup costs and your current cash flow.
• Your Logistics and Operations Plan explains how you’ll execute your ideas. Describe any relationships with suppliers, office space, or equipment. Make sure to mention production logistics and any shipping and fulfillment plans. This demonstrates that you understand the day-to-day operations of producing your product.
• Introduce yourself and/or your Management Team and principal hires. Emphasize past successes in related sectors and any unique expertise your staff has.
• Regardless of what order you prepare your business plan in, write the Executive Summary last. Do this by turning your market research and value proposition into tangible objectives and key milestones. This section is typically the first your readers see, so it should make them want to read more.

Be sure to get feedback from colleagues, industry contacts, and friends and family. The more eyes you get on your business plan, the less likely you are to make mistakes or leave out details.

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What Are Business Plans For?

Writing and adhering to a business plan allows you to think through every aspect of your business. This helps you clarify your vision and shows where your ideas aren’t as developed.

But business plans don’t just clarify the company’s mission and direction. Entrepreneurs hope to answer this tough question with a business plan: how to attract investors. A well-written document can instill confidence by showing how supported it is. This is the main reason many business owners create a comprehensive overview.

And investors aren’t the only ones you’re trying to impress. An inspiring business plan attracts top talent in your industry. It proves that your team is organized, knows what it wants, and has ideas for the future.

Exploring Different Types of Business Plans

Business plans can be categorized based on type and style. Let’s explore three of the most common types.

A traditional business plan is the most common. This is what lenders and investment funds want to see before making any decisions. Traditional business plans are typically long. That’s because they provide a thorough overview of your company’s abilities, finances, and prospects

If you’re not courting investors, you might prefer a lean business plan. This type of document is shorter, focusing on the highlights instead of completeness. A lean business plan is great for brainstorming or onboarding new team members with reduced time and effort. But, because they’re less comprehensive, lean business plans aren’t ideal for seeking outside investment. Investors might not see how viable your business is without the added details. 

Finally, if your organization is a nonprofit, focus on the impact you hope to make for your chosen cause, not how you’ll grow revenue. But donors may want to see a more detailed business plan before making sizable donations.

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Caveats To Watch Out For

An actionable step-by-step business plan requires a strong understanding of how it will help you reach your company’s goals. Now that you know how to start a business plan, here are some common mistakes to avoid when you start writing:

• Putting on Rose-colored Glasses . When you believe in your company and its mission, it’s easy to be too optimistic about future prospects. You might also overlook potential roadblocks. Be sure to keep one foot on the ground to avoid misrepresenting your company’s potential.
• Focusing Too Much on the Details . If your company is new or not yet established, focus on high-level strategy and vision. Save the details for when you’ve generated some actionable data.
• Setting Fuzzy Goals . Keep milestones concrete and measurable to meaningfully track progress.
• Overcomplicating . There’s nothing wrong with being comprehensive, but creating an overly intricate strategy makes it harder to execute. Keep it simple.
• Setting It in Stone . Your business plan won’t be much of a guide if you’re constantly making changes. But it’s important to move on from ineffective strategies or unachievable goals. Striking the right balance between stable ideas and flexible methods ensures your business plan is a help, not a hindrance.

5 Tips for an Effective Business Plan

Now that you know what to avoid, let’s learn some tips for making your business plan as effective as possible:

• Clearly Articulate Your Value Proposition . What unsolved problem does your company provide the solution for?
• Don’t Skimp on Market Research . A seemingly great idea won’t sell if no one is interested in buying it.
• Set Quantifiable Goals You Can Track . It’s difficult to measure progress toward vague, qualitative milestones.
• Hype up Your Team . Lenders and investors want to see that qualified personnel run your company.
• Manage Expectations . Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Surpassing your targets is impressive; falling short isn’t.

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How to Write an Online Business Plan in 2024

Written by Vanessa Petersen on July 26, 2023 Blog , Sell Online .

You’ve committed to turning your ecommerce or online business idea into something real. You want your small business to produce revenue and change the course of your life, but what’s your first step in realizing your dream? Developing a plan. If you’re not sure about how to write an online business plan, you’ve come to the right place.

One of the most essential tasks involved in starting any kind of business is to write a business plan. An online business plan won’t look that different from a traditional business plan and will include many of the same elements.

In this post, we’ll show you how to write an online business plan, including all the components and sections. We’ll also walk through how WooCommerce can help you put your plan to action and achieve your business goals.

Why write a business plan? 

Starting your own business is a great experience and something that will shape your life, fill you with self-confidence and independence, and inspire other people around you. A new business is also a serious endeavor that will take time, money, sweat, lots of decisions, and a degree of risk.

A traditional business plan template helps you document and keep track of your business goals, challenges, opportunities, and all the steps and processes involved with making your idea work. It will help you conduct thorough market research and set you up for success.

When you write a business plan, it can confirm that you’ve found the best online business to start , or provide clarity about the need to pivot.

It details all the things you will need to do in order to successfully launch and grow your business, and may include revenue projections, timelines for specific goals, concept art for products, and architectural drawings for any brick and mortar aspects of your business. 

Business plans help create a structure for your company’s development and keep you grounded in reality, focused, and not distracted by less important matters. 

If you have more than one person helping run the business, the business plan also keeps everyone unified around the same set of goals and objectives. 

Another reason to write a business plan is for situations where you are presenting your idea to someone else and asking them to invest. In that scenario, your business plan is also a sort of sales document. It makes the argument for why your business idea is so good and well-considered that an investor should want to be a part of it. 

But even if you’re self-funding your entire business — which is more common with online businesses — you still want to write the plan for the reasons given earlier.

The benefits of running an online business

Starting an online business or ecommerce store offers many of the same great benefits as any other business, but without as much risk. If you’re thinking of starting a business, here’s why an online one is a great option:

It has low startup costs

Without a storefront, you eliminate so many costs of running a business. With all the bills that come with having property — like rent, parking, furnishings and decor, etc. — there’s a much higher investment required to start a brick-and-mortar-based business. Online businesses still have startup costs, but they are much lower. 

It gives you freedom over your schedule

With an online business, you have more freedom to set your own hours, because you don’t always have to be open during the usual times. You can build your business to suit the lifestyle you want. Rearrange your time to get things done in the fastest possible way and take time off when you need it. 

You can start small

Once you have a location, it’s yours, and you have to make it work. With an online business, you can start very small, offering just a few products or even just a single service. You can more easily test the waters without making huge commitments with inventory, and other physical investments.

You can more easily pivot

If your online or ecommerce business doesn’t do as well as you expected, it’s easier to pivot and adapt to something new because you haven’t committed so much to making your original idea work. There are many business success stories where the business owner adjusted their idea after gaining some experience, and then it took off. It’s a lot easier to do that when you aren’t tied to a physical location.

But, there’s one thing online businesses have in common with every other type of business: You need a robust business plan to help guide your idea from concept to a successful reality that makes money and fulfills your dreams and goals. 

So, let’s get into business planning. 

How do I write my own online business plan?

Most formal business plans and business plan templates include seven sections, plus an executive summary. You’ll need to keep in mind who you’re writing your business plan for. If you are taking this to potential investors or will be seeking a business loan, your business plan needs to sell the idea of your business as a great investment opportunity and communicate the skills, expertise, and commitment you personally bring to the table. 

Here are the key sections of a traditional business plan format:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service and product line
• Sales and marketing plans
• Financial projections
• Funding request (if working with investors or partners)

Here’s a brief look at each step of creating an online business plan:

Draft an executive summary

In the executive summary, the first section of almost every business plan template, you’ll present your vision and focus on building excitement. If the business plan is a sales document, the executive summary is the lead. It gets the reader engaged and excited to hear more. 

Your executive summary should achieve two goals:

• Deliver the basic facts about your business
• Motivate the reader to keep going and get them excited about your idea

What facts should you include? Whatever helps the reader understand your business idea. Describe the industry and niche. Mention the target market. Briefly state the needs or problems your products and services will be solving. Touch on the potential for growth in terms of revenue and customers. 

For motivation, describe your mission statement and company values. What will set you apart from the competition? What is your value proposition as a business owner? What makes you different? Again — keep this brief. You’ll elaborate later. 

It might be a good move to write all the other sections first, then finish with the executive summary so it will be the most concise and best version of how you describe your business.

Write a company description

Here, you’ll give a brief overview of your company. What are your strengths, skills, and areas of expertise as a business owner that will position you for success? If you have a compelling story behind why you’re starting your business, you can include that too.

Conduct a SWOT analysis 

If you’re not sure where to start, consider doing a SWOT analysis , which is a diagram outlining your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

It’s a common part of many business plans and will help paint a realistic picture of what your business can achieve, and what stands in the way. You won’t include all of this in the company description, but your strengths and opportunities may fit here. 

Create a mission and vision statement

The company description is also the place to create a mission statement and a vision statement. What’s the difference between these? 

The vision is where you’re going, the mission is how you’ll get there. A vision statement paints a picture of a future reality for your customers and perhaps the world at large, as a result of your company’s influence. A mission statement expresses how you will achieve that.

The company description can elaborate on your vision and mission beyond just a single sentence, and later you can fine-tune what you write into a succinct pair of statements. Feeling some writer’s block? See company description templates by industry for some inspiration.

Include any unique attributes

If your company will involve particular attributes such as manufacturing, supply chains, dropshipping, affiliates, coaching or advising, online courses, or other relevant particulars, include that in your company description, too. 

State your business location, industry, niche, and other details

Also, state the location of your business, even though it’s online. Name your industry and niche target market again, and describe the nature of your company. For example, is it an ecommerce business, a consulting firm, delivery service, wholesale, or ad-based website? These are just some of many types of online business structures. 

You may also want to include whether your business is in any special class of business that might position it for special loan or grant opportunities like women-owned businesses or veteran-owned businesses.

After reading your description, readers should have a good understanding of what your business is about, why it exists, and how it works. Here’s a detailed look at company descriptions , with an example.

Perform a market analysis

A market analysis uses industry research to assess the scope of your business’s target market and describe the current competition in your industry. It can help you estimate the potential for success and prepare for the challenges you may face when you launch your online business or ecommerce shop.

Doing this research, and including it your business plan, can also help you:

• Identify industry trends
• Pinpoint opportunities 
• Diminish risks and reduce costs
• Generate new ideas for products and services
• Learn from the failures and shortcomings of your competitors
• Find ways to stand out from your competitors
• Discover new markets
• Refine your marketing plans

Now let’s dig into the elements involved in a thorough market analysis.

Understand your audience

Here, you will explain in detail who your target customers are and why they want or need what you’ll be selling. What problems or needs does your product solve? What will motivate people to buy from you? And why can’t they get it somewhere else just as easily? An ecommerce business competes against other ecommerce businesses as well as brick-and-mortar stores and shopping malls. Stores with omnichannel strategies compete with both. Why would someone choose you?

Share your key customer demographics, psychographics, and interests. Who will you be serving? What drives them? 

What are their values? If your product, service, or personal brand will appeal to a customer segment that also shares particular values, that’s a strength, not a weakness, and you can use that to win them over. 

Perform customer segmentation

Break down different categories of target customers your business plans to serve. One category could be age. Another might be life situations such as retirees, parents, divorcees, or living with older relatives. You could create a segment of people with particular health conditions, or who live certain lifestyles. 

But you can also get way more specific than that. Runners are different from hikers, who are different from bikers, yoga enthusiasts, and gym enthusiasts. Different supplements, philosophies about food, motivations for eating various foods — all of these present near endless possibilities for more narrowly defining your customer segments, all under the broad category of ‘health.’ And you might serve multiple segments. 

The more customer segments you know, the more effectively you can market to them. In an online store, good product descriptions call out the various customer segments that product is designed for.

Also, give a sense of the potential size of your target market. How many people need what you’re selling? Show how this market is large enough to justify your business and drive revenue. You might do this by studying revenue reports from other companies in your industry. Or look at specific products related to yours and research their sales and revenue performance. 

You may also perform a survey of some kind, or an online quiz, and use that to express the needs your potential customers have that aren’t currently being met.

Perform a competitive analysis

Study your competition. What are they doing well? What areas are they underserving? Where are they underperforming? Make note of what other companies in your industry are struggling with or failing at so that you can deliver something more valuable and gain a competitive advantage.

It could be product quality, customer service, or selection. Maybe their ecommerce store is badly designed and hard to use. Perhaps there’s a huge industry serving the masses, but customers who have more particular tastes or needs aren’t being well-served by the big companies. Those customers might spend more on something that delivers what they really want. 

Maybe your key competition has been rocked by scandal. Maybe a company went out of business, was sold, or closed down due to retirement and there’s an opening in the market you want to leverage. 

The main point of the competitive analysis is to persuade investors that there’s an underserved market that your business plans to cater to. You must be able to promise something that no one else is currently delivering. Otherwise, why should your business exist? Put them at ease by demonstrating proper market research.

Refer to your SWOT analysis and present any potential threats from the competition here, too.

Outline management and organizational structure

Next, present your management and legal structure. Is your company an LLC, sole proprietorship, S corporation, partnership, or some other arrangement? Who’s in charge of what? If you have different departments, list out the leadership for each one. If relevant, you might even include some information about the expertise of your leaders concerning the areas under their charge and the tasks they’ll be performing.

Remember — if your business plan will be used to persuade investors to help fund your business idea, this sort of information will reassure them that your company has strong and competent leadership. 

If there’s a chain of command, use a diagram or other method for laying out who reports to whom. 

List your products and services

What are you selling? You’ll touch on this briefly in the earlier sections, but here is where you’ll expand on the details. If you have an array of similar products, such as food flavors or clothing variations, list as many as seem relevant. But focus on the spirit of the business plan — you’re simply communicating what your business is about, not listing every SKU in your projected inventory. 

Also, include information about your products such as quality, durability, expirations, patents, and whatever else will give a clear picture of what you’re selling.

For service businesses and memberships that may include multiple packages, bundles, or tiers, describe each of these so your readers get a sense of how you’ll appeal to different types of customers and price points. 

Develop a sales and marketing strategy

Having products is great, but how do you intend to sell them? How will people find your business? How will anyone know you exist? And once they know, what will motivate them to buy from you and not from your competition? What is your unique value proposition — the thing that sets you apart from your direct competitors?

You’ll need to develop an initial marketing plan to help promote your business, products, and services to your target customers.

And remember, competition isn’t limited just to other businesses. Sometimes, competition is against the customer’s time, or their budget, or mere indifference — the conflict between doing something and doing nothing. Your SWOT analysis should touch on several of these potential barriers to the success of your online business.

Your marketing plan will obviously change over time, but give your readers and potential investors a sense of how you plan to launch and grow your business. 

Discuss media channels you plan to use, such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads , social media , email marketing , affiliate marketing , direct mail, referrals, joint ventures, search engine optimization (SEO), webinars, influencer marketing , and live events. Describe the ones you actually plan to use, and explain the core strategy you’ll begin with and how you will measure success. 

Also, include a sense of your marketing budget. If you will have a dedicated marketing team, or actual sales professionals using a particular process or sales script, discuss that as well. 

For ecommerce businesses, include a discussion of how you plan to leverage platforms like WooCommerce, which features a host of extensions that can help manage your business , engage customers, save money, and promote growth .

Make financial projections

You’ve made a lot of claims in your business plan, but how will your investors be convinced of your future success? At some point, you have to show them the money. 

If this is a brand new business with no income, where will your finances come from for the first year? Give realistic financial projections for anticipated profits and losses, as well as growth expectations for the first five years. Include financial documents if you have them, including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Include costs of employment, manufacturing, and other investments both one-time and ongoing.

Your financial projections should reference your:

• market analysis 
• anticipated sales volume 

Investors will feel more confident when they can see your business plan does not rely entirely on just one or two ‘wins.’ For example, if your entire plan hinges on selling on eBay or Amazon , what happens if Amazon suspends your store, changes the terms, or you struggle to get noticed there? 

If your plan depends on winning over a few Instagram influencers, what if they don’t come through? It’s really easy to say what you hope will happen. But actually making it happen is another thing. Business success happens more easily when you apply a multi-channel marketing and sales approach. 

Your financial projections will feel based in reality, when you can demonstrate some prior successes, either in other businesses you’ve already launched, test audiences, local sales you made, prior experience, or data from other businesses. 

Explain your funding request — if applicable

If you intend to ask investors to help fund your business idea, present your request in the final main section of your business plan. If you’ve already secured funding from other sources, include that here as well. An investor will feel better knowing they are not the only one who believes in the potential of your business. 

Will your funding request be for a one-time payment, monthly, annually, or at some other interval? How do you plan to repay their investment? Will you allow them to charge interest? How much ROI can you promise them? 

How WooCommerce can help

WooCommerce can help you build a scalable online business that supports your business plan. No matter what you’re selling, WooCommerce offers a suite of flexible tools that allows you to customize your store to meet your needs and goals. 

Here are just some of the benefits your business will enjoy when you choose to build your store with WooCommerce:

• Sell absolutely anything you can imagine . From physical items and digital downloads to subscriptions, memberships, bookings, courses, and affiliate products, WooCommerce provides everything you need. Want to run a wholesale store? You can do that, too!
• Harness the power of WordPress . Since WooCommerce is a plugin specifically for WordPress, you can take advantage of powerful features like the block editor and blogging capabilities. 
• Capture payments securely. Choose from a large number of payment gateways, from popular options like PayPal and Stripe, to more niche processors for specific locations and types of regulated products. And with tools like WooPayments , you can keep customers on-site, capture a variety of currencies, and even accept digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• Customize your shipping options. Offer free shipping, charge based on weight, set fixed prices, or calculate shipping costs based on real-time carrier rates. You can even use extensions like Table Rate Shipping to create complicated shipping rules based on conditions that you set. And with WooCommerce Shipping , you benefit from discounted shipping labels and the ability to print right from your dashboard. 
• Connect to your social media channels. Use extensions to sync your store with social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can even sell on those platforms alongside your store without having to update inventory and information manually.
• Integrate with marketing tools. Quickly connect your store to any number of marketing tools, from email platforms like MailPoet to CRMs like Jetpack CRM . You can also implement a number of marketing strategies, from abandoned cart emails to loyalty programs.
• Keep track of your numbers. Ecommerce accounting is a big part of running an online business. While you can easily view data in your dashboard, you can also sync with tools like QuickBooks to make your accountant’s life a little bit easier.
• Manage inventory. Update your inventory levels manually or connect to tools like Scanventory to sync with your warehouse. Running low or out of stock? Add a wishlist option so customers get an alert as soon as it’s available.

As you can see, WooCommerce is well-equipped to handle any type of online store and support you as you grow. Here are a few more reasons that WooCommerce should be your go-to choice for implementing the ecommerce side of your online business plan:

WooCommerce itself is free! Many extensions for WooCommerce can also be found for free in the WordPress.org plugins library or on the Woo Marketplace . If you need to start your website with a limited budget, but want to build on a platform that can grow to support a thriving, high-traffic store, WooCommerce is an excellent option.

You have full control over your store

Unlike other ecommerce solutions that are tied to the platform’s own web hosting, WooCommerce is designed to be used with WordPress along with any hosting provider of your choice. You are also free to use whatever payment processor you want without any additional fees from WooCommerce. You can also customize your site’s appearance and functionality more extensively than you can with other ecommerce platforms and with less (or no) coding knowledge.

Thousands of free and premium extensions

There are over 800 free and premium extensions for WooCommerce on WooCommerce.com alone and over 1,000 in the WordPress.org plugins library . There are also hundreds of independent developers and agencies that offer premium and custom extensions for WooCommerce so that you can customize your store with the exact features you need. 

Excellent support and large community of users

WooCommerce is used by over 3.9 million stores — 23% of all online stores worldwide . The support team is available to answer questions and the documentation library is extensive and thorough. There are also plenty of independent resources for learning how to use WordPress and WooCommerce.

Dedicate time and resources to put your online business plan in action

A successful business plan is one that empowers and guides the business owner to launch their online or ecommerce business, and possibly secure funding. But it only works if you use it.

One advantage of starting an ecommerce store or online business is that you aren’t as locked down by deadlines. With a physical location, once you start paying the rent, you better have your business plan ready to put into action. 

But the beauty of being online is that you have more flexibility on the front end. Despite having more wiggle room with your timelines, you still need to keep your momentum going forward. Staying on track with your business projects and goals is one of the keys to reaching profitability sooner and turning your business plan into reality. A few quick tips:

• Schedule your time. Block out hours and specific days to work on your business.
• Treat it like a job, not a hobby. Build on your momentum week after week.
• Always keep learning. Research your industry, competition, target audience, and potential customers. Learn marketing — you can never know too much.
• Try stuff! Take risks, make calls, create campaigns, write content.

Your business plan template should give you a concrete list of tasks and business objectives. Once you write a business plan, then you can implement it.

Frequently asked questions about writing an online business plan

What are the seven steps of a business plan.

The seven key elements of a business plan are the executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management, services and products, marketing plan, and financial projections. If you’re making a funding request, that would be an eighth section.

Where can I find business plan templates?

You can find a free business plan template online, for general business plans as well as for specific industries. However, since each business is different and your plan must be authentic and specific to your company — a business plan template can only get you so far. 

If you need design inspiration for your own custom business plan template or want to start with a pre-designed template that you can customize, you can purchase one for a relatively low cost through a stock resources site like Envato Market or Creative Market .

Do I need a business plan if I am already running an online business or ecommerce shop?

Business plans aren’t only for people who are launching new businesses. You can create a business plan at any time to help you maintain or change the direction of your store or just to get a better picture of the health of your business. Below are a few different types of business plans that you might want to consider for your established online business:

• Operational business plan. Outlines the structure of your business operations, staffing, and logistics.
• Feasibility plan. Feasibility plans are like mini business plans that cover new business ideas and outline steps for implementation.
• Growth business plan. This plan is for businesses that want to demonstrate opportunities and plans for growth to attract investors.
• Maturing business plan. This plan is for businesses looking to merge with or acquire other companies, significantly expand, or go public.
• Strategic business plan. Any time your business wants to shift strategies regarding products or marketing or any other major changes to your previous business plan, you’ll want to create a new strategic business plan to address your new goals and the steps involved in achieving them.

What software should I use for my online business plan?

Your business plan should include some images, graphs, and graphic elements in the layout, so you’ll want to at least use word processing software to put your business plan together. If you have access to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Canva, or Adobe Creative Cloud, you’ll have some other options that might lead to a more professional layout.

Here’s a list of free and paid software that can help you put together your online business plan outline:

What do investors want to see in a business plan?

The most important piece of information to show investors in your business plan is potential for profitability. Investors don’t want to throw money at a sinking ship, no matter how cool and exciting the business sounds. 

Most investors also want to make sure that they’ll see a decent return on their investment in a relatively short time period — probably around 5-7 years. How much of a return they’ll expect will depend on your industry and what kind of investor they are. 

Investors will also want to see that you clearly understand your business, your industry, and that you have concrete, actionable steps for achieving, maintaining, and growing profitability. They’ll want to make sure that the key people on your team also understand your business and the roles they play and they’ll want to see that each person has a good amount of experience in their field and the required skill sets to fulfill their job duties, if not go above and beyond. 

Any details you can include that highlight unique aspects of your business will also be important. Any area where you have a competitive edge, are offering a unique or proprietary solution, have established any celebrity endorsements, have the backing of other investors, or have secured special grants will be of special interest to investors.

Create your plan for success

Now that you understand what goes into creating a formal business plan, it’s time to write one! Take the time to think through and consider each aspect of the list included in this article, and you’ll be well on your way to finding success.

And WooCommerce is here to support your business every step of the way, with powerful and flexible tools that help your business grow. Start selling online today !

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Improve Your Work-Life Balance By Applying These 4 Business Skills to Your Personal Life Stressed? Try one of these four strategies to improve your work/life balance today. Hint: You already use them every day at work.

By Tivi Jones • Apr 24, 2024

Key Takeaways

• Analyze the opportunity costs of different activities and determine the trade-offs you're willing to make to prioritize what matters most to you.
• Embrace discomfort as an indicator or areas in your life that need adjustment. Be open to pivoting and experimenting with new approaches to find solutions and improve your balance.
• Treat your quest for work-life balance like you would a business plan — establish a "balance plan" for yourself and determine what you want your work-life balance to look and feel like.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Although work-life balance has been a part of the public narrative since the 70s, entrepreneurs still struggle to understand how to even out the scales when it comes to building their businesses while still taking time to enjoy their lives.

Over the last decade of my entrepreneurship journey, I've learned that the same skills that led to my business success also helped me achieve the elusive balance in my life.

So I come to you with an unusual proposal. Instead of turning off your entrepreneurial mojo in the quest to achieve balance, crank it way up. Here are four elements I use daily to maintain balance.

Related: 6 Secrets Smart Leaders Employ to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Analyze opportunity costs and trade-offs

Instead of thinking of "balance" as "all things being equal and excellent" analyze the opportunity costs of the activities you're involved in. Then, determine the trade-offs you're willing to make, just as you might in your business.

As entrepreneurs, we understand everything has a cost. The root of making good trade-offs for the benefit of your work/life balance is taking time to analyze the opportunity costs of how you spend your time, resources, money and energy in relation to all areas of your life.

As an entrepreneur managing multiple companies, I actively make decisions about things I'm willing to let go of in my quest to honor what I care about most. Of course, those decisions can change, but I make the decisions without letting external forces make them for me.

One trade-off I recently made was lessening my relationship with social media. Since one of my companies is a marketing communications agency, this might be seen as a poor trade-off since social media is a key vehicle for client marketing. What I discovered was that I was spending too much time on social media as a consumer (and not a leader, influencer or producer). This was cutting into the time I could have spent on other activities I value more.

I value my time and prioritize trade-offs that give me more of it. In my work-life balance quest, time has become a core value for me, but yours might be different.

Pivot like your life depends on it — because it does

When we don't experience our ideal work-life balance scenario, we may feel stuck or even adopt an "it is what it is" mentality. But if there's one thing we know from entrepreneurship, it's the power of pivoting to help us see the growth we need.

Pivoting allows you to course-correct while still maintaining enough familiarity to avoid cognitive overload or to bite off more than you can chew.

In my world, the need for pivoting is fully driven by problems, challenges or discomfort. I like to say "discomfort is data" — and data, as you know, is a powerful tool.

If you're feeling discomfort in your quest for work-life balance, this means something has risen in your awareness that you can identify needs changing. The power is in pivoting around this discomfort to experiment with temporary or long-term solutions.

For example, I implemented this tool to solve a source of discomfort for me: my morning routine. My solution was to pivot and start experimenting. I kept some things the same, including my rising time, but I wanted to change almost everything else. I began pivoting to see what worked for me and what didn't. First, I coupled activities. Then I decoupled some activities. I also removed some activities and modified others.

The most important place to start is by asking yourself: Where am I experiencing discomfort in my work-life balance journey, and what's one pivot I can make today to improve it ?

Related: 4 Business Practices That Will Improve Your Personal Life, Too

Create a balance plan

Think back to when you first started your business — what was the one thing that everybody and their mama told you to have to get started? A business plan !

Your quest for work-life balance is no different. Do you have a "balance plan?"

Similar to how you would set aside time for strategic planning for your business, do the same for your personal life. Maybe you have non-negotiable items you do daily to help with balancing. Perhaps your balance plan is more of a playbook for how you handle certain things.

For example, do you have "calendar rules" for when you're online or offline at work? Do you have specific personal goals you track and report on with an accountability buddy just like you do with your professional goals? I do all these things and each of them contributes to my work-life balance.

Additionally, part of my balance plan is regular strategic planning around work-life balance with annual, quarterly and weekly goals. I even maintain a spreadsheet of all my goals together.

Since I'm the person at the center of my business, it's important for me to value the work I do for my personal life just as much as my professional life.

Before your next work-life balance pivot, take 30-60 minutes and come up with a balance plan for yourself. Start by asking yourself: What do I want my work-life balance to look and feel like?

Complete a plus/delta or post-mortem review

When you complete a launch in your business, the best way to improve upon your success, mitigate future issues and plan for the next launch is to do a post-mortem on the project, complete a plus/delta analysis or do a performance review.

But analysis and measurement shouldn't just be reserved for business operations. This same strategy can be used outside of your business to align your daily actions with your vision for running your life.

Analyze your work-life balance efforts with the same or similar cadence as your business efforts.

In my life, I adopted the "12-Week Year" methodology for strategic planning. Every week, I briefly review how well I did on my goals and use that information to plan for the next week. At the end of the 12 weeks, I analyze the entire process. Since I track my personal goals alongside my professional goals, I see the balance, because I kept all elements of my life as blended on my strategic planning pages as they are in real life.

Related: 10 Leaders Who Set Good Work-Life Balance Examples

Let's be real. Adulting is hard, and when you consider the added challenges that entrepreneurship brings, it can feel like an insurmountable endeavor to keep all the plates spinning. The truth is, being an entrepreneur is all about taking responsibility and accountability for your success, but that sense of responsibility and accountability doesn't end when you close your laptop and go from professional mode to personal mode.

Whether it's applying strategic planning to your personal life and creating a balance plan, embracing trade-offs, experimenting with pivoting on particular issues or conducting regular post-mortems on your balancing act, these are all tools in your arsenal. They are proven to work in business empires, so now it's time to apply them to You, Inc. and see what awesome growth you can achieve.

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

Mission-Driven Business Owner, Partner + Leader

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The Crackdown on Student Protesters

Columbia university is at the center of a growing showdown over the war in gaza and the limits of free speech..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[TRAIN SCREECHING]

Well, you can hear the helicopter circling. This is Asthaa Chaturvedi. I’m a producer with “The Daily.” Just walked out of the 116 Street Station. It’s the main station for Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus. And it’s day seven of the Gaza solidarity encampment, where a hundred students were arrested last Thursday.

So on one side of Broadway, you see camera crews. You see NYPD officers all lined up. There’s barricades, steel barricades, caution tape. This is normally a completely open campus. And I’m able to — all members of the public, you’re able to walk through.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Looks like international media is here.

Have your IDs out. Have your IDs out.

Students lining up to swipe in to get access to the University. ID required for entry.

Swipe your ID, please.

Hi, how are you, officer? We’re journalists with “The New York Times.”

You’re not going to get in, all right? I’m sorry.

Hi. Can I help please?

Yeah, it’s total lockdown here at Columbia.

Please have your IDs out ready to swipe.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today, the story of how Columbia University has become the epicenter of a growing showdown between student protesters, college administrators, and Congress over the war in Gaza and the limits of free speech. I spoke with my colleague, Nick Fandos.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

It’s Thursday, April 25.

Nick, if we rewind the clock a few months, we end up at a moment where students at several of the country’s best known universities are protesting Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks, its approach to a war in Gaza. At times, those protests are happening peacefully, at times with rhetoric that is inflammatory. And the result is that the leaders of those universities land before Congress. But the president of Columbia University, which is the subject we’re going to be talking about today, is not one of the leaders who shows up for that testimony.

That’s right. So the House Education Committee has been watching all these protests on campus. And the Republican Chairwoman decides, I’m going to open an investigation, look at how these administrations are handling it, because it doesn’t look good from where I sit. And the House last winter invites the leaders of several of these elite schools, Harvard, Penn, MIT, and Columbia, to come and testify in Washington on Capitol Hill before Congress.

Now, the President of Columbia has what turns out to be a very well-timed, pre-planned trip to go overseas and speak at an international climate conference. So Minouche Shafik isn’t going to be there. So instead, the presidents of Harvard, and Penn, and MIT show up. And it turned out to be a disaster for these universities.

They were asked very pointed questions about the kind of speech taking place on their campuses, and they gave really convoluted academic answers back that just baffled the committee. But there was one question that really embodied the kind of disconnect between the Committee — And it wasn’t just Republicans, Republicans and Democrats on the Committee — and these college presidents. And that’s when they were asked a hypothetical.

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.

And two of the presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, they’re unwilling to say in this really kind of intense back and forth that this speech would constitute a violation of their rules.

It can be, depending on the context.

What’s the context?

Targeted at an individual. Is it pervasive?

It’s targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them?

And it sets off a firestorm.

It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes. And this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.

Members of Congress start calling for their resignations. Alumni are really, really ticked off. Trustees of the University start to wonder, I don’t know that these leaders really have got this under control. And eventually, both of them lose their jobs in a really high profile way.

Right. And as you’ve hinted at, for somewhat peculiar scheduling reasons, Columbia’s President escapes this disaster of a hearing in what has to be regarded as the best timing in the history of the American Academy.

Yeah, exactly. And Columbia is watching all this play out. And I think their first response was relief that she was not in that chair, but also a recognition that, sooner or later, their turn was going to come back around and they were going to have to sit before Congress.

Why were they so certain that they would probably end up before Congress and that this wasn’t a case of completely dodging a bullet?

Well, they remain under investigation by the committee. But also, as the winter wears on, all the same intense protests just continue unabated. So in many ways, Columbia’s like these other campuses. But in some ways, it’s even more intense. This is a university that has both one of the largest Jewish student populations of any of its peers. But it also has a large Arab and Muslim student population, a big Middle Eastern studies program. It has a dual degree program in Tel Aviv.

And it’s a university on top of all that that has a real history of activism dating back to the 1960s. So when students are recruited or choose to come to Columbia, they’re actively opting into a campus that prides itself on being an activist community. It’s in the middle of New York City. It’s a global place. They consider the city and the world, really, like a classroom to Columbia.

In other words, if any campus was going to be a hotbed of protest and debate over this conflict, it was going to be Columbia University.

Exactly. And when this spring rolls around, the stars finally align. And the same congressional committee issues another invitation to Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s President, to come and testify. And this time, she has no excuse to say no.

But presumably, she is well aware of exactly what testifying before this committee entails and is highly prepared.

Columbia knew this moment was coming. They spent months preparing for this hearing. They brought in outside consultants, crisis communicators, experts on anti-Semitism. The weekend before the hearing, she actually travels down to Washington to hole up in a war room, where she starts preparing her testimony with mock questioners and testy exchanges to prep her for this. And she’s very clear on what she wants to try to do.

Where her counterparts had gone before the committee a few months before and looked aloof, she wanted to project humility and competence, to say, I know that there’s an issue on my campus right now with some of these protests veering off into anti-Semitic incidents. But I’m getting that under control. I’m taking steps in good faith to make sure that we restore order to this campus, while allowing people to express themselves freely as well.

So then the day of her actual testimony arrives. And just walk us through how it goes.

The Committee on Education and Workforce will come to order. I note that —

So Wednesday morning rolls around. And President Shafik sits at the witness stand with two of her trustees and the head of Columbia’s new anti-Semitism task force.

Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people.

And right off the bat, they’re put through a pretty humbling litany of some of the worst hits of what’s been happening on campus.

For example, just four days after the harrowing October 7 attack, a former Columbia undergraduate beat an Israeli student with a stick.

The Republican Chairwoman of the Committee, Virginia Foxx, starts reminding her that there was a student who was actually hit with a stick on campus. There was another gathering more recently glorifying Hamas and other terrorist organizations, and the kind of chants that have become an everyday chorus on campus, which many Jewish students see as threatening. But when the questioning starts, President Shafik is ready. One of the first ones she gets is the one that tripped up her colleagues.

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia’s code of conduct, Mr. Greenwald?

And she answers unequivocally.

Dr. Shafik?

Yes, it does.

And, Professor —

That would be a violation of Columbia’s rules. They would be punished.

As President of Columbia, what is it like when you hear chants like, by any means necessary or Intifada Revolution?

I find those chants incredibly distressing. And I wish profoundly that people would not use them on our campus.

And in some of the most interesting exchanges of the hearing, President Shafik actually opens Columbia’s disciplinary books.

We have already suspended 15 students from Columbia. We have six on disciplinary probation. These are more disciplinary actions that have been taken probably in the last decade at Columbia. And —

She talks about the number of students that have been suspended, but also the number of faculty that she’s had removed from the classroom that are being investigated for comments that either violate some of Columbia’s rules or make students uncomfortable. One case in particular really underscores this.

And that’s of a Middle Eastern studies professor named Joseph Massad. He wrote an essay not long after Hamas invaded Israel and killed 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government, where he described that attack with adjectives like awesome. Now, he said they’ve been misinterpreted, but a lot of people have taken offense to those comments.

Ms. Stefanik, you’re recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairwoman. I want to follow up on my colleague, Rep Walberg’s question regarding Professor Joseph Massad. So let me be clear, President —

And so Representative Elise Stefanik, the same Republican who had tripped up Claudine Gay of Harvard and others in the last hearing, really starts digging in to President Shafik about these things at Columbia.

He is still Chair on the website. So has he been terminated as Chair?

Congresswoman, I —

And Shafik’s answers are maybe a little surprising.

— before getting back to you. I can confirm —

I know you confirmed that he was under investigation.

Yes, I can confirm that. But I —

Did you confirm he was still the Chair?

He says that Columbia is taking his case seriously. In fact, he’s under investigation right now.

Well, let me ask you this.

I need to check.

Will you make the commitment to remove him as Chair?

And when Stefanik presses her to commit to removing him from a campus leadership position —

I think that would be — I think — I would — yes. Let me come back with yes. But I think I — I just want to confirm his current status before I write —

We’ll take that as a yes, that you will confirm that he will no longer be chair.

Shafik seems to pause and think and then agree to it on the spot, almost like she is making administrative decisions with or in front of Congress.

Now, we did some reporting after the fact. And it turns out the Professor didn’t even realize he was under investigation. So he’s learning about this from the hearing too. So what this all adds up to, I think, is a performance so in line with what the lawmakers themselves wanted to hear, that at certain points, these Republicans didn’t quite know what to do with it. They were like the dog that caught the car.

Columbia beats Harvard and UPenn.

One of them, a Republican from Florida, I think at one point even marvelled, well, you beat Harvard and Penn.

Y’all all have done something that they weren’t able to do. You’ve been able to condemn anti-Semitism without using the phrase, it depends on the context. But the —

So Columbia’s president has passed this test before this committee.

Yeah, this big moment that tripped up her predecessors and cost them their jobs, it seems like she has cleared that hurdle and dispatched with the Congressional committee that could have been one of the biggest threats to her presidency.

Without objection, there being no further business, the committee stands adjourned. [BANGS GAVEL]

But back on campus, some of the students and faculty who had been watching the hearing came away with a very different set of conclusions. They saw a president who was so eager to please Republicans in Congress that she was willing to sell out some of the University’s students and faculty and trample on cherished ideas like academic freedom and freedom of expression that have been a bedrock of American higher education for a really long time.

And there was no clearer embodiment of that than what had happened that morning just as President Shafik was going to testify before Congress. A group of students before dawn set up tents in the middle of Columbia’s campus and declared themselves a pro-Palestinian encampment in open defiance of the very rules that Dr. Shafik had put in place to try and get these protests under control.

So these students in real-time are beginning to test some of the things that Columbia’s president has just said before Congress.

Exactly. And so instead of going to celebrate her successful appearance before Congress, Shafik walks out of the hearing room and gets in a black SUV to go right back to that war room, where she’s immediately confronted with a major dilemma. It basically boils down to this, she had just gone before Congress and told them, I’m going to get tough on these protests. And here they were. So either she gets tough and risks inflaming tension on campus or she holds back and does nothing and her words before Congress immediately look hollow.

And what does she decide?

So for the next 24 hours, she tries to negotiate off ramps. She consults with her Deans and the New York Police Department. And it all builds towards an incredibly consequential decision. And that is, for the first time in decades, to call the New York City Police Department onto campus in riot gear and break this thing up, suspend the students involved, and then arrest them.

To essentially eliminate this encampment.

Eliminate the encampment and send a message, this is not going to be tolerated. But in trying to quell the unrest, Shafik actually feeds it. She ends up leaving student protesters and the faculty who support them feeling betrayed and pushes a campus that was already on edge into a full blown crisis.

[SLOW TEMPO MUSIC]

After the break, what all of this has looked like to a student on Columbia’s campus. We’ll be right back.

[PHONE RINGS]

Is this Isabella?

Yes, this is she.

Hi, Isabella. It’s Michael Barbaro from “The Daily.”

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Earlier this week, we called Isabella Ramírez, the Editor in Chief of Columbia’s undergraduate newspaper, “The Columbia Daily Spectator,” which has been closely tracking both the protests and the University’s response to them since October 7.

So, I mean, in your mind, how do we get to this point? I wonder if you can just briefly describe the key moments that bring us to where we are right now.

Sure. Since October 7, there has certainly been constant escalation in terms of tension on campus. And there have been a variety of moves that I believe have distanced the student body, the faculty, from the University and its administration, specifically the suspension of Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. And that became a huge moment in what was characterized as suppression of pro-Palestinian activism on campus, effectively rendering those groups, quote, unquote, unauthorized.

What was the college’s explanation for that?

They had cited in that suspension a policy which states that a demonstration must be approved within a certain window, and that there must be an advance notice, and that there’s a process for getting an authorized demonstration. But the primary point was this policy that they were referring to, which we later reported, was changed before the suspension.

So it felt a little ad hoc to people?

Yes, it certainly came as a surprise, especially at “Spectator.” We’re nerds of the University in the sense that we are familiar with faculty and University governance. But even to us, we had no idea where this policy was coming from. And this suspension was really the first time that it entered most students’ sphere.

Columbia’s campus is so known for its activism. And so in my time of being a reporter, of being an editor, I’ve overseen several protests. And I’ve never seen Columbia penalize a group for, quote, unquote, not authorizing a protest. So that was certainly, in our minds, unprecedented.

And I believe part of the justification there was, well, this is a different time. And I think that is a reasonable thing to say. But I think a lot of students, they felt it was particularly one-sided, that it was targeting a specific type of speech or a specific type of viewpoint. Although, the University, of course, in its explicit policies, did not outline, and was actually very explicit about not targeting specific viewpoints —

So just to be super clear, it felt to students — and it sounds like, journalistically, it felt to you — that the University was coming down in a uniquely one-sided way against students who were supporting Palestinian rights and may have expressed some frustrations with Israel in that moment.

Yes. Certainly —

Isabella says that this was just the beginning of a really tense period between student protesters and the University. After those two student groups were suspended, campus protests continued. Students made a variety of demands. They asked that the University divest from businesses that profit from Israel’s military operations in Gaza. But instead of making any progress, the protests are met with further crackdown by the University.

And so as Isabella and her colleagues at the college newspaper see it, there’s this overall chilling effect that occurs. Some students become fearful that if they participate in any demonstrations, they’re going to face disciplinary action. So fast forward now to April, when these student protesters learned that President Shafik is headed to Washington for her congressional testimony. It’s at this moment that they set out to build their encampment.

I think there was obviously a lot of intention in timing those two things. I think it’s inherently a critique on a political pressure and this congressional pressure that we saw build up against, of course, Claudine Gay at Harvard and Magill at UPenn. So I think a lot of students and faculty have been frustrated at this idea that there are not only powers at the University that are dictating what’s happening, but there are perhaps external powers that are also guiding the way here in terms of what the University feels like it must do or has to do.

And I think that timing was super crucial. Having the encampment happen on the Wednesday morning of the hearing was an incredible, in some senses, interesting strategy to direct eyes to different places.

All eyes were going to be on Shafik in DC. But now a lot of eyes are on New York. The encampment is set up in the middle of the night slash morning, prior to the hearing. And so what effectively happens is they caught Shafik when she wasn’t on campus, when a lot of senior administration had their resources dedicated to supporting Shafik in DC.

And you have all of those people not necessarily out of commission, but with their focus elsewhere. So the encampment is met with very little resistance at the beginning. There were public safety officers floating around and watching. But at the very beginning hours, I think there was a sense of, we did it.

[CHANTING]: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest. Disclose! Divest! We will not stop!

It would be quite surprising to anybody and an administrator to now suddenly see dozens of tents on this lawn in a way that I think very purposely puts an imagery of, we’re here to stay. As the morning evolved and congressional hearings continued —

Minouche Shafik, open your eyes! Use of force, genocide!

Then we started seeing University delegates that were coming to the encampment saying, you may face disciplinary action for continuing to be here. I think that started around almost — like 9:00 or 10:00 AM, they started handing out these code of conduct violation notices.

Hell no! Hell no! Hell no!

Then there started to be more public safety action and presence. So they started barricading the entrances. The day progressed, there was more threat of discipline. The students became informed that if they continue to stay, they will face potential academic sanctions, potential suspension.

The more they try to silence us, the louder we will be! The more they —

I think a lot of people were like, OK, you’re threatening us with suspension. But so what?

This is about these systems that Minouche Shafik, that the Board of Trustees, that Columbia University is complicit in.

What are you going to do to try to get us out of here? And that was, obviously, promptly answered.

This is the New York State Police Department.

We will not stop!

You are attempting participate in an unauthorized encampment. You will be arrested and charged with trespassing.

My phone blew up, obviously, from the reporters, from the editors, of saying, oh my god, the NYPD is on our campus. And as soon as I saw that, I came out. And I saw a huge crowd of students and affiliates on campus watching the lawns. And as I circled around that crowd, I saw the last end of the New York Police Department pulling away protesters and clearing out the last of the encampment.

[CHANTING]: We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you!

It was something truly unimaginable, over 100 students slash other individuals are arrested from our campus, forcefully removed. And although they were suspended, there was a feeling of traumatic event that has just happened to these students, but also this sense of like, OK, the worst of the worst that could have happened to us just happened.

And for those students who maybe couldn’t go back to — into campus, now all of their peers, who were supporters or are in solidarity, are — in some sense, it’s further emboldened. They’re now not just sitting on the lawns for a pro-Palestinian cause, but also for the students, who have endured quite a lot.

So the crackdown, sought by the president and enforced by the NYPD, ends up, you’re saying, becoming a galvanizing force for a broader group of Columbia students than were originally drawn to the idea of ever showing up on the center of campus and protesting?

Yeah, I can certainly speak to the fact that I’ve seen my own peers, friends, or even acquaintances, who weren’t necessarily previously very involved in activism and organizing efforts, suddenly finding themselves involved.

Can I — I just have a question for you, which is all journalism, student journalism or not student journalism, is a first draft of history. And I wonder if we think of this as a historic moment for Columbia, how you imagine it’s going to be remembered.

Yeah, there is no doubt in my mind that this will be a historic moment for Colombia.

I think that this will be remembered as a moment in which the fractures were laid bare. Really, we got to see some of the disunity of the community in ways that I have never really seen it before. And what we’ll be looking to is, where do we go from here? How does Colombia repair? How do we heal from all of this? so That is the big question in terms of what will happen.

Nick, Isabella Ramírez just walked us through what this has all looked like from the perspective of a Columbia student. And from what she could tell, the crackdown ordered by President Shafik did not quell much of anything. It seemed, instead, to really intensify everything on campus. I’m curious what this has looked like for Shafik.

It’s not just the students who are upset. You have faculty, including professors, who are not necessarily sympathetic to the protesters’ view of the war, who are really outraged about what Shafik has done here. They feel that she’s crossed a boundary that hasn’t been crossed on Columbia’s campus in a really long time.

And so you start to hear things by the end of last week like censure, no confidence votes, questions from her own professors about whether or not she can stay in power. So this creates a whole new front for her. And on top of it all, as this is going on, the encampment itself starts to reform tent-by-tent —

— almost in the same place that it was. And Shafik decides that the most important thing she could do is to try and take the temperature down, which means letting the encampment stand. Or in other words, leaning in the other direction. This time, we’re going to let the protesters have their say for a little while longer.

The problem with that is that, over the weekend, a series of images start to emerge from on campus and just off of it of some really troubling anti-Semitic episodes. In one case, a guy holds up a poster in the middle of campus and points it towards a group of Jewish students who are counter protesting. And it says, I’m paraphrasing here, Hamas’ next targets.

I saw an image of that. What it seemed to evoke was the message that Hamas should murder those Jewish students. That’s the way the Jewish students interpreted it.

It’s a pretty straightforward and jarring statement. At the same time, just outside of Columbia’s closed gates —

Stop killing children!

— protestors are showing up from across New York City. It’s hard to tell who’s affiliated with Columbia, who’s not.

Go back to Poland! Go back to Poland!

There’s a video that goes viral of one of them shouting at Jewish students, go back to Poland, go back to Europe.

In other words, a clear message, you’re not welcome here.

Right. In fact, go back to the places where the Holocaust was committed.

Exactly. And this is not representative of the vast majority of the protesters in the encampment, who mostly had been peaceful. They would later hold a Seder, actually, with some of the pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters in their ranks. But those videos are reaching members of Congress, the very same Republicans that Shafik had testified in front of just a few days before. And now they’re looking and saying, you have lost control of your campus, you’ve turned back on your word to us, and you need to resign.

They call for her outright resignation over this.

That’s right. Republicans in New York and across the country began to call for her to step down from her position as president of Columbia.

So Shafik’s dilemma here is pretty extraordinary. She has set up this dynamic where pleasing these members of Congress would probably mean calling in the NYPD all over again to sweep out this encampment, which would mean further alienating and inflaming students and faculty, who are still very upset over the first crackdown. And now both ends of this spectrum, lawmakers in Washington, folks on the Columbia campus, are saying she can’t lead the University over this situation before she’s even made any fateful decision about what to do with this second encampment. Not a good situation.

No. She’s besieged on all sides. For a while, the only thing that she can come up with to offer is for classes to go hybrid for the remainder of the semester.

So students who aren’t feeling safe in this protest environment don’t necessarily have to go to class.

Right. And I think if we zoom out for a second, it’s worth bearing in mind that she tried to choose a different path here than her counterparts at Harvard or Penn. And after all of this, she’s kind of ended up in the exact same thicket, with people calling for her job with the White House, the Mayor of New York City, and others. These are Democrats. Maybe not calling on her to resign quite yet, but saying, I don’t know what’s going on your campus. This does not look good.

That reality, that taking a different tack that was supposed to be full of learnings and lessons from the stumbles of her peers, the fact that didn’t really work suggests that there’s something really intractable going on here. And I wonder how you’re thinking about this intractable situation that’s now arrived on these college campuses.

Well, I don’t think it’s just limited to college campuses. We have seen intense feelings about this conflict play out in Hollywood. We’ve seen them in our politics in all kinds of interesting ways.

In our media.

We’ve seen it in the media. But college campuses, at least in their most idealized form, are something special. They’re a place where students get to go for four years to think in big ways about moral questions, and political questions, and ideas that help shape the world they’re going to spend the rest of their lives in.

And so when you have a question that feels as urgent as this war does for a lot of people, I think it reverberates in an incredibly intense way on those campuses. And there’s something like — I don’t know if it’s quite a contradiction of terms, but there’s a collision of different values at stake. So universities thrive on the ability of students to follow their minds and their voices where they go, to maybe even experiment a little bit and find those things.

But there are also communities that rely on people being able to trust each other and being able to carry out their classes and their academic endeavors as a collective so they can learn from one another. So in this case, that’s all getting scrambled. Students who feel strongly about the Palestinian cause feel like the point is disruption, that something so big, and immediate, and urgent is happening that they need to get in the faces of their professors, and their administrators, and their fellow students.

Right. And set up an encampment in the middle of campus, no matter what the rules say.

Right. And from the administration’s perspective, they say, well, yeah, you can say that and you can think that. And that’s an important process. But maybe there’s some bad apples in your ranks. Or though you may have good intentions, you’re saying things that you don’t realize the implications of. And they’re making this environment unsafe for others. Or they’re grinding our classes to a halt and we’re not able to function as a University.

So the only way we’re going to be able to move forward is if you will respect our rules and we’ll respect your point of view. The problem is that’s just not happening. Something is not connecting with those two points of view. And as if that’s not hard enough, you then have Congress and the political system with its own agenda coming in and putting its thumb on a scale of an already very difficult situation.

Right. And at this very moment, what we know is that the forces that you just outlined have created a dilemma, an uncertainty of how to proceed, not just for President Shafik and the students and faculty at Columbia, but for a growing number of colleges and universities across the country. And by that, I mean, this thing that seemed to start at Columbia is literally spreading.

Absolutely. We’re talking on a Wednesday afternoon. And these encampments have now started cropping up at universities from coast-to-coast, at Harvard and Yale, but also at University of California, at the University of Texas, at smaller campuses in between. And at each of these institutions, there’s presidents and deans, just like President Shafik at Columbia, who are facing a really difficult set of choices. Do they call in the police? The University of Texas in Austin this afternoon, we saw protesters physically clashing with police.

Do they hold back, like at Harvard, where there were dramatic videos of students literally running into Harvard yard with tents. They were popping up in real-time. And so Columbia, really, I think, at the end of the day, may have kicked off some of this. But they are now in league with a whole bunch of other universities that are struggling with the same set of questions. And it’s a set of questions that they’ve had since this war broke out.

And now these schools only have a week or two left of classes. But we don’t know when these standoffs are going to end. We don’t know if students are going to leave campus for the summer. We don’t know if they’re going to come back in the fall and start protesting right away, or if this year is going to turn out to have been an aberration that was a response to a really awful, bloody war, or if we’re at the beginning of a bigger shift on college campuses that will long outlast this war in the Middle East.

Well, Nick, thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Michael.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. The United Nations is calling for an independent investigation into two mass graves found after Israeli forces withdrew from hospitals in Gaza. Officials in Gaza said that some of the bodies found in the graves were Palestinians who had been handcuffed or shot in the head and accused Israel of killing and burying them. In response, Israel said that its soldiers had exhumed bodies in one of the graves as part of an effort to locate Israeli hostages.

And on Wednesday, Hamas released a video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American dual citizen, whom Hamas has held hostage since October 7. It was the first time that he has been shown alive since his captivity began. His kidnapping was the subject of a “Daily” episode in October that featured his mother, Rachel. In response to Hamas’s video, Rachel issued a video of her own, in which she spoke directly to her son.

And, Hersh, if you can hear this, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days. And if you can hear us, I am telling you, we are telling you, we love you. Stay strong. Survive.

Today’s episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Olivia Natt, Nina Feldman, and Summer Thomad, with help from Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Devon Taylor and Lisa Chow, contains research help by Susan Lee, original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Nicholas Fandos

Produced by Sydney Harper ,  Asthaa Chaturvedi ,  Olivia Natt ,  Nina Feldman and Summer Thomad

With Michael Simon Johnson

Edited by Devon Taylor and Lisa Chow

Original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell

Engineered by Chris Wood

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Columbia University has become the epicenter of a growing showdown between student protesters, college administrators and Congress over the war in Gaza and the limits of free speech.

Nicholas Fandos, who covers New York politics and government for The Times, walks us through the intense week at the university. And Isabella Ramírez, the editor in chief of Columbia’s undergraduate newspaper, explains what it has all looked like to a student on campus.

On today’s episode

Nicholas Fandos , who covers New York politics and government for The New York Times

Isabella Ramírez , editor in chief of The Columbia Daily Spectator

Background reading

Inside the week that shook Columbia University .

The protests at the university continued after more than 100 arrests.

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We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Research help by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government. More about Nicholas Fandos

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