Planning while starting a venture is critical, and writing a business plan ensures your vision doesn’t end up where you weren’t intending. But it can be challenging when crafting such a proposal as you’re still determining what information to include and how much to compress while still communicating your intentions.
A one-page business plan aims to outline specifics and concisely describes your enterprise idea along with realistic marketing plans, financial projections, and operation information. It’s a document that fits into a single page and requires significant strategizing, modeling, and research for its effectiveness.
You can avoid a lengthy and complex corporate proposal when you know how to write a one-page business plan. Incidentally, although it’s a summary of the full-length document, your single-page plan will require extra distillation efforts.
Key Takeaways
- You can summarize and compress information in a traditional corporate proposal into a one-page business plan
- A one page business plan should follow the format of a traditional full-length document but can forego some sections with options available to request further information
- One page business plans use the brief, concise and precise language of an executive summary
What Are the Benefits of Using a One-Page Business Plan?
A one-page business plan takes the information that would go into a full-length document and only extracts the fundamental aspects. You must consider the type of enterprise you operate or are in the planning process to determine the critical elements for your single-page plan.
One of the benefits of writing a one-page business plan is that it provides the clearest picture of your venture and communicates a streamlined message. As opposed to lengthy explanations, clarity, and conciseness are critical whether you pitch to investors or plan your advertising campaigns.
A one-page business plan pushes you to prioritize crucial ideas and focus on what benefits your plan’s intention, whether it’s partner, funding, or talent seeking. It’s a less intimidating document that your audience can scan and grasp your enterprise’s core concepts to accelerate venture establishment.
While creating a single-page business plan takes longer than a lengthy, fully-fledged document, you can do it quickly. You won’t get caught up in developing long explanations of your solution, but instead, you’ll remain fluid through your plan’s various sections.
What Should You Include In a One-Page Business Plan?
Besides being short, precise, and concise, a one-page business plan is similar to a long full-explanatory document. As a one-pager, your proposal must target the problem step-by-step and offer a viable solution while delivering pricing and timing information.
After your value proposition, the one-page business plan combats your venture model to explain how you’ll make money. That includes your venture’s production costs, selling points, and final pricing for your offering while defining your target market and consumer audience.
You’ll also tackle your enterprise’s competitive advantage in a one-page business plan which explains the customer loyalty, profitability, and greater success you’re projecting. One area that supports these assumptions is the structure of your venture, including organizational and management roles.
Lastly, your one-page business plan explores critical financial metrics, including cash flow, sales forecasts, balance sheets, and profit and loss. While this isn’t a section that’s easily condensed, focus and visualization will help get your standard venture ratio message across.
Depending on the audience your one-page business plan is targeting, you’ll include a funding request with a total figure if you’re seeking investor financing. For other readers, you can leave options on the document to request further or broader information, especially for sections dealing with financing.
How Do You Write a One-Page Business Plan?
Investors, lenders, and venture capitalists only have a little time to read through full-length, exploratory business plans, and a one-pager gets your idea message succinctly. A document that fits on one page is similar to the executive summary section of a traditional corporate proposal, which you should trim to the absolute minimum.
You can retain the position of each of the traditional business plan elements in a one-page document as long as you shave down on wording, phrases, and sentences. To write a business plan on a single page while getting your idea messaging across;
Researching Your Industry and Market
A firm understanding of your venture’s industry is necessary to describe better the market you’re in and the competitive landscape of that segment. That’s because you’ll compress this information into a one-page business plan, indicating direct competitors, their market share, and consumer trends in that environment.
Research into your idea is crucial, especially for a startup, including resources such as equipment, materials, or market standards. Your venture’s competitive edge is determined by your meeting these requirements, and such analysis ensures your one-page business plan is accurate and realistic.
Outlining Your Ideas
Plotting the most crucial elements as an outline lets you consider the space needed for each one-page business plan element. Lay out a basic format that ensures all the information fits on a single page so you can plan your topics and statements accordingly.
Utilizing Concise Statements
Space-saving formatting techniques and concise language are the only way to fit all your venture’s vital information into a one-page business plan. Unnecessary words will make your proposal document more engaging and easy to read for your audience, while bullet points, graphics, and columns save more space.
Focusing on Content
The most useful information on your one-page business plan is that which lets your audience understand or grasp your vision. It’s the content you must focus on for accuracy, conciseness, and persuasiveness, along with professional formatting.
Returning to the Living Document
You can always go back to your one-page business plan and update it according to your venture’s financial situation, model changes, and market conditions. As your venture grows and realities alter your initial vision, you’ll adapt your document to reflect adaptations on your enterprise’s goals or objectives.
Conclusion
One-page business plans aren’t meant to be imperfect but as living documents that you’ll revisit, adapt to specific scenarios, and easily update. It’s a proposal that encourages critical thinking and brief descriptions, only saying what needs to be said about your venture.
It’s helpful to narrow down your business idea into one page as you’re encouraged to stick to your core message. That’s because it provides your reader with only the essential information they need to know about your venture, whether new or existing. You can also share this document easily, whether as a printout or an attachment to an email, which means a wider audience for your entrepreneurial intentions.