Your Home Business Plan

A Focused Format for Work From Home Businesses

You can find lots of different business plan samples, templates and examples on the net. At Home Business and Entrepreneur Tools, our approach to business planning for work from home businesses is focused and pragmatic.

No template, no formula plans. Just an explanation of what you need to succeed. After all, you're starting a work from home business, not a multi-million dollar DotCom startup.

A Business plan is an essential first step when you start up a small business. (click here, read #3)

Your business doesn't exist in a vaccuum. It operates within a larger environment of trends, competition and market conditions. Research gives you invaluable insight into that world. It helps identify, and narrow target margets, define the target's demographic and psychographic characteristics and helps you identify niche opportunities. Your business plan will help verify your pricing model, predict returns, assist in the management of your cash flow and create a framework for daily operations. In short, if it is important to your business, its in your business plan.

There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about what a business plan actually does. A business plan is a map that leads from business idea to business success. It does not guarantee you start up funds, or a business loan at your bank. It will not automatically make you successful - though not having a business plan will increase you likelihood of failure. Paying someone to write a business plan for you, or filling in the blanks on an online template is about as good as having no business plan at all, because the value to you as a home business owner is in what you learn as you create it - not in the finished document.

Business Plan Format

There are many different business plan formats that are acceptable. The decision about which format is right for you depends on the type, and size of your business venture. The mini-format presented here is designed to meet the needs of work from home businesses, including home based internet businesses.

Most work from home businesses have modest start up funding needs. In fact, low financial risk and low start up cost are two of the big reasons people choose work from home businesses in the first place. If you need less than $25,000 dollars in start up capital, your capital needs are modest and your bank will likely be relying primarily on your personal credit and personal assets, such as your home or stock investments, in making its lending decision. If you have good credit you may even be able to obtain an unsecured line of credit in amounts of that size. Your business plan is still a vital tool in your home business toolbox, but is unlikely to have a large impact on your bank's decision.

You are busy and your time is valuable. If you aren't going to present your business plan to your bank, to venture capitalists, or use it to to entice investors into your business, you can leave a few standard sections out. For instance, you won't need an executive summary - that's primarily a sales tool. You won't need to list key personnel - you, or maybe you and a relative, are likely the whole company.

So, what do you need? This is your business plan. You need the parts of the business plan that inform you, and help you make decisions, rather than those that inform and persuade others, and here they are:

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