BUSINESS PLAN

Accelerate your business with these expert tips on the "Business Plan". Analyse and discover this TIP!

Here is one comprehensive and extensive guidance to help entrepreneurs in the accelerator programme to develop their business plan and share it with peers, mentors and experts to receive feedback and improve it.

Understanding the importance of the business plan

The business plan is a crucial document for any venture, expansion or internationalisation as it is a tool that helps entrepreneurs structure their business idea, set financial objectives, and develop detailed strategies to achieve those objectives.

In an acceleration programme such as mentorDay, it is vital that entrepreneurs understand the importance of the business plan and how it can help them achieve business success.

Breakdown of the business plan

The business plan is composed of several sections, each of which focuses on a specific aspect of the business. To help entrepreneurs to break down the business plan, the accelerator programme has created deliverables (see+) The deliverables are worked on during the programme, and each is a part of the overall business plan. The deliverables are worked on during the programme, and each of them is a part of the overall business plan.

How to elaborate deliverables?

It is difficult to make a complete business plan from scratch, so the mentorDay programme builds the plan bit by bit, working on each deliverable and creating a two-slide summary for each deliverable, and then bringing them into a PowerPoint presentation that allows you to see the coherence of all the parts together.

WHO DRAWS UP THE BUSINESS PLAN?

The business plan is a document that the entrepreneur writes for him/herself and shares it with the rest of the promotion team (+), after having validated the business model (+). Write a business plan (+) without Having tested clients is like writing a fictional novel and serves no purpose (except as an academic or literary exercise). 

The promoter team cannot delegate the preparation of the business plan to third parties, because what is really interesting about the plan is the process of analysis and reflection that must be carried out to complete it. The objective of making your plan is to summarise and detail the conclusions you have reached after reflecting on all the points that need to be touched upon before launching your business. 

At mentorDay we recommend creating a "business plan" drive folder where we include the different action plans.

WHAT STRUCTURE SHOULD YOUR BUSINESS PLAN FOLLOW?

The same that we follow throughout the acceleration programme (ver+) in which we complete different sprints. We recommend this structure... during the acceleration programme you have created a shared drive folder with these same sections:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, ONE PAGE (VER+)

The first section of the business plan is the executive summary, which is a a concise description of the business, its objectives and the strategy to achieve those objectives. In the mentorDay acceleration programme, work is done on a presentation of the project that should include the most relevant aspects of the business, such as its value proposition, target market, promoter team and financing strategy.

• Presentation of the project.
• Origin and evolution of the project.
• Promotion team.

YOUR BUSINESS MODEL (CANVAS) (SEE +)

VALIDATION PLAN (VER+).

The next section of the business plan is the business model, which mentorDay works through the business canvas. In this section, entrepreneurs must describe the market opportunity and the positive validations carried out, as well as those that are pending.

• Opportunity (market adjustment)
• Positive validations carried out. Pending.

FEASIBILITY PLAN (SEE+)

The feasibility plan focuses on the economic-financial analysis of the business, including the investment plan, applicable legislation, production and human resources, the production process and suppliers.

ECONOMIC VIABILITY (SEE+).

LEGAL FEASIBILITY. LEGAL-FISCAL PLAN (VER+).

HUMAN RESOURCES (SEE+)

INNOVATION PLAN (SEE +)

SALES AND MARKETING PLAN (SEE +)

The sales and marketing plan describes how the business will reach its target market and how it will promote itself to achieve growth and profitability. In the mentorDay acceleration programme, you work on a sales and marketing plan that includes market analysis, potential customers, distribution channels, business strategy, product or service strategy, pricing strategy, communication strategy, sales and distribution strategy.

• Market. Situation and evolution of the market.
• Potential customers.
• Distribution channels.
• Business strategy.
• Product or service strategy.
• Pricing strategy.
• Communication strategy.
• Sales and distribution strategy.

FINANCIAL PLAN (VER+).

The financial plan is an important section of the business plan, as it describes how the business will be financed and how the funds will be used to achieve the set financial objectives. In the mentorDay accelerator programme, you work on a financial plan that includes income statements, cash flow, balance sheet and ratio analysis.

• Profit and loss accounts.
• Cash flow.
• Balance.
• Ratio analysis.

INVESTOR DECK (VER+).

The deck invest is a presentation that entrepreneurs can use to present their business to potential investors. In mentorDay's acceleration programme, they work on a deck invest that summarises the most relevant aspects of the business, such as its value proposition, target market, business model, feasibility plan, innovation plan, sales and marketing plan, and financial plan.

STRATEGIC PLAN (SEE +)

The strategic plan is a section of the business plan that focuses on the overall long-term strategy of the business. In the mentorDay accelerator programme, you work on a strategic plan that includes business location, competition and SWOT analysis.

• Business location.
• Competence.
• SWOT analysis.

INTERNATIONALISATION PLAN (SEE +)

The internationalisation plan is a section that describes how the business will expand its presence in other international markets. In mentorDay's acceleration programme, an internationalisation plan is worked on that includes assessing target markets, analysing the competition and identifying barriers and opportunities in each market.

We can make a plan for a going concern or for a new venture. To be fair to the detail, the most significant difference between a business plan and a company plan is the time at which each is usually made. The business plan usually refers to the moment of start-up, while the business plan, on the other hand, is usually made for a company that is already up and running.

THE PLAN IN A START-UP COMPANY CAN ALSO BE CALLED A FEASIBILITY STUDY, SITUATION DIAGNOSIS, STRATEGIC PLAN AND SERVES TO:

• Launching a new activity within an existing company.
• Viability (openness) of a division/subsidiary.
• Justify an investment, expand production.
• Apply for a grant, new credit line.

THE PLAN FOR A NEW COMPANY

• Analyse whether or not to carry it out.
• If yes, mark the way forward.

DESTINATION OF THE BUSINESS PLAN BY WHOM, AND FOR THIRD PARTIES

• For the entrepreneur BEFORE launching.
• Analyse internal coherence and feasibility.
• To help the entrepreneur to make a broad and deep reflection.
• Risks, avoiding "founder's fever" and others syndromes (see+).
• Does not see the negatives, magnifies the positives, overly optimistic.
• We tend to focus only on what we have mastered.

FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR WHO HAS ALREADY STARTED THE PLAN SERVES AS:

• A guide to not getting lost. 
• Benchmarks to see how we are doing.

FOR THIRD PARTIES:

• Obtain the necessary resources by convincing: Partners, Banks, Key employees...

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, it is important to have a good business plan that you update as you go along, both to think about everything you have not taken into account when you had the idea, and to reflect the reality and viability of your idea. You cannot launch your project without a business plan, and you cannot grow without a business plan.

A well-defined business plan will allow you to have the foundations of the project well established. The elaboration of a business plan is essential to look for funding, partners or investors; and it serves as a guide for the team promoting the company.

The business plan, or business plan, serves to analyse a business idea in detail and allows the entrepreneur to know the current situation of the market, sector and environment, establishing the goals and expectations in the short, medium and long term, and the strategies to be followed to achieve them. This document is used to present the business to investors, accelerators, etc., and to explain how the start-up and next steps would be.

SO WHY DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR BUSINESS PLAN? BECAUSE IT HAS MANY ADVANTAGES AND IT IS NECESSARY FOR:

• It will serve as a roadmap and strategic analysis.
• It gives you an insight into the sector and the competition
• It helps you to check the internal coherence of the project.
• Study the technical and economic feasibility of the project.
• It makes it easier for you to communicate your idea to potential investors, partners or customers.
• It gives you an idea of the short-term future.

PREPARATION OF THE FINAL PRESENTATION

At the end of the acceleration programme, the entrepreneurs will have a summary of the business plan in a PowerPoint presentation with 20 slides that includes all the deliverables worked on during the programme. This final presentation must be coherent and show the overall vision of the business, from its value proposition to its financial plan.

In short, the mentorDay accelerator programme provides entrepreneurs with a comprehensive and broad guide to the development of their business plan, breaking it down into specific deliverables that are worked on during the programme and brought together at the end into a coherent presentation. This helps entrepreneurs understand the importance of the business plan and how it can help them achieve business success.

The implementation plan would be the roadmap accompanying the business plan. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN (VER+). as a roadmap or guide

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAKING A GOOD PLAN:

You have to develop the plan so that it is suggestive, tempting, witty, dynamic and precise. A good Business Plan should be the roadmap on which to base our business in the coming years. Ideally, it should be between 50 and 75 pages long and can be presented in physical or digital format, depending on the occasion.

This tool is not a simple document of objectives and intentions, it is about putting down on paper the essence of the project, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and collecting the financial plan, especially in case you need funding, see the structure that we propose you

THE BUSINESS PLAN STEP BY STEP

When creating a business plan, it must be flexible, as it will be subject to change as events unfold. The idea is to create a document that projects the future of the company based on a route that you adjust at any given moment. There are detractors of business plans who say that they are outdated documents that no longer make sense because things change so fast. (see+ I recommend this post).

You can't make a business plan from scratch at home!!! The plan is made little by little as you reflect on all the points that an entrepreneur needs to go into in depth. The mentorDay acceleration programme (+) is designed so that you can gradually build up the plan, with a methodology that invites you to reflect with TIPs for a month with dailyTIPS (+), and three intensive weeks carrying out the tasks necessary to complete each part of the business plan.