Business start up planner
Our business start-up planner is a great tool if you’re serious about starting a business or enterprise. It builds upon the steps you may have worked through in the Enterprise idea planner.
The 9 boxes within the PDF are the common components found on business plans across most industries, and are based on other models, such as the Lean Canvas by Ash Maurya. Follow the steps below in order to help make your idea a success. This is a tried-and-tested route to ensure that you follow the right idea.
Log in to download an editable blank version of the planner to fill in as you work through the steps below, or start by viewing the example version for more guidance. Take a look at our Starting a Business handbook, which supports you through the practical steps of starting a business and helps you link what you enjoy doing to a business idea.
Problem:
This step is about finding an idea that you can launch as a business. All good products solve a real problem and improve upon any existing solutions available. Carefully identifying the things your product will achieve can determine the course of your business.
Existing alternatives:
Are the ways in which your customers are currently solving the problems you have listed.
Customer Segments:
Once you’ve identified your problem, the next step is to start looking at your target audience. A customer segment refers to a group of your audience or customers that you want to target with your product or service. Make a list of all possible customer types, then rank them in order of who you think will be most important to your idea. For the canvas, pick the most important group and use that segment as your reference while you fill out the other sections.
Early adopters:
Early adopters are your ideal customers. These are the people who have the greatest need for your product and are the most likely to be the first to use it.
Learn more:
Unique Value Proposition:
As part of your business plan you need to decide on your UVP; this will form the basis for your marketing and any pitching you do. This is the statement or promise that you make to your customer that makes them want to use your product over others. This is going to be your outgoing message to your early adopters. Make sure what you’re offering is clear, and how it benefits them as customers.
High-level concept:
High-level concepts support UVPs by using an analogy to help customers quickly understand your project. For example, WhatsApp = iMessage across all phones.
Revenue Streams:
This step is about how you will fund your business to begin with, and how you will manage your finances once you are up and running. Your revenue streams are the ways in which you generate income. If you can’t generate income, you don’t have a business. When determining your revenue stream, look at how much your customers are currently spending on alternative solutions. This can be used as an anchor for your price model. Extra value can also be added for any reduction in time spent completing an activity that your product can provide.
Solution:
Your business idea needs to include solutions to the initial problems you identified. For your solution to work, it needs to address and fix those problems.
Unfair Advantage:
An unfair advantage can help you succeed, as it is ‘something that cannot be easily copied or bought.’ Things like great design, new features, or passion aren’t unfair advantages, but insider information, existing customers, or having a unique team are. This should form part of your research and risk assessment.
Channels:
The channel through which you speak about your product is your marketing path to getting customers. This could be an advert posted on the side of a van or on social media. This is also sometimes referred to as the ‘medium’. Advertising in the places your target market spends their time, means communications will be seen by more people who are important to the success of your product.
Learn more:
Success Metrics:
Success metrics, as part of business planning/finances, are the numbers you need to track to be able to measure the progress of your business. Focus on your minimum success criteria for now—the smallest outcome that will deem your project a success in 1, 2 or 3 years from now.
Cost Structure:
Again, under business planning and finance, a cost structure is an estimate of all outgoing costs, whether they are fixed or variable. Without this, you can’t effectively manage your cash flow or calculate your break-even point.
Break-even point = Total fixed costs / (sales revenue per unit – variable costs per unit)
If you are ready to take your business idea further check out Barclays Eagle Labs Academy, funded by the UK Government, designed to support startups and scaleups. The Academy supports you to build skills and knowledge around entrepreneurship and investment-readiness. It doesn’t matter if you’re at the beginning of your journey starting a business, or are already trading and wanting to expand. The content is designed to support all founders and is free and flexible, so you can learn at a pace which suits you.
