Hey, it is me building the startup, it is me funding the startup, it is me functioning the startup, it is me cultivating the idea. Yes, of course if it fails it is not just you getting impacted 🙂 Dear entrepreneur, it does not mean a business plan ensures your success for 100%. But it always make sure to show the old version of you to get upgraded to the next version. If there is no base version, no point in discussing about next version.

A document with right data is an evidence, asset, certificate, and a plan. Eventually, building a plan is an asset. Startup stays with lot of uncertainty. Certainly, the uncertainty has to be minimized. What to minimize? Where to minimize? Building a business plan is one of the parameters to consider.

Build the bible which has to be upgraded based on need of the business. It should make you remember the things your forget, it should alert you about the risk, it should remind you where to spend, where not to spend, how to spend and how much to spend. It should keep motivating by letting you know the reasons for building, it should visualize your future by remembering the projections, it should keep you satisfied because of the problem being solved. So, why to delay? Let us build the business plan 🙂

The problem which is being solved

First thing is first, curate the problem which is being solved because problem solving is product building. Start it up by aiming to solve a problem, it ensures guaranteed set of customers. The idea may not solve a problem but solving a problem is certainly a great idea. Often, solving a problem could be the unique selling proportion either. So, specify the problem clearly in such a way to keep you remember and present it to stakeholders.

Target audience which are getting impacted

Shopping without aim is as same as without identifying and understanding the target audience for a startup. In aimless shopping, we may come out with empty hands or with the items which are not necessary. Building a product without knowing the target audience also generates a needless product or useless product. So, never miss to know for whom the product is being built.

Market research and the outcome

What is market research? Apparently, what is market? Is it a store? Is it a bazaar? No, it is the pool of target audience. Yes, you are right, market research is researching the target audience. For instance, how much research you do to buy a car? How much research you do to buy a home? How much research you do to invest in stock market? Indeed, it is abundant with lot of care. When you are doing this much research do buy products for yourself, how much research need to be done to make others to buy your product. Understanding customer behavior to be considered, to be well curated, to be referred, and to be verified all the time. That is why market research is important in any business plan

Why to do market research for a product

Building a core team

Building a core team is another important task for a startup. I would suggest finding the team who has a different skill set than an entrepreneur which helps to move the startup to next level. Here is the stuff to refer how to build a core team.

7 Steps to build right core team for your startup

Developing a product plan

Why to develop a product plan? When we consider the business plan as the bible, product plan will be on of the core chapters of it. What should it contain? Requirements, technology to be used, architecture to structure the requirements. How to build a complete product plan? Here is the reference

How to build a product plan

Creating a budget plan

Eventually, budget itself is a plan with credit and debit, majority of the startup are would not have credits. I would say it is a spending plan until the revenue is being generated. Where to spend? Where not to spend? How much to spend? How to secure money until the spending plan turns into budget plan.

Pricing

Pricing should be competitive, profitable, strategic for a business. It should be competitive and value add for the customer. The pricing determined based on three major factors.

1. Volume based pricing.
2. Value based pricing.
3. Expenses + % of profitability.

So, pricing is another major factor to decide the existence and performance of a product.

Is my product values for 100 bucks? Will produce a quality product but, is my product getting 100 bucks for me? Will produce a product which ignores the quality and fails to fulfill the customer need.

Narasimha Mohan

Projections

Projections determine based on 2 factors 1. Pricing 2. Duration we are calculating. Since the pricing is ready just extrapolate to derive the numbers.

Building a market pitch

Here is the reference to build a market pitch

How to build an effective marketing pitch

Risk and mitigation Plan

Nothing is permanent, nothing is risk free. Essentially, risks are two types 1. An action which triggers a risk 2. Inbuilt risk. What is the difference? For instance, Picking up a wrong problem to solve is an inbuilt risk, spending money at wrong place in marketing is the risk which has been triggered by another action. Let us take a life cycle of a startup

Ideation–>Finetuning–> Market research–>Product Plan–> Development–>Marketing–>Growth.

Imagine the chances of risks getting injected in each stage of the cycle. Well, after knowing this, how can we crossed our figures without preparing the mitigation? And the relation between risk and mitigation should be moon and sun. When sun raises moon disappears, by the time moon enters sunset happens. That means the mitigation should be strong enough to disappear the risk. So, a plan which can not be ignored is Risk and mitigation plan.

Well, dear entrepreneur, your bible is ready, start hunting for a problem to solve 🙂