- Professional Growth
- Beginner
About this Course
One of the most common questions asked when starting a business is how to write a business plan. Business plans are used for many different purposes, from planning out your initial venture, to fundraising and conducting feasibility studies. In this course, we will cover what a business plan is, why we need it, the basic structure of a business plan and some of the various formats.
What you'll learn
- What is a business plan
- Why do we need business plans
- Basic structure of a business plan
- Different formats of a business plan
Business Plan Basics
Writing a business plan will help you understand all the different components of your idea or venture and can be of great benefit. Rather than starting off by writing a plan, we're going to explore our business model by breaking it down into different stages. When we have all the relevant information we can put together as many business plans as we need.
10 steps-
What Is a Business Plan?
3:42
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Business Model Basics & Customer Segments
4:03
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Business Model Basics & Customer Segments
6 questions
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Value Proposition & Channels
2:00
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Customer Relationships and Key Resources
1:51
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From Value Proposition to Key Resources
5 questions
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Key Activities and Partners
3:29
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Revenue Streams and Costs
4:40
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Types of Business Plans
5:46
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Business Plans
5 questions
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Extra Credit
We went over the basics of writing a business plan but if you don't have an existing business it can be hard to implement these steps. If you're interested in putting the concepts we just learned into practice, you can experiment with an existing industry.
In the book, Business Model Generation, the authors walk us through an exercise, mapping Apple's iPod business on to the Business Model Canvas. Similarly, you can pick an industry that excites you, or one that you would like to break into, and pick a company to model. Walk through each section of the canvas and try and figure out what gives this company a competitive advantage.
It is an excellent exercise and you will be surprised at how some companies operate and succeed in such a crowded market.
Business Plans for a Freelance Business
Building upon what we learned in the previous stage, we’re going to breakdown a hypothetical freelance business using the business model canvas. We will then use the information we derive to put together planning documents for our business.
6 stepsTeacher
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Pasan Premaratne
Pasan spends most of his time learning and the rest trying to figure out how to pass that knowledge on to others. It's a hard job but he loves it all the same. You can find him everywhere as @pasanpr