What are the salient items of a business plan for a start up?

[Alexandoy]

When my niece was about to open a water station near their home she asked me for pointers. I mentioned the business plan and wrote the important points to ponder on before opening up.
1) The capital is the amount computed to handle the expenses for the first 3 to 6 months of operation (with no profit). Add 50% to that estimated amount.
2) A thorough research on the market base to determine the level of demand. It can be a form of survey or simply marketing to potential customers.
3) The continuity and stability of the supply. The volatility of prices should always be considered.
4) The location should provide convenience to customers like the parking area or the controlled temperature inside the office or store.
5) For the delivery there should be a stable delivery system that is not costly.

I have outlined the major needs in the business plan. There are others but they are minor items.

 

[sincerem]

It's nice to always conduct a survey to determine the location, the kind of customers in that location. If they are ideal for patronizing the business or not. The Calibre of people in such locality determines if your products will record high sales or not. Dealing with poor people in a particular low population location slow down business sales.

 

[132116]

Silent item of business plans are you should have encouraging and a thinking of business with you.

 

[Mataracy]

I really like the way you have itemized it. Whenever one want to start a business its very good to make good findings about where to put one shop or office so as to increase the returns.
Some time the surroundings is very important ; that is,knowing the need of the environment so that one can provide it.

 

[Mika]

Point number 1 is very important. You need to have enough funds to run the business for 3-6 months even if your business is not even earning a penny. When I invested in my business, I had enough reserve funds to run for 3 month even when business was not earning. Thankfully, I did not have to use reserve funds.

 

[Dest01]

make sure to have enough money to run the business at the first couple of months even if u arent gaining a single dollar from it at all.

 

[Jasmine]

Your business plan should be focused on two things, one building your brand, two generating sales. You need to build your brand to build customer base. You will have to advertise and market to generate sales. Generating sales is very important because without sales your business does not last long.

 

[Sotherefore]

Location is very important and that is what really determines the success of most business because if the location is really good then the possibility of you earning will also be very good , that is why everyone are always interested to migrate from the rural settlements to the Urban settlement because that is where they can be able to get the needle population of people that will help them succeed in whatever area of business they have chosen to do.

Capital is very important also just like you said and if I need to start up a business my capital should be able to cover me to a certain period of time like you said without expecting profit.

But the point is that most people will be expecting profit mostly at the first month of the business and in this case they won't really consider customer satisfaction as the most important priority which might really not help in the growth of their business organisation.

At least business that are just coming up should not really be interested in the profit at first to a certain period of time to help them gain the trust of people because that is very important.