Structure of a Business Plan

(Adapted from Douglas (2006) and http://www.myownbusiness.org/s2/ and http://www.business.vic.gov.au/BUSVIC/STANDARD/PC_62526.html)

As a general rule your business plan should be limited to 25 pages of text, plus a further 15 pages of appendices (maximum) that include the managers’ resumes and other documentation supporting the claims made in the business plan. This is consistent with most investors’ preferences and the rules of major business plan competitions, one of which JCU might sponsor you into if your plan wins through to that point.

Of great importance is the fact that setting such a limit will force you to express your ideas more succinctly, and to decide what is really important to say in the business plan, and what can wait until questions are asked at some later time. Understand that the reader’s patience is limited as is their time, particularly if he/she is a venture capitalist who sees dozens of business plans every week. So do yourself a favour – keep it short and focused.

A suggested ‘Page Budget’ for your Business Plan

With a limit of 25 pages, it is important to do a ‘page budget’ before you start, allocating a certain number of pages to each section.

How you do this will vary depending on your own business plan and its unique characteristics, but the following guide should be used as a starting point from which you can deviate if you think your plan needs more or less space devoted to a particular issue. The items listed under ‘content’ in Table 1 represent the major components of most plans, although the content and structure of the business plan will differ from business to business.
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Posted on May 14, 2016Author TutorCategories Question, Questions