new business idea assignment

Learn more about choosing the right structure for your business from the Small Business Administration.

6. Create a business bank account.

Once you have a legally formed business and have been issued an Employer Identification Number (EIN), open a bank account specifically for your business. Having a business bank account is essential for keeping your personal and business finances separate which can help you gain an accurate picture of your business’s cash flow and financial health.

Additionally, keeping your personal and business finances separate makes bookkeeping and tax preparation easier.

Many banks offer business checking and savings accounts. Business checking accounts typically do not have a limit on the number of transactions that can take place, and issue a debit card that can be used for making business purchases. However, these checking accounts do not accrue interest.

Business savings accounts typically earn interest over time but have a limited number of transactions that can occur each month. When you’re just starting out, look for a business bank account that does not have a minimum balance requirement so you are not penalized for having low funds as you work to build your business.

7. Determine if your business idea works well from home.

Ask yourself whether your business idea will work well from home. Some businesses simply aren’t suited to be based from home. If you want to run a dog boarding center but live in an apartment without a backyard, you might want to consider a dog walking business instead.

8. Set up an office.

If your business idea is well-suited for being run from home, it’s still important you have a designated workspace. While a home office might not be possible, consider setting aside a corner in your living room or putting a desk in your bedroom for a space that inspires you and creates the conditions for success.

Need a more professional space? If you conduct client-facing work requiring you to be on video calls, no one wants to see your rumpled sheets in the background. Check out local coworking spaces for memberships that earn you access to conference rooms, desk space, and more.

9. Get to work!

You’ve put in the hard work, but I’ve got bad news — it’s only going to get harder. But most entrepreneurs will agree that the payoff of being your own boss, making your own hours, and working on projects that you’re passionate about will pay dividends for the rest of your life.

What are the types of small businesses?

The types of small business structures are sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and corporations.

• Sole Proprietorship — The simplest type of business structure is a sole proprietorship, which is also the easiest to start. As a sole proprietor, you are personally responsible for the business's liabilities and profits, and you have complete control over your business. If you are a solopreneur, you are automatically considered a sole proprietor.
• Partnership — A partnership is a business model involving two or more individuals who agree to share the business‘s profits and liabilities. Each partner contributes to the business and shares the risks and rewards. It’s essential to have a partnership agreement that defines each partner's roles and responsibilities to ensure clarity and prevent potential misunderstandings.
• Limited Liability Company (LLC) — An LLC, or limited liability company, is a common option for small businesses because it protects its owners by separating personal assets from the company's liabilities. To form an LLC, the business owner must file the required paperwork with the state.
• Corporation — A corporation is an independent legal entity distinct from its owners. It provides limited liability protection to its shareholders, who are not held personally accountable for the company's debts. Corporations have formal requirements and often raise capital by issuing stocks or shares.

Which business type is best?

The best business type is a limited liability company (LLC). Operating as an LLC means that your personal assets are separate from your business assets. If your business goes bankrupt, your personal holdings won’t be affected. That said, it’s also one of the costlier types, requiring a fee paid to the state.

The easiest business type to start is a sole proprietorship. The main downside is that there’s no differentiation between you and your business.

It's crucial to seek advice from legal or accounting professionals to determine the best business structure based on your unique needs and objectives. Each structure has advantages, legal requirements, tax implications, and flexibility considerations.

How do I create a business idea?

To create a business idea, determine your skill set, work preferences, startup budget, and available resources. It’s important to strike the right balance between what you can feasibly offer and what you can feasibly afford in the short and long term.

We recommend starting with your skill set so that you can easily determine the niche in which you can effectively compete. For instance, if you have ample experience as a writer, you might consider starting a freelance writing business. But if you know you’d prefer to work with clients face-to-face, you might choose to start a ghostwriting business instead. That’s why it’s so important to take your work preferences into account, as well.

After that, take a look at your budget and determine the type of business you can start based on the resources at your disposal. For instance, you might not be able to afford a physical office or location, so a location-based business will likely not be a good fit. In that case, starting an online business is your best option.

What resources or tools can I use to refine and validate my business ideas during the brainstorming process?

Online market research tools like Google Trends, Keyword Planner, and SEMrush can provide insights into market demand, competition, and keyword trends related to your business niche. Industry reports and market analyses from reputable sources such as IBISWorld, Gartner, Statista, and industry-specific publications can offer valuable data and trends to inform your decision-making. Ensure you know the industry risk before embarking on your small business venture.

→ Download Now: Market Research Kit [Free Download]

Additionally, joining entrepreneurial communities, forums, and social media groups can provide opportunities to seek feedback, network with like-minded people, and gain insights from experienced entrepreneurs. Finally, consider conducting surveys or interviews with potential customers to gather feedback and validate your business concept before investing significant time and resources.

What are some of the most successful small businesses?

Every small business has the potential to be successful and profitable, provided it’s backed by a strong product-market fit and a robust business plan . These two elements are essential. Maybe postnatal services are one of the most successful small businesses to launch, but if you live in an area with declining population or a large elderly population, then that small business idea won’t yield a high return on investment.

Think carefully about the market where you’re launching your business, and you’ll be more than likely to see lasting success.

What are the top growing small businesses?

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Business Ideas to Become Your Own Boss

Learn about what makes a good business idea, and how to take your idea from inception to production.

Endless job applications and interview callbacks may seem like the gatekeepers of employment, but that’s not necessarily the case. Entrepreneurship is an option that many people pursue, especially in our expanding freelance and small-business economy. There are pros and cons to working for yourself, and each new venture comes with its own set of challenges. Below, we’ll explore the qualities of a good business idea , how to generate great business ideas, and the pros and cons of being your own boss.

Key elements of a good business idea

There’s no limit to what kind of business you can build for yourself. While the specifics will vary, there are a few consistent key elements to all successful businesses.

Clear demand for a product or service

Supply and demand are the building blocks of all business. Every business idea should have hard and clear evidence of demand in your market or field. You can gauge market demand in a few ways. Marketing and outreach software can get your idea in front of your desired audience , or you could get in touch with them using interest surveys or open forums. The better you know your audience, the better your likelihood of success; consider the fact that 14% of startups fail by not regarding customers’ needs.

Short and long-term goals

Having a detailed plan is crucial to making any entrepreneurial endeavor successful. Your long-term plans and your short-term plans should work together to keep you on track. Setting SMART goals in the short term will set you up for success in the long term.

Room for growth

Don’t be afraid to alter part—or all—of your idea based on new information or experience. Sometimes change is necessary. It’s important to keep up with the current market and be willing to adapt to unanticipated feedback from your customer base. Being flexible and open-minded can mean the difference between having your idea remain an idea or getting it out in the world. Remember, you can always circle back after you’ve established yourself.

The right amount of motivation

Your business idea doesn’t necessarily have to be based on doing something that you love—though that helps—but it should be based on something you’re motivated to pursue. Whether you’re working to serve a cause or community that’s important to you, honing a skill set, or helping others do the same, motivation can help keep you inspired during challenging times.

How to generate business ideas

Generating business ideas is one of the most important steps for any entrepreneur. If you don't have any good ideas, it's going to be tough to get your business off the ground.

In this blog post, we will teach you how to generate business ideas that will help you achieve success. We will also provide some tips on how to make sure your idea is a viable one.

1. Ask family and friends

The first place any entrepreneur should look when coming up with new business ideas is their own network of family and friends. After all, these are the people who know you best and will be most likely to support your new venture.

By asking those closest to you for ideas, you'll not only get some great suggestions, but you'll also get an idea of what kind of business would be a good fit for your skills.

Your friends and family will also have very different perspectives than you. They have their situations they deal with every day that you may not have thought of.

2. Consider problems in your everyday life - then solve them!

The best business ideas come from solving problems that you or others face every day. If there's something in your life that frustrates you, chances are there are plenty of other people who feel the same way.

Come up with a list of different problems you face going about your day. Once you have a list of about 10 different problems, try to brainstorm 1 to 3 different solutions that don't exist yet.

By identifying these pain points and coming up with a solution, you'll be well on your way to starting a successful business.

3. Build on your hobbies

You're not going to get many business ideas for rocket engineering if you've never even built a model rocket before.

This is why it's important to look at your hobbies and interests when trying to come up with a business idea. It's much easier (and more enjoyable) to build a business around something you're passionate about.

If you love hiking, for example, you could start a hiking gear rental company or a hiking tour company. If you're into cars, you could start a car detailing business or a classic car restoration business.

Whichever option you choose, you'll end up following the journey till its end because you care more about the outcome.

4. Consider if there are tasks you could make easier

The problem many entrepreneurs run into when thinking of a new business idea is trying to create the next biggest thing. But sometimes the best business ideas are those that solve a more mundane problem.

A great way to come up with new business ideas is to think about ways you could make existing tasks easier or more efficient.

For example, let's say you're a real estate agent. You could come up with a service that helps people find their dream home by doing all the research for them.

You could also start a business that helps people stage their homes for sale or that provides virtual tours of properties.

By thinking about ways to make everyday tasks easier, you'll be able to come up with plenty of new business ideas that have the potential to be successful without all the mental effort.

5. Build on existing products or services

If you're struggling to come up with new ideas for a business, it often helps to build on products or services that already exist. You won't have the pressure of coming up with something completely new, and you can focus on improving upon what's already out there. Research similar businesses; what are they doing well? What could you improve upon?

A great way to do this is by looking at the current services or products you're already using and asking yourself the "What if?" questions. What if this service was available in my city? What if this product was cheaper/better quality/easier to use?

How to create your business

Once you’ve got an idea and know that there’s a demand for it, you can get started on making it a reality. Below are some standard starting points in getting a business up and running.

Research the market

Whatever idea you have, your product or service will be aimed at a specific group of people and/or at meeting specific needs. It’s important to research the market you plan to serve . The results of that research will be the foundation of your customer service philosophy . Decide how you’re going to serve your customers, through what channels, and what is easiest or most accessible for your client base. Market research is also important to get an accurate read on the real problems, hardships, or difficulties your prospective customers face.

Fulfill a need

Once you’ve found your market and done some research, it’s time to identify a specific need you plan to address. For example, entrepreneur Sara Blakely , the creator of Spanx, identified a need for shapewear that was discreet and comfortable. She filled that need with Spanx. After you’ve identified the needs of your market, you can start to create something concrete that can answer those needs.

Survey your customer base

Another helpful step in the creative process is to get out and directly address your potential customer base. You can do this with an email campaign , an open forum, or an online survey . This can help you market more effectively and help grow your business by building connections and uncovering further market needs. See how Mailchimp's free online survey maker compares to the competition.

Build a budget

Make sure you consider all potential costs when creating your business budget. There are a lot of resources that can help you do things for free or at a reduced cost, like website building or product page design . But there are some things you just can’t DIY. Startup business costs can include:

• Product production/manufacturing
• Store or office rental
• Promotional materials
• Storage or production space rental
• Interior design

It can be easy to underestimate the cost of starting a business if you’ve never done it before. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the what-ifs, hire a financial adviser who can help you build and maintain a flexible budget.

Find investors if necessary

After you’ve established your budget, you can determine whether acquiring investors will be a helpful or feasible option for you. Investors can be a great resource for getting a new business financially established. However, they can also mean sacrificing some creative control. If you are going to pursue investors, you’ll want to learn how to prepare a pitch deck .

Be flexible

It’s important to remember that business ideas are rarely perfect from the get-go. Be open to adjusting your plan, budget, and ideas as needs arise. Try to avoid major last-minute changes, however, because they can have effects down the line.

Set deadlines

Deadlines can be a useful tool and can help keep your goals on track. With firm deadlines, you can help yourself maintain boundaries, recognize what is plausible and implausible for you, set detail-oriented goals, and measure your success.

Pros and cons of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship can be rewarding, creatively fulfilling, and a great alternative to a traditional 9-to-5. However, it’s not easy to start and maintain a small business.

There are some incredible benefits for starting your own business or becoming a freelancer, including:

• Being your own boss
• Finding untapped niches in a market
• Becoming an innovator
• Reaping financial payoffs
• Being creatively fulfilled

But along with the benefits, there are some drawbacks that new and seasoned small business owners alike can experience.

• Uncertainty about the future
• Financial ups and downs
• Skewed work-life balance
• Limited support and resources

Set yourself up for success with your new business idea

Generating a business idea, completing your research, and seeing it through the creation process can be a difficult but ultimately rewarding choice. If you’re motivated, organized, and goal-oriented, then running your own business might be the right career move for you. Consider tools that can help you reach your desired business heights, like Mailchimp, and put your venture on the path to success.

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11.4 The Business Plan

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the different purposes of a business plan
• Describe and develop the components of a brief business plan
• Describe and develop the components of a full business plan

Unlike the brief or lean formats introduced so far, the business plan is a formal document used for the long-range planning of a company’s operation. It typically includes background information, financial information, and a summary of the business. Investors nearly always request a formal business plan because it is an integral part of their evaluation of whether to invest in a company. Although nothing in business is permanent, a business plan typically has components that are more “set in stone” than a business model canvas , which is more commonly used as a first step in the planning process and throughout the early stages of a nascent business. A business plan is likely to describe the business and industry, market strategies, sales potential, and competitive analysis, as well as the company’s long-term goals and objectives. An in-depth formal business plan would follow at later stages after various iterations to business model canvases. The business plan usually projects financial data over a three-year period and is typically required by banks or other investors to secure funding. The business plan is a roadmap for the company to follow over multiple years.

Some entrepreneurs prefer to use the canvas process instead of the business plan, whereas others use a shorter version of the business plan, submitting it to investors after several iterations. There are also entrepreneurs who use the business plan earlier in the entrepreneurial process, either preceding or concurrently with a canvas. For instance, Chris Guillebeau has a one-page business plan template in his book The $100 Startup . 48 His version is basically an extension of a napkin sketch without the detail of a full business plan. As you progress, you can also consider a brief business plan (about two pages)—if you want to support a rapid business launch—and/or a standard business plan.

As with many aspects of entrepreneurship, there are no clear hard and fast rules to achieving entrepreneurial success. You may encounter different people who want different things (canvas, summary, full business plan), and you also have flexibility in following whatever tool works best for you. Like the canvas, the various versions of the business plan are tools that will aid you in your entrepreneurial endeavor.

Business Plan Overview

Most business plans have several distinct sections ( Figure 11.16 ). The business plan can range from a few pages to twenty-five pages or more, depending on the purpose and the intended audience. For our discussion, we’ll describe a brief business plan and a standard business plan. If you are able to successfully design a business model canvas, then you will have the structure for developing a clear business plan that you can submit for financial consideration.

Both types of business plans aim at providing a picture and roadmap to follow from conception to creation. If you opt for the brief business plan, you will focus primarily on articulating a big-picture overview of your business concept.

The full business plan is aimed at executing the vision concept, dealing with the proverbial devil in the details. Developing a full business plan will assist those of you who need a more detailed and structured roadmap, or those of you with little to no background in business. The business planning process includes the business model, a feasibility analysis, and a full business plan, which we will discuss later in this section. Next, we explore how a business plan can meet several different needs.

Purposes of a Business Plan

A business plan can serve many different purposes—some internal, others external. As we discussed previously, you can use a business plan as an internal early planning device, an extension of a napkin sketch, and as a follow-up to one of the canvas tools. A business plan can be an organizational roadmap , that is, an internal planning tool and working plan that you can apply to your business in order to reach your desired goals over the course of several years. The business plan should be written by the owners of the venture, since it forces a firsthand examination of the business operations and allows them to focus on areas that need improvement.

Refer to the business venture throughout the document. Generally speaking, a business plan should not be written in the first person.

A major external purpose for the business plan is as an investment tool that outlines financial projections, becoming a document designed to attract investors. In many instances, a business plan can complement a formal investor’s pitch. In this context, the business plan is a presentation plan, intended for an outside audience that may or may not be familiar with your industry, your business, and your competitors.

You can also use your business plan as a contingency plan by outlining some “what-if” scenarios and exploring how you might respond if these scenarios unfold. Pretty Young Professional launched in November 2010 as an online resource to guide an emerging generation of female leaders. The site focused on recent female college graduates and current students searching for professional roles and those in their first professional roles. It was founded by four friends who were coworkers at the global consultancy firm McKinsey. But after positions and equity were decided among them, fundamental differences of opinion about the direction of the business emerged between two factions, according to the cofounder and former CEO Kathryn Minshew . “I think, naively, we assumed that if we kicked the can down the road on some of those things, we’d be able to sort them out,” Minshew said. Minshew went on to found a different professional site, The Muse , and took much of the editorial team of Pretty Young Professional with her. 49 Whereas greater planning potentially could have prevented the early demise of Pretty Young Professional, a change in planning led to overnight success for Joshua Esnard and The Cut Buddy team. Esnard invented and patented the plastic hair template that he was selling online out of his Fort Lauderdale garage while working a full-time job at Broward College and running a side business. Esnard had hundreds of boxes of Cut Buddies sitting in his home when he changed his marketing plan to enlist companies specializing in making videos go viral. It worked so well that a promotional video for the product garnered 8 million views in hours. The Cut Buddy sold over 4,000 products in a few hours when Esnard only had hundreds remaining. Demand greatly exceeded his supply, so Esnard had to scramble to increase manufacturing and offered customers two-for-one deals to make up for delays. This led to selling 55,000 units, generating $700,000 in sales in 2017. 50 After appearing on Shark Tank and landing a deal with Daymond John that gave the “shark” a 20-percent equity stake in return for $300,000, The Cut Buddy has added new distribution channels to include retail sales along with online commerce. Changing one aspect of a business plan—the marketing plan—yielded success for The Cut Buddy.

Link to Learning

Watch this video of Cut Buddy’s founder, Joshua Esnard, telling his company’s story to learn more.

If you opt for the brief business plan, you will focus primarily on articulating a big-picture overview of your business concept. This version is used to interest potential investors, employees, and other stakeholders, and will include a financial summary “box,” but it must have a disclaimer, and the founder/entrepreneur may need to have the people who receive it sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) . The full business plan is aimed at executing the vision concept, providing supporting details, and would be required by financial institutions and others as they formally become stakeholders in the venture. Both are aimed at providing a picture and roadmap to go from conception to creation.

Types of Business Plans

The brief business plan is similar to an extended executive summary from the full business plan. This concise document provides a broad overview of your entrepreneurial concept, your team members, how and why you will execute on your plans, and why you are the ones to do so. You can think of a brief business plan as a scene setter or—since we began this chapter with a film reference—as a trailer to the full movie. The brief business plan is the commercial equivalent to a trailer for Field of Dreams , whereas the full plan is the full-length movie equivalent.

Brief Business Plan or Executive Summary

As the name implies, the brief business plan or executive summary summarizes key elements of the entire business plan, such as the business concept, financial features, and current business position. The executive summary version of the business plan is your opportunity to broadly articulate the overall concept and vision of the company for yourself, for prospective investors, and for current and future employees.

A typical executive summary is generally no longer than a page, but because the brief business plan is essentially an extended executive summary, the executive summary section is vital. This is the “ask” to an investor. You should begin by clearly stating what you are asking for in the summary.

In the business concept phase, you’ll describe the business, its product, and its markets. Describe the customer segment it serves and why your company will hold a competitive advantage. This section may align roughly with the customer segments and value-proposition segments of a canvas.

Next, highlight the important financial features, including sales, profits, cash flows, and return on investment. Like the financial portion of a feasibility analysis, the financial analysis component of a business plan may typically include items like a twelve-month profit and loss projection, a three- or four-year profit and loss projection, a cash-flow projection, a projected balance sheet, and a breakeven calculation. You can explore a feasibility study and financial projections in more depth in the formal business plan. Here, you want to focus on the big picture of your numbers and what they mean.

The current business position section can furnish relevant information about you and your team members and the company at large. This is your opportunity to tell the story of how you formed the company, to describe its legal status (form of operation), and to list the principal players. In one part of the extended executive summary, you can cover your reasons for starting the business: Here is an opportunity to clearly define the needs you think you can meet and perhaps get into the pains and gains of customers. You also can provide a summary of the overall strategic direction in which you intend to take the company. Describe the company’s mission, vision, goals and objectives, overall business model, and value proposition.

Rice University’s Student Business Plan Competition, one of the largest and overall best-regarded graduate school business-plan competitions (see Telling Your Entrepreneurial Story and Pitching the Idea ), requires an executive summary of up to five pages to apply. 51 , 52 Its suggested sections are shown in Table 11.2 .

Are You Ready?

Create a brief business plan.

Fill out a canvas of your choosing for a well-known startup: Uber, Netflix, Dropbox, Etsy, Airbnb, Bird/Lime, Warby Parker, or any of the companies featured throughout this chapter or one of your choice. Then create a brief business plan for that business. See if you can find a version of the company’s actual executive summary, business plan, or canvas. Compare and contrast your vision with what the company has articulated.

• These companies are well established but is there a component of what you charted that you would advise the company to change to ensure future viability?
• Map out a contingency plan for a “what-if” scenario if one key aspect of the company or the environment it operates in were drastically is altered?

Full Business Plan

Even full business plans can vary in length, scale, and scope. Rice University sets a ten-page cap on business plans submitted for the full competition. The IndUS Entrepreneurs , one of the largest global networks of entrepreneurs, also holds business plan competitions for students through its Tie Young Entrepreneurs program. In contrast, business plans submitted for that competition can usually be up to twenty-five pages. These are just two examples. Some components may differ slightly; common elements are typically found in a formal business plan outline. The next section will provide sample components of a full business plan for a fictional business.

Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide an overview of your business with key points and issues. Because the summary is intended to summarize the entire document, it is most helpful to write this section last, even though it comes first in sequence. The writing in this section should be especially concise. Readers should be able to understand your needs and capabilities at first glance. The section should tell the reader what you want and your “ask” should be explicitly stated in the summary.

Describe your business, its product or service, and the intended customers. Explain what will be sold, who it will be sold to, and what competitive advantages the business has. Table 11.3 shows a sample executive summary for the fictional company La Vida Lola.

Business Description

This section describes the industry, your product, and the business and success factors. It should provide a current outlook as well as future trends and developments. You also should address your company’s mission, vision, goals, and objectives. Summarize your overall strategic direction, your reasons for starting the business, a description of your products and services, your business model, and your company’s value proposition. Consider including the Standard Industrial Classification/North American Industry Classification System (SIC/NAICS) code to specify the industry and insure correct identification. The industry extends beyond where the business is located and operates, and should include national and global dynamics. Table 11.4 shows a sample business description for La Vida Lola.

Industry Analysis and Market Strategies

Here you should define your market in terms of size, structure, growth prospects, trends, and sales potential. You’ll want to include your TAM and forecast the SAM . (Both these terms are discussed in Conducting a Feasibility Analysis .) This is a place to address market segmentation strategies by geography, customer attributes, or product orientation. Describe your positioning relative to your competitors’ in terms of pricing, distribution, promotion plan, and sales potential. Table 11.5 shows an example industry analysis and market strategy for La Vida Lola.

Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis is a statement of the business strategy as it relates to the competition. You want to be able to identify who are your major competitors and assess what are their market shares, markets served, strategies employed, and expected response to entry? You likely want to conduct a classic SWOT analysis (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats) and complete a competitive-strength grid or competitive matrix. Outline your company’s competitive strengths relative to those of the competition in regard to product, distribution, pricing, promotion, and advertising. What are your company’s competitive advantages and their likely impacts on its success? The key is to construct it properly for the relevant features/benefits (by weight, according to customers) and how the startup compares to incumbents. The competitive matrix should show clearly how and why the startup has a clear (if not currently measurable) competitive advantage. Some common features in the example include price, benefits, quality, type of features, locations, and distribution/sales. Sample templates are shown in Figure 11.17 and Figure 11.18 . A competitive analysis helps you create a marketing strategy that will identify assets or skills that your competitors are lacking so you can plan to fill those gaps, giving you a distinct competitive advantage. When creating a competitor analysis, it is important to focus on the key features and elements that matter to customers, rather than focusing too heavily on the entrepreneur’s idea and desires.

Operations and Management Plan

In this section, outline how you will manage your company. Describe its organizational structure. Here you can address the form of ownership and, if warranted, include an organizational chart/structure. Highlight the backgrounds, experiences, qualifications, areas of expertise, and roles of members of the management team. This is also the place to mention any other stakeholders, such as a board of directors or advisory board(s), and their relevant relationship to the founder, experience and value to help make the venture successful, and professional service firms providing management support, such as accounting services and legal counsel.

Table 11.6 shows a sample operations and management plan for La Vida Lola.

Marketing Plan

Here you should outline and describe an effective overall marketing strategy for your venture, providing details regarding pricing, promotion, advertising, distribution, media usage, public relations, and a digital presence. Fully describe your sales management plan and the composition of your sales force, along with a comprehensive and detailed budget for the marketing plan. Table 11.7 shows a sample marketing plan for La Vida Lola.

Financial Plan

A financial plan seeks to forecast revenue and expenses; project a financial narrative; and estimate project costs, valuations, and cash flow projections. This section should present an accurate, realistic, and achievable financial plan for your venture (see Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting for detailed discussions about conducting these projections). Include sales forecasts and income projections, pro forma financial statements ( Building the Entrepreneurial Dream Team , a breakeven analysis, and a capital budget. Identify your possible sources of financing (discussed in Conducting a Feasibility Analysis ). Figure 11.19 shows a template of cash-flow needs for La Vida Lola.

Entrepreneur In Action

Laughing man coffee.

Hugh Jackman ( Figure 11.20 ) may best be known for portraying a comic-book superhero who used his mutant abilities to protect the world from villains. But the Wolverine actor is also working to make the planet a better place for real, not through adamantium claws but through social entrepreneurship.

A love of java jolted Jackman into action in 2009, when he traveled to Ethiopia with a Christian humanitarian group to shoot a documentary about the impact of fair-trade certification on coffee growers there. He decided to launch a business and follow in the footsteps of the late Paul Newman, another famous actor turned philanthropist via food ventures.

Jackman launched Laughing Man Coffee two years later; he sold the line to Keurig in 2015. One Laughing Man Coffee café in New York continues to operate independently, investing its proceeds into charitable programs that support better housing, health, and educational initiatives within fair-trade farming communities. 55 Although the New York location is the only café, the coffee brand is still distributed, with Keurig donating an undisclosed portion of Laughing Man proceeds to those causes (whereas Jackman donates all his profits). The company initially donated its profits to World Vision, the Christian humanitarian group Jackman accompanied in 2009. In 2017, it created the Laughing Man Foundation to be more active with its money management and distribution.

• You be the entrepreneur. If you were Jackman, would you have sold the company to Keurig? Why or why not?
• Would you have started the Laughing Man Foundation?
• What else can Jackman do to aid fair-trade practices for coffee growers?

What Can You Do?

Textbooks for change.

Founded in 2014, Textbooks for Change uses a cross-compensation model, in which one customer segment pays for a product or service, and the profit from that revenue is used to provide the same product or service to another, underserved segment. Textbooks for Change partners with student organizations to collect used college textbooks, some of which are re-sold while others are donated to students in need at underserved universities across the globe. The organization has reused or recycled 250,000 textbooks, providing 220,000 students with access through seven campus partners in East Africa. This B-corp social enterprise tackles a problem and offers a solution that is directly relevant to college students like yourself. Have you observed a problem on your college campus or other campuses that is not being served properly? Could it result in a social enterprise?

Work It Out

Franchisee set out.

A franchisee of East Coast Wings, a chain with dozens of restaurants in the United States, has decided to part ways with the chain. The new store will feature the same basic sports-bar-and-restaurant concept and serve the same basic foods: chicken wings, burgers, sandwiches, and the like. The new restaurant can’t rely on the same distributors and suppliers. A new business plan is needed.

• What steps should the new restaurant take to create a new business plan?
• Should it attempt to serve the same customers? Why or why not?

This New York Times video, “An Unlikely Business Plan,” describes entrepreneurial resurgence in Detroit, Michigan.

• 48 Chris Guillebeau. The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future . New York: Crown Business/Random House, 2012.
• 49 Jonathan Chan. “What These 4 Startup Case Studies Can Teach You about Failure.” Foundr.com . July 12, 2015. https://foundr.com/4-startup-case-studies-failure/
• 50 Amy Feldman. “Inventor of the Cut Buddy Paid YouTubers to Spark Sales. He Wasn’t Ready for a Video to Go Viral.” Forbes. February 15, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2017/02/15/inventor-of-the-cut-buddy-paid-youtubers-to-spark-sales-he-wasnt-ready-for-a-video-to-go-viral/#3eb540ce798a
• 51 Jennifer Post. “National Business Plan Competitions for Entrepreneurs.” Business News Daily . August 30, 2018. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6902-business-plan-competitions-entrepreneurs.html
• 52 “Rice Business Plan Competition, Eligibility Criteria and How to Apply.” Rice Business Plan Competition . March 2020. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2020%20RBPC%20Eligibility%20Criteria%20and%20How%20to%20Apply_23Oct19.pdf
• 53 “Rice Business Plan Competition, Eligibility Criteria and How to Apply.” Rice Business Plan Competition. March 2020. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2020%20RBPC%20Eligibility%20Criteria%20and%20How%20to%20Apply_23Oct19.pdf; Based on 2019 RBPC Competition Rules and Format April 4–6, 2019. https://rbpc.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs806/f/2019-RBPC-Competition-Rules%20-Format.pdf
• 54 Foodstart. http://foodstart.com
• 55 “Hugh Jackman Journey to Starting a Social Enterprise Coffee Company.” Giving Compass. April 8, 2018. https://givingcompass.org/article/hugh-jackman-journey-to-starting-a-social-enterprise-coffee-company/

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/entrepreneurship/pages/1-introduction

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• Book title: Entrepreneurship
• Publication date: Jan 16, 2020
• Location: Houston, Texas
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Business Model Canvas: Explained with Examples

Got a new business idea, but don’t know how to put it to work? Want to improve your existing business model? Overwhelmed by writing your business plan? There is a one-page technique that can provide you the solution you are looking for, and that’s the business model canvas.

In this guide, you’ll have the Business Model Canvas explained, along with steps on how to create one. All business model canvas examples in the post can be edited online.

What is a Business Model Canvas

A business model is simply a plan describing how a business intends to make money. It explains who your customer base is and how you deliver value to them and the related details of financing. And the business model canvas lets you define these different components on a single page.   

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool that lets you visualize and assess your business idea or concept. It’s a one-page document containing nine boxes that represent different fundamental elements of a business.  

The business model canvas beats the traditional business plan that spans across several pages, by offering a much easier way to understand the different core elements of a business.

The right side of the canvas focuses on the customer or the market (external factors that are not under your control) while the left side of the canvas focuses on the business (internal factors that are mostly under your control). In the middle, you get the value propositions that represent the exchange of value between your business and your customers.

The business model canvas was originally developed by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and introduced in their book ‘ Business Model Generation ’ as a visual framework for planning, developing and testing the business model(s) of an organization.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Business Model Canvas

Why do you need a business model canvas? The answer is simple. The business model canvas offers several benefits for businesses and entrepreneurs. It is a valuable tool and provides a visual and structured approach to designing, analyzing, optimizing, and communicating your business model.

• The business model canvas provides a comprehensive overview of a business model’s essential aspects. The BMC provides a quick outline of the business model and is devoid of unnecessary details compared to the traditional business plan.
• The comprehensive overview also ensures that the team considers all required components of their business model and can identify gaps or areas for improvement.
• The BMC allows the team to have a holistic and shared understanding of the business model while enabling them to align and collaborate effectively.
• The visual nature of the business model canvas makes it easier to refer to and understand by anyone. The business model canvas combines all vital business model elements in a single, easy-to-understand canvas.
• The BMC can be considered a strategic analysis tool as it enables you to examine a business model’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.
• It’s easier to edit and can be easily shared with employees and stakeholders.
• The BMC is a flexible and adaptable tool that can be updated and revised as the business evolves. Keep your business agile and responsive to market changes and customer needs.
• The business model canvas can be used by large corporations and startups with just a few employees.
• The business model canvas effectively facilitates discussions among team members, investors, partners, customers, and other stakeholders. It clarifies how different aspects of the business are related and ensures a shared understanding of the business model.
• You can use a BMC template to facilitate discussions and guide brainstorming brainstorming sessions to generate insights and ideas to refine the business model and make strategic decisions.
• The BMC is action-oriented, encouraging businesses to identify activities and initiatives to improve their business model to drive business growth.
• A business model canvas provides a structured approach for businesses to explore possibilities and experiment with new ideas. This encourages creativity and innovation, which in turn encourages team members to think outside the box.

How to Make a Business Model Canvas

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a business canvas model.

Step 1: Gather your team and the required material Bring a team or a group of people from your company together to collaborate. It is better to bring in a diverse group to cover all aspects.

While you can create a business model canvas with whiteboards, sticky notes, and markers, using an online platform like Creately will ensure that your work can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Create a workspace in Creately and provide editing/reviewing permission to start.

Step 2: Set the context Clearly define the purpose and the scope of what you want to map out and visualize in the business model canvas. Narrow down the business or idea you want to analyze with the team and its context.

Step 3: Draw the canvas Divide the workspace into nine equal sections to represent the nine building blocks of the business model canvas.

Step 4: Identify the key building blocks Label each section as customer segment, value proposition, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, and cost structure.

Step 5: Fill in the canvas Work with your team to fill in each section of the canvas with relevant information. You can use data, keywords, diagrams, and more to represent ideas and concepts.

Step 6: Analyze and iterate Once your team has filled in the business model canvas, analyze the relationships to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. Discuss improvements and make adjustments as necessary.

Step 7: Finalize Finalize and use the model as a visual reference to communicate and align your business model with stakeholders. You can also use the model to make informed and strategic decisions and guide your business.

What are the Key Building Blocks of the Business Model Canvas?

There are nine building blocks in the business model canvas and they are:

Customer Segments

Customer relationships, revenue streams, key activities, key resources, key partners, cost structure.

• Value Proposition

When filling out a Business Model Canvas, you will brainstorm and conduct research on each of these elements. The data you collect can be placed in each relevant section of the canvas. So have a business model canvas ready when you start the exercise.  

Let’s look into what the 9 components of the BMC are in more detail.

These are the groups of people or companies that you are trying to target and sell your product or service to.

Segmenting your customers based on similarities such as geographical area, gender, age, behaviors, interests, etc. gives you the opportunity to better serve their needs, specifically by customizing the solution you are providing them.

After a thorough analysis of your customer segments, you can determine who you should serve and ignore. Then create customer personas for each of the selected customer segments.

There are different customer segments a business model can target and they are;

• Mass market: A business model that focuses on mass markets doesn’t group its customers into segments. Instead, it focuses on the general population or a large group of people with similar needs. For example, a product like a phone.  
• Niche market: Here the focus is centered on a specific group of people with unique needs and traits. Here the value propositions, distribution channels, and customer relationships should be customized to meet their specific requirements. An example would be buyers of sports shoes.
• Segmented: Based on slightly different needs, there could be different groups within the main customer segment. Accordingly, you can create different value propositions, distribution channels, etc. to meet the different needs of these segments.
• Diversified: A diversified market segment includes customers with very different needs.
• Multi-sided markets: this includes interdependent customer segments. For example, a credit card company caters to both their credit card holders as well as merchants who accept those cards.

Use STP Model templates for segmenting your market and developing ideal marketing campaigns

Visualize, assess, and update your business model. Collaborate on brainstorming with your team on your next business model innovation.

In this section, you need to establish the type of relationship you will have with each of your customer segments or how you will interact with them throughout their journey with your company.

There are several types of customer relationships

• Personal assistance: you interact with the customer in person or by email, through phone call or other means.
• Dedicated personal assistance: you assign a dedicated customer representative to an individual customer.  
• Self-service: here you maintain no relationship with the customer, but provides what the customer needs to help themselves.
• Automated services: this includes automated processes or machinery that helps customers perform services themselves.
• Communities: these include online communities where customers can help each other solve their own problems with regard to the product or service.
• Co-creation: here the company allows the customer to get involved in the designing or development of the product. For example, YouTube has given its users the opportunity to create content for its audience.

You can understand the kind of relationship your customer has with your company through a customer journey map . It will help you identify the different stages your customers go through when interacting with your company. And it will help you make sense of how to acquire, retain and grow your customers.

This block is to describe how your company will communicate with and reach out to your customers. Channels are the touchpoints that let your customers connect with your company.

Channels play a role in raising awareness of your product or service among customers and delivering your value propositions to them. Channels can also be used to allow customers the avenue to buy products or services and offer post-purchase support.

There are two types of channels

• Owned channels: company website, social media sites, in-house sales, etc.
• Partner channels: partner-owned websites, wholesale distribution, retail, etc.

Revenues streams are the sources from which a company generates money by selling their product or service to the customers. And in this block, you should describe how you will earn revenue from your value propositions.  

A revenue stream can belong to one of the following revenue models,

• Transaction-based revenue: made from customers who make a one-time payment
• Recurring revenue: made from ongoing payments for continuing services or post-sale services

There are several ways you can generate revenue from

• Asset sales: by selling the rights of ownership for a product to a buyer
• Usage fee: by charging the customer for the use of its product or service
• Subscription fee: by charging the customer for using its product regularly and consistently
• Lending/ leasing/ renting: the customer pays to get exclusive rights to use an asset for a fixed period of time
• Licensing: customer pays to get permission to use the company’s intellectual property
• Brokerage fees: revenue generated by acting as an intermediary between two or more parties
• Advertising: by charging the customer to advertise a product, service or brand using company platforms

What are the activities/ tasks that need to be completed to fulfill your business purpose? In this section, you should list down all the key activities you need to do to make your business model work.

These key activities should focus on fulfilling its value proposition, reaching customer segments and maintaining customer relationships, and generating revenue.

There are 3 categories of key activities;

• Production: designing, manufacturing and delivering a product in significant quantities and/ or of superior quality.
• Problem-solving: finding new solutions to individual problems faced by customers.
• Platform/ network: Creating and maintaining platforms. For example, Microsoft provides a reliable operating system to support third-party software products.

This is where you list down which key resources or the main inputs you need to carry out your key activities in order to create your value proposition.

There are several types of key resources and they are

• Human (employees)
• Financial (cash, lines of credit, etc.)
• Intellectual (brand, patents, IP, copyright)
• Physical (equipment, inventory, buildings)

Key partners are the external companies or suppliers that will help you carry out your key activities. These partnerships are forged in oder to reduce risks and acquire resources.

Types of partnerships are

• Strategic alliance: partnership between non-competitors
• Coopetition: strategic partnership between partners
• Joint ventures: partners developing a new business
• Buyer-supplier relationships: ensure reliable supplies

In this block, you identify all the costs associated with operating your business model.

You’ll need to focus on evaluating the cost of creating and delivering your value propositions, creating revenue streams, and maintaining customer relationships. And this will be easier to do so once you have defined your key resources, activities, and partners.  

Businesses can either be cost-driven (focuses on minimizing costs whenever possible) and value-driven (focuses on providing maximum value to the customer).

Value Propositions

This is the building block that is at the heart of the business model canvas. And it represents your unique solution (product or service) for a problem faced by a customer segment, or that creates value for the customer segment.

A value proposition should be unique or should be different from that of your competitors. If you are offering a new product, it should be innovative and disruptive. And if you are offering a product that already exists in the market, it should stand out with new features and attributes.

Value propositions can be either quantitative (price and speed of service) or qualitative (customer experience or design).

What to Avoid When Creating a Business Model Canvas

One thing to remember when creating a business model canvas is that it is a concise and focused document. It is designed to capture key elements of a business model and, as such, should not include detailed information. Some of the items to avoid include,

• Detailed financial projections such as revenue forecasts, cost breakdowns, and financial ratios. Revenue streams and cost structure should be represented at a high level, providing an overview rather than detailed projections.
• Detailed operational processes such as standard operating procedures of a business. The BMC focuses on the strategic and conceptual aspects.
• Comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. The business model canvas does not provide space for comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. These should be included in marketing or sales plans, which allow you to expand into more details.
• Legal or regulatory details such as intellectual property, licensing agreements, or compliance requirements. As these require more detailed and specialized attention, they are better suited to be addressed in separate legal or regulatory documents.
• Long-term strategic goals or vision statements. While the canvas helps to align the business model with the overall strategy, it should focus on the immediate and tangible aspects.
• Irrelevant or unnecessary information that does not directly relate to the business model. Including extra or unnecessary information can clutter the BMC and make it less effective in communicating the core elements.

What Are Your Thoughts on the Business Model Canvas?

Once you have completed your business model canvas, you can share it with your organization and stakeholders and get their feedback as well. The business model canvas is a living document, therefore after completing it you need to revisit and ensure that it is relevant, updated and accurate.

What best practices do you follow when creating a business model canvas? Do share your tips with us in the comments section below.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

FAQs About the Business Model Canvas

• Use clear and concise language
• Use visual-aids
• Customize for your audience
• Highlight key insights
• Be open to feedback and discussion

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Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

Starting a Business | How To

How to Come Up With a Business Idea in 5 Steps

Published November 3, 2023

Published Nov 3, 2023

REVIEWED BY: Elizabeth Kraus

WRITTEN BY: David Rivera

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This article is part of a larger series on Starting a Business .

• 1: Look Inward for a Business Idea
• 2: Look to Others for More Ideas
• 3: Brainstorm Potential Solutions
• 4: Validate Your Idea
• 5: Make Your Idea a Reality

What Makes a Business Idea Good?

• Pros & Cons of Operating Your Own Business

Bottom Line

Coming up with a business idea is the first step to starting a business. Start by identifying problems you or others are having and brainstorm possible solutions. It’s wise to start with a problem because business is essentially solving customer’s problems in exchange for money. When you have an idea, validate it through feedback. Finally, make your idea a reality by securing it and starting the business.

Even when you have a tentative solution or business idea in mind, you’ll still need to determine whether it’s a good one. Read on for some points to keep in mind when making this judgment.

Here’s how to come up with a business idea in five simple steps.

Step 1: Look Inward to Come Up With a Business Idea

The first and easiest place to come up with a business idea is through your own experiences. In fact, you may realize you have a problem that no one else seems able to solve, or at least one that no one can solve as well as you can.

Can you come up with a solution and solve it or a similar problem for others? Write down all problems like this, even if you can’t come up with solutions initially. Additionally, look to your strengths, skills, and interests for inspiration.

Analyze Your Own Problems

The best place to look for a business idea is inside of your own problems. What challenges are you running into in your day-to-day life? This doesn’t have to be a brand-new business idea; originality should not be a higher priority than usefulness or simplicity.

For example, the problem can be as simple as firing your lawn care company and finding it difficult to find another quality company. That’s a problem with potential solutions worth exploring.

Be Aware of & Use Your Current Strengths

Leveraging your existing strengths is often a faster way to get results when coming up with a business idea. Many business owners build new businesses around their strengths and skills.

Strengths may be skills or knowledge you’ve learned from experiences like working in the corporate world or through hobbies. A good example is if you’ve been in sales for 20 years and are looking to apply those skills to a certain industry, such as real estate, or you’ve learned a lot about cycling through your hobbies and are good at helping friends fix their road bicycles.

Narrow Your Business Idea to a Niche Skill

Another way to come up with a business idea is to think about what you do at your current job, narrow down your role into specific tasks or skill sets, and provide a service or product that matches these. A well-known business saying that relates to this is “ the riches are in the niches .”

That’s because specific services connect well to solve people’s problems. This has the added benefit of letting you deliver a product or service in which you already have skills and experience. And it makes it easier to describe and market your offerings because you’ve already narrowed them down to specifics.

For example, if you’re a general digital marketer for businesses, you may be able to brand yourself as a marketer in a specific niche, such as email marketing or Instagram marketing. Branding yourself in a niche will make it easier to connect with the specific customers and business owners looking for your services.

Consider Your Own Work Preferences

Aside from specific considerations and ideas about what products or services you can offer, take your own work style and preferences into account when you are thinking up a business idea.

Do you prefer to work quietly behind the scenes, or interact directly with customers? Will you prioritize a higher income, or more free time and schedule flexibility? Would you rather offer a product (more upfront work but easier to automate later on), or a service based on your existing skills (easier to start but more difficult to scale)?

While you might think that these concerns aren’t as important as your actual business idea, it’s still a good idea to take them into consideration. Keeping yourself happy during the business-building process will make sustainable success more likely for your venture. If you ignore these concerns and end up running a business that takes up more time than you are willing to give and mainly consists of doing things you don’t want to do, was it really worth starting a business in the first place?

Cross-pollinate Your Skills & Interests to Come Up With a Business Idea

When coming up with a business idea, cross-pollinating refers to mixing two unrelated skills or interests. For example, suppose someone has a full-time job as a software engineer at a tech company and enjoys tinkering with drones during the night and on weekends. In that case, a possible business idea they could pursue is creating and selling custom drone monitoring software for farms and industrial businesses.

Prioritize Quantity over Quality (at First)

If you’re having a hard time coming up with a business idea or pinpointing a target audience, you can get past this mental block with a stream-of-consciousness tactic: write down any potential business idea that comes to mind, no matter how unrealistic or silly it might seem.

Animal sanctuary for endangered species? Dating matchmaker? Professional prankster? Write it all down. At the very least, it’ll remove your mental shackles and allow you to think and imagine without limits, which will give you more raw material for later on when you need to be more realistic. As they say with writing: write in white heat, then edit in cold blood. Even if your initial grand ideas really aren’t viable, they can give you ideas for scaled-down versions that might be doable. You might not be able to build an international animal sanctuary, but you could probably start a local dog-sitting business.

Step 2: Look to Others for More Ideas

In addition to gleaning business ideas from your own experiences, strengths, and skills, you can look at the problems others are having. Friends and family are usually willing to talk about the regular challenges they run into; maybe there’s a business idea that can help them overcome their challenges. You can also do research on trends and the current market to discover a business concept that makes sense for consumers today.

Listen to Family & Friends

Make it a point to listen to family and friends when they’re having issues. Maybe they can’t find reliable movers in your local city that won’t overcharge on a quote. Maybe they’re complaining about a specific problem with their motorcycle. Write down all of the business ideas you can think of that relate to the problems they’re struggling with, both product and service-based.

Collaborate With Other Aspiring Business Owners

Many new businesses start when two people with different strengths come together to form a new type of company. A classic example is when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple.

Wozniak had the experience and interest to build the computer; Jobs had experience in sales, marketing, and an interest in user experience. Wozniak couldn’t have sold the first Apple computer alone, and Jobs couldn’t have created it. Together, with their different strengths and skills, they were able to.

Follow the Trends

Another way to uncover a business idea is to spot and get ahead of a trend. Determine when a product is going to get big before it happens and start selling it on Amazon. The first movers on the fidget-spinner craze in 2017 made millions of dollars.

Additionally, look nationally for trends and see if you can bring them locally to your city. For example, ramen restaurants initially started mainly in large cities like Los Angeles and have since been spreading quickly throughout the US.

Conduct Market Research

You can look to market and industry research for direction on a business idea. IBIS World provides reports that are updated quarterly on hundreds of specific industries.

According to IBIS World, a local solar power installation business or 3D printing business may be a good business idea in the US. (Source: IBISWorld)

While expensive (you should expect to pay $1,000 or more for a report), the reports discuss whether the overall industry in question is expected to grow or shrink and have a lot of market and industry detail. Your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) may also be able to pull an IBIS World report and discuss it with you for free, so it’s a good place to start.

Step 3: Brainstorm Potential Solutions for the Business Problem

When you identify a problem to solve, you might find yourself struggling to come up with a solution. Fortunately, there are strategies to help you think creatively, alone or with others as inspiration. You can join local networking groups and entrepreneur networking websites to get your creative juices flowing.

Network With Peers or Potential Customers

Talking with others about the problem you’re seeking to solve, and possible solutions, is a great way to improve your creativity and help yourself brainstorm ideas. More extroverted people may prefer to talk to business peers rather than write in a journal. If you don’t have professional colleagues or personal family or friends to talk to, join a local Meetup or business group like your local chapter of the US Chamber of Commerce to find like-minded entrepreneurial individuals.

If you’d rather not talk to fellow aspiring entrepreneurs, you can always connect directly with the members of your potential target market. Look for online forums and boards where these people congregate and talk about their pain points, desires, and what-if scenarios. To get more concrete ideas for your business, you might try searching these forums for the key phrase “I wish…”

Then ask yourself: What product or service would provide the most efficient and direct solution to these pain points? Is this something you could realistically provide in sufficient quantities? When you have solid answers to these two questions, you’re well on your way to coming up with a viable business idea.

Join an Online Group or Networking Website

There are several networking groups where you can connect with other entrepreneurs. These websites may also connect you with potential co-founders for your business.

If you have a problem that you believe needs a solution, but the solution is out of your expertise, consider joining a founders’ networking website. For example, CoFoundersLab is the world’s largest network of entrepreneurs.

LinkedIn is also a vast treasure trove as far as gaining contacts of experienced and like-minded entrepreneurs for nearly any type of business, has thousands of groups you could join, and is totally free to use. Reddit is another well-known resource for entrepreneurs who want to brainstorm problems and ideas.

Step 4: Validate Your Idea to Ensure Success

Validating your business idea involves making efforts to ensure the solution you want to sell is something customers will pay for. True validation comes when someone spends their money on your product or service. However, you may not be able to figure out with certainty how well your product will do in the market until it’s created, or your business is open.

Here are some ways to validate a business idea you come up with:

Focus Groups, Beta Testing & Surveys

Two ways to informally validate your business idea is to hold focus groups and conduct surveys to gather feedback. Focus groups are a selection of people that provide feedback on a product or service.

Beta tests involve testing different versions of a product or service (typically software) that isn’t complete, but that you’d like early feedback on. When it comes to online surveys, you can use a free tool for simple surveys like SurveyMonkey to solicit feedback from peers or people who would be potential customers.

Build an Audience or Customer Base Online

Building an audience or potential customer base online before launching your product or service is a great way to validate your idea. For example, if you’re considering opening a tabletop gaming location, consider creating a Facebook group of local residents interested in tabletop gaming. Once the group is built, you will already have generated some interest and validation, as well as potential customers for your business.

Start a Crowdfunding Campaign

Starting a crowdfunding campaign or meeting with potential investors is one of the best ways to ensure your business idea is a good one. When you ask people to put their money on the line, you begin to find out very quickly whether or not they think something is a good investment.

Investors are typically people who are willing to invest in your business with the expectation that they will receive a return on their investment over time. Sometimes they will even ask for a say in your business or be willing to invest sweat equity as an employee as well as funds.

Crowdfunding campaigns allow you to raise funds by pre-selling products and services. Typically, a crowdfunding platform charges a 5% fee of the overall amount raised and a 3% payment processing fee. Learn more about crowdfunding your small business in our comprehensive guide.

Ask Family & Friends

While you can ask family and friends to validate your business idea, keep in mind that they will often give you positive feedback because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Make sure they are willing to give you honest feedback, and when they do, don’t take it personally.

Family or friends may also purchase your product or service or even invest in your venture just to support you. For example, they may support your crowdfunding campaign even though they wouldn’t have purchased the product or service from an unknown entity.

It’s important to understand that if friends or family are the primary supporters or funders of your idea, you run the risk of damaging relationships in the course of trying to build your business. So consider carefully before bringing them into your business as an investor and set clear expectations and investment repayment timelines to avoid misunderstandings.

How to Make Your Idea a Reality

Once you receive validation that customers are willing to spend money on your solution to a problem they’re having, it’s time to make your business happen. Your first step is to create a business plan with thorough financial projections. Then, you’ll want to secure your business or idea through legal means. Finally, raise the capital necessary to make your dream a reality.

Create a Business Plan

All businesses need to create a business plan that acts as a strategic roadmap you can use to guide your business decisions. Also, if you’re seeking funding from a bank or investor, you will probably need a formal, well-thought-out business plan to present.

A business plan contains several elements, including market analysis, competitor analysis, and financial projections. Many business owners choose to use business plan software to aid them in creating a plan. A business plan software walks users step by step through the plan creation process. Good software will include educational materials and easy-to-read financial charts.

LivePlan is an easy-to-use business plan software that provides more than 500 sample plans to learn from, plus step-by-step instructions. Get started today for $20 per month.

Visit LivePlan

Develop Financial Projections for Your Business Idea

Lack of funding is the top reason new businesses fail (according to startup statistics ) so one of the most important parts of coming up with a viable business idea is financial projections. Unfortunately, it is also the most difficult. Financial projections include the income and expenses you estimate your business will have for three years into the future.

The income and expenses need to be broken down into specific items and month-to-month projections for the first two years. Typically, you’ll create projected financial statements like profit and loss , cash flow analysis, and balance sheet. If you’re not using LivePlan software, you can use the free financial projections Excel template from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE).

Craft a Marketing Plan

In order to reach your financial projections, you’ll need a plan to launch and market your business idea. Your marketing plan will outline your intended target market, showcase your business’ unique selling proposition, and explain the strategies, tactics, and marketing channels you’ll use to reach your ideal customers.

Get help with your marketing plan: Here are some guides to help you come up with an effective marketing strategy and lay out your plan.

• How to create a customer persona in five steps (with a free template)
• Guide to building a local marketing strategy and free local marketing plan template
• What brand presence is (and how to build it, online and off)
• Learn what a unique selling proposition is and how to write one using our free template

Protect Your Business Idea

If you have a new business idea, it may need a patent, which is how you secure your idea legally so that another person or business doesn’t take it. Patents are expensive. You can file a patent yourself, but most business owners hire a patent attorney to do it for them.

Typically, a patent costs anywhere from $2,500 to more than $15,000 for more complicated patents. You can save money by signing up for an online legal service consultation with an attorney. Rocket Lawyer will have one of its attorneys draft the proper patent paperwork and submit an application; fees for this service begin at around $40 per month.

Other ways you can protect your brand are to trademark your business name and logo and copyright your digital and print materials. To learn more, check out our article, Trademark Costs: DIY vs Online Services vs Lawyers , to get an idea of how much it will cost with each method.

There’s even brand protection software (like EBRAND or artificial intelligence-powered Bolster AI ) you can use to monitor potential infringements and protect your intellectual property, brand, and ideas.

Raise Capital for Your Idea

Some businesses don’t require a lot of money to start. For example, with the work-from-home culture created since the pandemic, you might be able to start a home-based business with your current setup.

In other cases, such as brick-and-mortar businesses or business ideas that require expensive equipment, machinery, or a commercial location, a significant amount of capital may be needed. Funds for a startup or new business ideas are often hard to come by. While small business bank loans could be an option in the future, banks typically don’t lend to startups.

With that said, however, there is an exception when it comes to equipment, since equipment serves as its own collateral. Read our list of the best equipment loans for startup businesses to learn more.

Many entrepreneurs leverage savings or investments to start their companies. Others seek out investors from a variety of sources: angel investors, crowdfunding platforms, business investment groups, and so on. When approaching any type of investor, the due diligence you did to create a business plan, develop financial projections, and decide on marketing strategies could be the key to your success.

For more ways to raise funding for a business idea you’ve come up with, check out our list of startup business loans .

Outsource Manpower to Improve Efficiency

One of the many lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that remote work had a lot of potential all along, and can go much further than we thought. Think about how to leverage this new reality in terms of both widening your talent pool and trimming down on costs.

Perhaps you can outsource functions like customer service, manufacturing, accounting, or virtual assistance to personnel in other states or even other countries. You’ll still need to consider factors such as legal requirements, expenses vs savings, time zone differences, skill sets, and language or cultural barriers; but the point is that you should be thinking about how to draw skills and talent from a larger well than just your city or state.

Just because a solution to a problem is exciting or new doesn’t automatically make it realistic, viable, or useful for your potential customers. Ask yourself the following questions to help ensure that your proposed solution is actually something that people would find helpful—and would pay for.

1. Does it solve a real-world, tangible problem in the most straightforward manner possible?

Your business idea should be based on a simple, easily explained solution to a problem that real people deal with in the real world. People buy things and use services in order to fulfill their own needs or wants, so it’s important that you pinpoint those needs and wants and address them with a no-nonsense solution.

As an example, a business that involves hiring gig workers to purchase and deliver groceries for busy, time-starved customers might have potential—it uses a simple solution to answer a need that many people can relate to.

2. Do people actually want the solution you intend to offer? Is it the most attractive option to them? Have others done it better somewhere else?

Even if you’ve pinpointed a problem to solve and have a straightforward solution in mind, that’s no guarantee that people will actually (a) want it and (b) be willing to pay for it. Customers will still have other considerations that could make them reject your idea, such as price, convenience, or the presence of better solutions elsewhere.

To determine potential demand, send out surveys, read relevant online forums and blogs, and try to get as familiar as possible with your target market’s complaints and wishes. Social media is a great place to find family, friends, and strangers complaining about the challenges they’re having. Often, people will go online to make a complaint before they tell friends or family.

Additionally, look at what industries near your residence consistently have negative reviews. Complaints, rants, and tales of “I wish this product or service were better” are all opportunities for you to fill a niche or serve a need; even better the complaints themselves serve as proof that the need is a real one.

Do the three closest pest control companies near your house all have 3 out of 5-star Google reviews or below? That’s an indication that a new pest control company with better customer service could take their customers. A 3-star review is likely to give you the most balanced view of the product or service, as well as the most specific details about what people wish could be improved.

3. Is your proposed solution sustainable and scalable?

Even if you find yourself enjoying the rush that comes from discovering you can deliver an in-demand solution to a real-world problem, don’t forget to consider sustainability and scalability. You need to be sure that you can deliver your proposed product or service in a long-term manner, and in a way that can grow in scale without falling apart.

Going back to the grocery delivery service above: would you be able to make this work by hiring short-term gig workers forever? Would switching to full-time employees be a better idea—or a worse one? What will you do if and when gas prices increase? If you become so successful that the entire country now wants your services, would you be able to keep up?

Answering these questions honestly will help you determine whether your idea is really viable as a long-term business, or if it should just remain a hobby (and there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just that a hobby doesn’t necessarily make you money).

Pros & Cons of Operating Your Own Business

While running your own show is a worthy goal and a dream for many, like everything else in life, this path comes with advantages and disadvantages. You’ll need to think about these pros and cons, and decide for yourself whether the gains and rewards will be worth the sacrifices and effort required.

Pros of Running Your Own Business

1. Very high earning potential

If your business starts to become successful and you manage to grow demand well, you stand to make a lot of money. Running your own business has a much greater earning potential than being an employee because as a business owner, you can streamline, automate, and optimize various aspects of your business in order to maximize profits.

In the best-case scenario, you can end up running a well-oiled machine that doesn’t need a ton of day-to-day effort to maintain, but that steadily generates income for you. Of course, you have a lot of time and effort to put in before you reach this point.

2. Rapid learning and experience

Running your own operation throws you into the deep end when it comes to identifying or creating demand for a product or service, making the solution a reality, and delivering it to customers in a way you can maintain over time. This is no easy task, but that’s the point: being ultimately responsible for the business’ success or failure will be a learning experience like few other things can be. You’re nearly certain to come out of the experience a wiser and more knowledgeable person—whether your venture succeeds or fails.

3. High flexibility and control

A greater level of flexibility and control is one of the most common reasons that many people choose to start their own business, particularly if they’ve only ever experienced the rigid structures of an employee role. Running your own shop means that you can set your own hours, accept or reject clients as you like, determine where the business is headed in the future, and more. Of course, you will bear responsibility for the consequences of these choices—as we’ll discuss below—but many business owners find that the freedom is worth the responsibility.

4. Self-expression and actualization

While profits are always a consideration when starting and running a business, many people choose to go into these ventures as a way of expressing their interests, passions, and creativity—and simply wanting to spend more time doing what they love and are good at (and if they can make some money off it, why not?). This advantage to starting your business becomes even more powerful when you realize that there are ways to get things off the ground without needing a lot of upfront capital. While financial success isn’t guaranteed—it never is—at least making the attempt can be relatively simple and affordable. And even if your business doesn’t make much money, you’ll be enjoying every minute of the endeavor.

Cons of Running Your Own Business

1. Sole responsibility

The flip side of the rapid learning and experience you’ll gain from making this attempt is that you also bear sole responsibility for possible failure. As the business’ founder and essentially first CEO, everything will go through you, at least in the early stages.

You’ll bear the burden of every decision, risk, and action; everything can be traced back to your skill or lack thereof. If your first few employees aren’t great, it will be because you didn’t screen them as well as you could have. If something gets messed up with manufacturing, delivery, accounting, or customer satisfaction, it will be because you failed to properly set up the business processes and checks. You need to be comfortable with this degree of command responsibility before you proceed.

2. It’s a lot of work

Connected to the above point, there’s no getting around the fact that starting your own business is a lot of work. This is all the more true when you’re just starting out and haven’t hired anyone yet. You’ll probably be working on both the legal business setup process, as well as the mechanics of marketing, manufacturing, delivering, and gathering feedback, by yourself.

Even when you begin to hire employees to lighten your load, you’ll have to create job listings, screen applicants, set up interviews, assess skills, and onboard people by yourself. This is why starting your own business is a good move if you want to increase your earning potential or have some impact on the world, but not a good move if you simply want to work less in the short term. It’s far more likely that you’ll actually be working harder than ever.

3. The need for constant innovation and competition

As tempting as it might be to stick with “business as usual” once your business model has proven viable and things have gotten off the ground, you won’t last long if you aren’t innovating or keeping an eye on your competition. You will need to do this constantly. Customers are always looking for the best deals, the highest quality of service, the greatest level of convenience. If you aren’t continuously planning, monitoring, adjusting, and working to give them what they want, they’ll be happy to take their business elsewhere.

4. Potentially high financial risks

Though it’s possible to start the groundwork for a business with minimal upfront capital, having some initial funds to draw on can make things move along much more quickly. The other side of this coin is the financial risks that come with starting a business. Success is never guaranteed—in fact, more than a fifth of new businesses fail in their first year , with failure rates only increasing over time—and failure often means the unrecoverable loss of startup funds. This is painful enough if you used your own savings to fund your business, but becomes really bad news if you borrowed money to get things going. You need to be aware of these risks and accept them before investing money into your new venture.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the most common questions we get about coming up with a business idea.

How do I come up with a business idea?

You can start generating business ideas by looking inward (examining your own problems, strengths, and interests) or looking outward (listening to other people, networking, and keeping up with trends and research). Then, come up with effective and low-cost ways to validate your idea: focus groups, surveys, and turning to family and friends. Then, proceed with making your idea a reality—raising funding, creating plans, and finding manpower.

What makes a business idea good?

A good business idea solves a real-life problem in the most efficient way possible; is more feasible, effective, or convenient for customers than the alternatives; and can be sustained over time and scaled up if necessary.

What kind of experience do I need before I come up with a business idea?

It’s always helpful to have some skills and knowledge in the field in which you plan to start a business. This experience usually comes from time spent working as an employee. For example, it will be easier to start a small marketing agency if you have experience with copywriting and managing multiple clients.

Coming up with a business idea might seem like an intimidating task with all the steps and considerations necessary, but all you need to begin is to know the basics, plus a sense of what makes an idea good. If you’re choosing a new idea , remember that the process requires deep creative thinking. Surround yourself with inspiration and take every opportunity to brainstorm everyday problems that need to be solved along with potential solutions. Remember, you’ll be spending a great deal of time working on your business, so you must invest time on the front end to ensure it’s successful.

About the Author

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David Rivera

David Rivera is a Retail Staff Writer at Fit Small Business focusing on point-of-sale systems. Since 2016, he has produced and optimized content for a variety of industries including ecommerce and luxury retail. For the past couple of years he has focused more closely on ecommerce and retail topics as well as point-of-sale systems.

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Original text

You know you want to start a business—you’re dying to tell your boss, “So long,” and take charge of your own destiny. There’s just one problem: You’re not sure what type of business you want to start. Maybe you’ve got a general idea you want to start a business in a certain industry—such as fashion, restaurant or e-commerce—but you’re struggling to come up with a specific concept. Or maybe you have no idea at all.

That’s OK. Not every entrepreneur grows up knowing exactly what they want to do or has a “lightbulb moment” when they’re hit by the perfect business idea. If you’re not sure what type of business to start, that doesn’t mean you can’t become an entrepreneur. It just means you need to brainstorm a business idea.

Here are four steps to successfully brainstorming a business idea.

1. start your business brainstorming by getting your creativity flowing..

To inspire yourself, take in as much information as you can about small business, business in general and business trends. If you have a specific industry in mind, immerse yourself in information about that industry, too. For instance, do you think you might want to start a restaurant? Then, read restaurant industry publications and websites. Visit all kinds of restaurants in your area. Also, check out restaurants’ close competitors, such as bars, grab-and-go eateries, food courts and food trucks. Maybe one of those will capture your imagination more than a sit-down restaurant will.

2. Next, think about businesses you admire, use, and rely on in your daily life.

What do these companies have in common? For example, maybe you can’t live without Amazon because it makes your life so easy. Perhaps you love visiting the local independent sandwich shop for lunch because they’re so friendly and always know your order in advance. Or perhaps you can’t stay away from that little boutique that has unique gifts for everyone you know. Write down everything that comes to mind about why you like these companies, whether it’s their outstanding customer service, their one-of-a-kind products or the way they really “get” what you want.

3. Think about issues you are facing in your own life.

During a typical day, what are the problems that commonly frustrate you? What do you wish was easier to do at work, at home, or during your downtime? If enough other people feel the same way, it could be you’ve discovered a business idea. For instance, maybe your whole family loves sushi, but there isn’t a single good sushi restaurant within 50 miles. If there’s enough demand, perhaps you could start a sushi restaurant or a sushi delivery service. Survey your friends, co-workers and family members about their frustrations, too. Some of the biggest businesses around grew out of frustrations or unmet needs.

4. Using all the information you’ve gathered, you should have generated dozens of possible business ideas.

The last step is to narrow them down. Enlist some friends, family members or businesspeople you know, and see what they think of your ideas. Better yet, find some impartial people in the target market you’re considering (such as sushi lovers) and ask them what they’d want to see in a business serving their sushi cravings.

The word “impartial” is key here. If you only talk to friends and family about your business idea, they’re likely to either discourage you (because they’re worried you’ll lose money) or encourage you too much (praising every idea you have).

In addition to unbiased target customers, make it a point to get advice and feedback from an impartial business expert before you take further steps to launch your business. The expert mentors at SCORE can help you assess your ideas, inspire you to come up with new ones and choose the best idea for you given your time constraints, finances, experience level and ultimate goals.

For more ideas, attend my webinar “ Hot Businesses, Markets & Trends for 2019 .” 

Your Brand Brainstorming Worksheet By brainstorming brand ideas you can develop a unique brand that truly reflects your business. Use this downloadable worksheet to record your ideas.

Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org

Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.

550+ Business Plan Examples to Launch Your Business

Need help writing your business plan? Explore over 550 industry-specific business plan examples for inspiration.

Find your business plan example

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View all sample business plans

Example business plan format

Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format . You'll find that the plans in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections:

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally only one to two pages. You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan.

Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements (if you are raising money).

Products & services

The products & services chapter of your business plan is where the real meat of your plan lives. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and any traction that proves that it truly meets the need you identified.

This is your chance to explain why you're in business and that people care about what you offer. It needs to go beyond a simple product or service description and get to the heart of why your business works and benefits your customers.

Market analysis

Conducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base.

Competition

Part of defining your opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage may be. To do this effectively you need to get to know your competitors just as well as your target customers. Every business will have competition, if you don't then you're either in a very young industry or there's a good reason no one is pursuing this specific venture.

To succeed, you want to be sure you know who your competitors are, how they operate, necessary financial benchmarks, and how you're business will be positioned. Start by identifying who your competitors are or will be during your market research. Then leverage competitive analysis tools like the competitive matrix and positioning map to solidify where your business stands in relation to the competition.

Marketing & sales

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments. You'll address how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.

The operations section covers the day-to-day workflows for your business to deliver your product or service. What's included here fully depends on the type of business. Typically you can expect to add details on your business location, sourcing and fulfillment, use of technology, and any partnerships or agreements that are in place.

Milestones & metrics

The milestones section is where you lay out strategic milestones to reach your business goals.

A good milestone clearly lays out the parameters of the task at hand and sets expectations for its execution. You'll want to include a description of the task, a proposed due date, who is responsible, and eventually a budget that's attached. You don't need extensive project planning in this section, just key milestones that you want to hit and when you plan to hit them.

You should also discuss key metrics, which are the numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common data points worth tracking include conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, profit, etc.

Company & team

Use this section to describe your current team and who you need to hire. If you intend to pursue funding, you'll need to highlight the relevant experience of your team members. Basically, this is where you prove that this is the right team to successfully start and grow the business. You will also need to provide a quick overview of your legal structure and history if you're already up and running.

Financial projections

Your financial plan should include a sales and revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You may not have established financials of any kind at this stage. Not to worry, rather than getting all of the details ironed out, focus on making projections and strategic forecasts for your business. You can always update your financial statements as you begin operations and start bringing in actual accounting data.

Now, if you intend to pitch to investors or submit a loan application, you'll also need a "use of funds" report in this section. This outlines how you intend to leverage any funding for your business and how much you're looking to acquire. Like the rest of your financials, this can always be updated later on.

The appendix isn't a required element of your business plan. However, it is a useful place to add any charts, tables, definitions, legal notes, or other critical information that supports your plan. These are often lengthier or out-of-place information that simply didn't work naturally into the structure of your plan. You'll notice that in these business plan examples, the appendix mainly includes extended financial statements.

Types of business plans explained

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. To get the most out of your plan, it's best to find a format that suits your needs. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan

The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used for external purposes. Typically this is the type of plan you'll need when applying for funding or pitching to investors. It can also be used when training or hiring employees, working with vendors, or in any other situation where the full details of your business must be understood by another individual.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template. It encourages you to build connections between every element of your business. It's faster to write out and update, and much easier for you, your team, and anyone else to visualize your business operations.

One-page business plan

The true middle ground between the business model canvas and a traditional business plan is the one-page business plan . This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business.

By starting with a one-page plan , you give yourself a minimal document to build from. You'll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences making it much easier to elaborate or expand sections into a longer-form business plan.

Growth planning

Growth planning is more than a specific type of business plan. It's a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, forecast, review, and refine based on your performance.

It holds all of the benefits of the single-page plan, including the potential to complete it in as little as 27 minutes . However, it's even easier to convert into a more detailed plan thanks to how heavily it's tied to your financials. The overall goal of growth planning isn't to just produce documents that you use once and shelve. Instead, the growth planning process helps you build a healthier company that thrives in times of growth and remain stable through times of crisis.

It's faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

Download a free sample business plan template

Ready to start writing your own plan but aren't sure where to start? Download our free business plan template that's been updated for 2024.

This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template is designed to make planning easy. It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales. It includes additional instructions for how to write each section and is formatted to be SBA-lender approved. All you need to do is fill in the blanks.

How to use an example business plan to help you write your own

How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started. Here's how to get the most out of a sample business plan.

Choose a business plan example from a similar type of company

You don't need to find an example business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match up exactly with the plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a plan that's related to the type of business you're starting.

For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.

Use a business plan example as a guide

Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying an example business plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your plan to be a useful tool for starting a business —and getting funding if you need it.

One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market , and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful.

You'll also look at where you stand among your competition (and everyone has competition), and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet. Looking at an example business plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business.

If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, our business planning guide is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template .

Think of business planning as a process, instead of a document

Think about business planning as something you do often , rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business. It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page.

Adjust your plan regularly to use it as a business management tool

Keep in mind that businesses that use their plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of a part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis.

If things are going well, your plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast. Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities—it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business.

Prepare to pitch your business

If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides.

Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest. Luckily we have a round-up of real-world pitch deck examples used by successful startups that you can review and reference as you build your pitch.

For more resources, check out our full Business Pitch Guide .

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How to Generate and Execute Your Next Business Idea

Millions of ideas float around every day but are never realized. What separates entrepreneurs isn’t the ability to generate a good business idea, but the passion and discipline to execute. If you are struggling to come up with an idea, don’t worry. I’ve used the four methods below to generate hundreds.

Become more observant

As you go through your day, keep your eyes and ears open for problems. Perhaps you overhear someone complaining that the bus is running late. You could create a bus tracker app to let patrons know if there is a service disruption. Or maybe you see a stranger struggling to carry all their drone equipment. You might design a case that they can use.

By remaining alert throughout the day, you will start to notice things that can be improved. Venture outside of your comfort zone. Start conversations with strangers. Get a sense of what others are struggling with.

Related: 3 Crucial Steps to Fail Proof Your New Business Idea

Leverage your experience of existing problems.

Perhaps you are getting married and realize there are no suit rentals in your town for your groomsmen. You could create an online suit rental platform for other grooms in your situation. Or maybe you just purchased a condo and need to buy home insurance. You search online and realize there’s no easy way to compare home insurance rates. You could create a website that compares rates from different insurers.

Look for problems in the industry you work in. For example, you may work in advertising and realize there is a common problem all your clients are experiencing. You have a novel solution in mind, which you could turn into a business.

Travel and look for successful local businesses

Think about whether those services or products could work where you live. I call this “location arbitrage.” Let’s say you are on vacation in New York City and see a floating barge bar on the Hudson River. Seeing how popular and successful it is, you decide to start a barge bar in Chicago on the Chicago River.

I have used this method several times for my ventures. When I was traveling in Florence, Italy, I remember walking through the markets and seeing a particular item of clothing that seemed to generate a lot of sales. I began asking around to see who the manufacturer was. After speaking with the manufacturer and negotiating pricing, I quickly created a website and started running Facebook Ads. Within a few hours, I had several sales. I took a product that was only available in Florence and put it online for the whole world to purchase.

Another example is a co-working space I founded in Denver. On a trip to Denver, I noticed there were only a few co-working spaces available, even though Denver was one of the fastest growing cities for startups. After testing the idea by putting up a website and reaching out to startups, my partner and I decided to launch the company.

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Dedicate time to brainstorming.

Set aside an hour with a blank piece of paper and think about different industries and problems. Let your mind wander and write down whatever comes to you. For example, you might start brainstorming about home improvement. One issue that comes to mind is finding specialty professionals, like a plumber, who can come to your house quickly when you need a repair. Your solution could be to create an app for on-demand home service professionals (electricians, home cleaners, plumbers, carpenters, etc.).

What do you like to do in your spare time? Can you turn one of your passions into a business? Let’s say you love tennis. You could start a business teaching tennis lessons. Think about your passions and where there might be an unmet need. You could start a business to remedy this gap.

If you leverage the above methods, you can become an idea-generating machine. Buy a small notebook and make it your “idea book.” Bring it wherever you go. Whenever you have an idea for a potential business, write it down, even if it seems outlandish. Before you know it, you will have dozens of ideas to test for your next venture.

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New Texas Patent-Case Assignment Order Targets ‘Related’ Cases (1)

By Lauren Castle

Patent cases filed in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas will be randomly assigned among a dozen judges in the district under a new order to challenge plaintiffs seeking to try cases in Judge Alan Albright’s popular courtroom.

Those seeking to move their related cases to Albright’s one-judge Waco Division after being assigned to another judge will have to convince the assigned judge with “sufficient legal and factual justification,” Chief Judge Alia Moses said in a Thursday order .

Albright has received almost a third of the nearly 500 patent suits filed in the Western District in ...

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The best ai business idea in 2024.

We recently discussed some of the best artificial intelligence business ideas. While the best business idea for you may depend on your skill set and experience, we curated a list based on opinions from business experts. You can check out our free report on 18 Best AI Business Ideas in 2024 .

Prominent AI startups: At a Glance

Anthropic, Databricks, and Abridge are among the leading AI startups. Let’s take a look at their offerings and their position in the market. You can also take a look at the  biggest publicly traded AI companies in the world .

Anthropic is an artificial intelligence company based in the United States. Dario and Daniela Amodedi represent the company as CEO and president. The company is an AI safety and research company focused on developing safe AI systems. On March 20, Anthropic  announced  a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Accenture plc (NYSE: ACN ) to develop solutions for enterprises. 1,400 engineers at Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) are being trained to facilitate organizations in fine-tuning Anthropic’s AI models deployed on AWS. Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, is already deployed at the District of Columbia Department of Health. It can create a custom chatbot, also referred to as Knowledge Assist, and is provided through Amazon Bedrock. On March 27, CNBC  announced  that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) was set to invest an additional $2.75 billion in Anthropic, bringing their total investment to $4 billion. As per Anthropic’s last valuation, the company is valued at $18.4 billion.

Databricks is another prominent artificial intelligence company based in California, United States. The data analytics company hosts a cloud-based platform that facilitates enterprises in building, deploying, and governing data and AI models. On September 12, 2023, the company  announced  its series I funding worth $500 million, bringing its valuation to $43 billion and a price per share of $73.50. On March 19, Databricks  announced  the inclusion of Lilac, a scaleable data search, clustering, and data analysis tool, to evaluate data more easily using AI. Lilac can evaluate the output from large language models to facilitate the preparation of unstructured datasets for model training. The integration will help customers build generative artificial intelligence applications using their own company data.

Abridge, founded in 2018, is a generative artificial intelligence company for clinical conversations. The AI is capable of converting clinical conversations between patients and medical professionals into clinical notes in real-time. Abridge is able to recognize and curate notes in over 14 languages and has more than 50 specialties. On February 23, Reuters  reported  that Abridge had raised $150 million in a Series C round, bringing its valuation to a staggering $850 million. The funding was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Red Point Ventures. Abridge does not stop here. On March 19, Abridge  announced  a collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA ). Abridge will leverage NVIDIA Corporation’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) resources and foundational models to deploy generative AI models that improve clinical procedures. With multiple conversations happening in a clinical setting, it is quite challenging to collate all information. Abridge aims to bridge the gap of missing data and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) will help the company achieve this objective.

AI-Backed Business Minds

Samantha North is a blogger who moved from the United Kingdom to Portugal in 2020. On September 12, 2023, Business Insider  reported  that she made $115,000 in 2022 from her blogging websites. Samantha stated that she uses artificial intelligence to type out her blogs and leverages ChatGPT to extract and test ideas. ChatGPT also helps Samantha analyze her content strategies. She has a dedicated section on AI tools on her website under “AI Mastery.” While she started her AI journey from Jasper, she switched to ChatGPT as Jasper focused more on marketing content. Eventually, she purchased ChatGPT Plus for $20 a month. Samantha now uses Claude 2 since she believes it is easier to use and is very clean and direct. She still uses ChatGPT as she has trained to model to adapt to her tone and voice.

Sultan Ali is a 25-year-old based in Pakistan. He is an AI content editor who started his journey when he was using ChatGPT to do his classwork and homework. While he was completing his MBA, he used ChatGPT for assistance but began to edit content to give it a human touch. He started offering AI content editing services on Fiverr in March 2023. On February 26, Business Insider  reported  that Sultan had completed over 150 assignments to date and generated over $3,500 in part-time side income.

How Are Existing Companies Transforming Their Offerings with AI

Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM ) and Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE ) are integrating artificial intelligence in their offerings at a rapid pace. Let’s take a look at their features.

Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) offers a range of AI tools that may help small business owners set up their ventures. The Einstein 1 Platform, a conversational AI assistant for CRM, offers a range of predictive and generative AI tools allowing business owners to develop and deploy AI experiences in Salesforce. Einstein 1 delivers over 215 billion predictions every day. As per Einstein 1’s latest update, the platform now offers knowledge creation tools, search tools, sales summaries, and call exploration tools. These tools help business owners extract important information from calls, summarize interactions, summarize sales records, and forecast strategies. On April 25, Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)  announced  the launch of new tools in Einstein AI to improve seller productivity and enhance the use of generative AI. The Copilot Analytics tool is capable of analyzing the performance of Einstein Copilot. The Copilot is also able to suggest actions to help individuals complete tasks with greater efficacy. Other tools specifically for salespeople include guidance, forecasting, follow-up emailing, and call exploration.

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) is a leading software company with a complete suite of creative applications. In addition to its suite of creative apps, the company also offers a range of AI products including Adobe Firefly, Adobe Express, Acrobat AI Assistant, and Adobe GenStudio. Adobe Firefly is capable of generating images. Using the latest Adobe Firefly Image 3 Model, individuals can generate images, add images, remove images, and expand content. It is also functional in Photoshop beta. Adobe Express, on the other hand, is an all-in-one content creation application that is capable of producing social media posts, images, videos, and flyers. It also holds editing capabilities allowing individuals to edit PDFs. Adobe Inc.’s (NASDAQ:ADBE) AI assistant for Acrobat allows individuals to extract summaries of content and important information in response to search queries. Adobe GenStudio is an all-in-one product for marketers willing to execute cross-channel campaigns. The platform can generate on-brand content using AI. It also offers marketers templates and AI-backed content review tools. You can also take a look at the  top alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud in 2024 .

Now that we have discussed AI-backed entrepreneurship, let’s take a look at the best AI business idea in 2024. You can also read our piece on the most advanced AI assistants .

A close-up of a laptop with a software engineer coding on the monitor.

Our Methodology 

To gather a list of the 18 best AI business ideas in 2024, we consulted over 10 rankings and reports on the internet. We picked the business ideas that appeared in 50% of our sources and then ranked them.

At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. ( see more details here ).

AI A/B Testing

Starting an A/B testing business backed by AI is a great option for budding entrepreneurs. Evolve AI is an example of an artificial intelligence company that offers AI A/B testing. The tool helps marketers build, deploy, analyze, and optimize AI tests. On November 9, 2023, Evolv AI announced the closing of a new equity round worth $13.3 million, bringing its total funding to $23.3 million.

To learn about other AI business ideas that align with your skill set, read our free report on the 18 best AI business ideas in 2024 .

If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as Micron but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the  cheapest AI stock .

READ NEXT:  Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks  and  Top 20 Countries Wealthy People Choose to Live In .

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published on  Insider Monkey .

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Iona University’s GaelVentures Summer Incubator Empowers Students to Launch New Business Ideas

Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation’s GaelVentures program is designed to support individuals from all disciplines to develop entrepreneurial ideas

May 31, 2024

Entrepreneurship

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – Are you looking to launch or grow your business? Iona University’s Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is offering a six-week summer incubator program plus a $2,500 stipend to help get your ideas into motion. Click here to apply today!

The 2024 GaelVentures Summer Incubator will take students and alumni on a deep dive into market research, customer discovery and product or service validation and development. By the end of the program, students will have a market-tested product or service ready for launch.

The program kicks off the week of June 24 and continues through August 1. The 2024 cohort will meet in person Monday through Thursday each week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The GaelVentures Summer Incubator offers a dynamic learning experience, offering students an opportunity to:

• Delve into comprehensive business development modules
• Attend interactive workshops led by local business professionals
• Participate in collaborative working sessions
• Receive personalized guidance through mentor sessions
• Gain valuable exposure by engaging with potential clients

The incubator will culminate with a “Demo Day,” during which participants will demonstrate their product or service to local stakeholders and mentors.

Learn More or Apply Today!

Anyone interested in learning more is invited to contact:

• Rob Kissner, GaelVentures program manager, at [email protected]
• Riana Khan’22,’23MBA, student engagement coordinator, at [email protected]

Applications are live and can be found here. This opportunity is open to all Iona students and recent alumni who have graduated in the last three years.

ABOUT IONA Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science ; LaPenta School of Business ; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences ; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation . Iona is widely recognized in prestigious rankings, including The Princeton Review’s 2024 national list of “The Best 389 Colleges” and The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse’s “2024 Best Colleges in America,” which ranked Iona at #66 in the nation overall and #8 in the nation among Catholic schools. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just six percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2023.” Iona also offers a  fully online MBA program  for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian . Connecting to its Irish heritage, the University also recently announced it is expanding abroad with a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland . A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education. 

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Why You Should Be Tracking Customer Surplus Value

• Felix Eggers,
• Marco Vriens,
• Rogier Verhulst,
• Jason S. Talwar,
• Avinash Collis

This key metric can help you measure customer loyalty.

How much value are your customers getting from your products? Net Promoter Scores are one tool to answer that question but the authors offer another: Customer Surplus Value. The idea, drawn from economics, is to ask customers how much money they’d need to be given to give up your product for a period of time. The more money it would take for them to accept, the more valuable the product. An experiment at LinkedIn shows how this measure complements NPS scores as a way of measuring customer satisfaction.

In the realm of customer feedback metrics, few have garnered as much attention and adoption as the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Introduced two decades ago by Frederick Reichheld in his seminal Harvard Business Review article, “The One Number You Need to Grow,”  NPS emerged as a revolutionary approach to capturing and predicting company growth. Heralded for its simplicity — a single question that gauges the likelihood of customers to recommend a product or service to others — it became an instrumental tool for businesses to measure customer feedback. Companies across sectors and regions adopted the metric, finding correlations between high NPS scores and enhanced profitability, retention, and growth.

• FE Felix Eggers is Professor of Marketing at Copenhagen Business School.
• MV Marco Vriens is founder and CEO of Kwantum, a brand insights and strategy consultancy.
• RV Rogier Verhulst is Sr. Director Market Research at LinkedIn.
• JT Jason S. Talwar is the Principal of Strategic Insights at NewtonX, and an Adjunct Capstone Advisor at Brown University School of Engineering.
• AC Avinash Collis is an Assistant Professor at the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

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BTEC Business - Unit 19 Pitching a new business idea (19b Assignment 2)

Subject: Business and finance

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

29 February 2024

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This bundle of lessons covers the second assignment and most of the unit, it’s a lot bigger than the 19A bundle and includes P3, P4, P5, P6, M3, D3, M2 & D2.

Sections of the business plan such as marketing plan and financial plan are covered in great detail, students learn the topics then use the structured guidance and templates to help them create their own.

Plenty of resources to help structure their way around completing the business plan, a lot of structure to ensure they have the best opportunity of achieving Distinctions.

Colourful, concise and engaging slides with an adapted assignment brief to follow!

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BTEC Business - Unit 19 Pitching a new business idea (Complete bundle)

This bundle for Edexcel's BTEC Business Level 3 (2016) - The ultimate pack for teachers delivering this course. Updated for 2021 with more engaging and colourful slides to cater for remote learning needs. This has been developed over a number of years so rest assured it will save time in planning and delivery. This bundle is filled with activities and plenty of structure for each criteria, so students have the absolute best opportunity to attain a distinction. Engage your learners and improve their transferable skills at the same time, rather than just going through theory slide after slide. Thank you

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2 ways to improve your blood sugar, from a man who reversed his type 2 diabetes and quit Ozempic

• A man with type 2 diabetes put his disease into remission by following advice from a "digital twin" app.
• The app personalizes nutrition and exercise tips, based on what he likes, and what works for him.
• He's started walking more, and adding some vinegar to his water glass. 

Ozempic isn't for everyone, and Devlin Donaldson says he is just one of those people.

After spending about 10 months on the injectable drug , the CEO said he had lost a little bit of weight — maybe five or 10 pounds — but it wasn't having a noticeable effect on his blood sugar, and he felt like giving up. (Research suggests around 1 in 6 people may not respond much to GLP1s.)

So he tried another approach.

Donaldson started:

• wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to observe how and when his blood sugar levels fluctuate
• putting on a smartwatch that tracks his sleep and his movements
• stepping on a digital scale regularly that measures weight and body composition, and
• using a blood pressure cuff to keep track of his blood pressure.

Then, with the help of a "twin" on his phone, he figured out that a few useful habits did move the needle on all those device readings.

He was one of the first members of Twin Health, a new "digital twin" health program geared toward putting diabetes in remission and also getting people off GLP-1 drugs while maintaining their weight loss. Over time, with encouragement and feedback from the twin on his phone, Donaldson developed his own very personal health strategy that helped him lose over 40 pounds , including 10 inches around his waistline.

He also reversed his diabetes, putting his disease in remission, and making it possible to quit many of his medications. His hemoglobin A1C levels, which are a key measure of how well-controlled a person's blood sugar is, went from 10.1% to 6.1%. An A1C above 6.5% is considered diabetic.

"There's all kinds of things I know now I can do to stop that rise in glucose," he told Business Insider.

Here are two of his quick tips:

1: When he sees his blood sugar levels going up, he gets up for a walk

When Donaldson's "twin" suggested he start getting in around 10,000 steps a day, he was taken aback.

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"You're crazy. That is not going to happen," he remembers thinking.

The first walk he took felt impossible. He told his wife he needed to quit and go home after about 3,000 steps.

But, over time, the feedback from his app encouraged him along.

He could graphically observe how movement improved his blood sugar. It was his own little diabetes masterclass sitting in his pocket; a window into seeing how his muscles really do take up more glucose to fuel him onward during his workouts.

Now, when he sees his blood sugar going up, he laces up.

During the pandemic, he was getting up to 15,000 steps in per day as his schedule was very flexible, with far fewer in-person meetings. Now, he tends to log more like 8,000 steps a day , he says — which experts agree is still more than enough walking to trigger some serious health benefits.

2: He also dilutes a little vinegar into his water glass

Donaldson was no stranger to apple cider vinegar when he started the Twin program. He remembers how his grandmother used to sing its praises as a health boon.

But he'd never tried it himself. Must be some sort of old wives' tale, he thought.

Twin suggested he might want to try adding a little bit of ACV to his water glass throughout the day — just a tablespoon would do. There isn't a ton of research on this technique, but some small studies suggest that the vinegar does have a very mild effect on blood sugar control.

Donaldson sips his slowly throughout the day. He isn't a huge fan of the taste, but it's tolerable.

Apple cider vinegar isn't totally without risks, especially for people who drink it straight.

"It's very acidic," registered dietician Nicola Guess, who studies type 2 diabetes remission and treatment through diet interventions at Oxford University, told Business Insider.

Twin Health said it does not recommend ACV to people with acid reflux, dental problems, or "other medical conditions impacted by high-acidity foods."

These days, Donaldson doesn't go anywhere without his Twin. He feels empowered by it, even if he can't immediately feel or see the impact it is having on his body.

"At the end of the day, you're the one going for the walk and deciding what to eat and all of these different things," he said. "But you wouldn't have known as much without it."

Watch: Every piece of gear you need to summit Everest, according to a Sherpa guide

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Top Obama adviser on De Niro’s appearance at Trump trial: ‘Who thought this was a good idea?’

• Updated: May. 30, 2024, 7:59 a.m. |
• Published: May. 30, 2024, 7:48 a.m.

Actor Robert De Niro campaigns for President Joe Biden outside former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York, Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey) AP

• Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A top Democratic strategist and senior adviser to former President Barack Obama , David Axelrod , is scratching his head over Robert De Niro ’s recent visit to the courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial.

Axelrod, who’s now a commentator on CNN, argues “whoever at Biden HQ directed De Niro’s performance Tuesday probably should have left it on the cutting room floor.” Simply put: The famous actor did nothing to shore up support among voters that polls show Joe Biden is losing and it turned into a spectacle that Trump and his supporters used to their advantage.

Axelrod wrote on CNN :

The stated goal was to highlight Trump’s trespasses on democracy and general unfitness for office, but the scene quickly devolved into a shouting match between De Niro and a small crowd of hecklers who roasted him as he roasted Trump. Great fodder for “Saturday Night Live,” but not necessarily the campaign.

Fingers were pointed between De Niro and the Trump-loving hecklers. F-bombs flew. And those images and De Niro’s impulse to plunge into the legal fray hours before the case would go to the jury became the story.

Who thought this was a good idea?

I love De Niro’s work and agree with many of his comments. But given the arm’s length distance the White House has kept from the whole sordid mess at 100 Centre Street, they seemed grossly ill-timed. (It’s also a little bewildering why Team Biden, struggling with younger voters, cast De Niro as its point man here. After all, nothing speaks to Gen Z more than yet another octogenarian.)

Trump did in fact turn to the cameras outside the courthouse Wednesday to mock De Niro and laud his supporters for shouting him down at the event.

“And then they have a protest of Robert De Niro yesterday. He’s a fool, he’s a broken-down fool. Standing out there. He got MAGA-ed yesterday. He got a big dose of it,” Trump said, shortly after the jury was sent to decide on a verdict in the case.

De Niro was joined by two former police officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, former Washington, D.C., officer Michael Fanone and former Capitol officer Harry Dunn, who spoke of their personal experiences. Fanone described his injuries suffered at the hands of the mob of Trump supporters seeking to halt Congress’ certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign. On Monday, Trump called the case  brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “scam” and “witch hunt.”

The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the sexual encounter ever happened.

Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees.  Prosecutors have described it as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories Trump feared could help his opponent in the 2016 race,  particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.

Trump has acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment and that it was designed to stop Daniels from going public about the alleged encounter.  But Trump has previously said it had nothing to do with the campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Stories by Matt Arco

• Elon Musk proves he’s gone full MAGA after Trump verdict
• Ex-GOP Congressman: Trump is a ‘scared … little boy right now’
• Trump campaign to crucial GOP candidate: You’re cooked

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