Entrepreneurs First Starting Out:

First Things First:
When first starting out entrepreneurs for the most part have some common goals and want to develop ideas into self-sustaining financially viable businesses. One of the first goals as an entrepreneur you should have is to think about your concept or idea thoroughly and a good way to do this is to write a business plan. The process of developing a business plan will really get you into the trenches thinking about your business from the inside out.

Let's face it you wouldn't go on a car trip to a place you have never been without using a map and the same applies in business and your business plan is your map.

Writing a business plan may seem like a tremendous task at first, but it doesn't have to be, to get your feet wet start out small by doing some basic research in your industry.

Business Plan:
Some key starting points to think about when writing a business plan are describing your company's business, providing a description of your products or services, explaining what makes you different from your competition, what is the price point of your product or service, describe your marketplace, are there any trends that are currently standing out, what is the financial history of the market you are in, can you find any information indicating any projections of where your industry in terms of market share and revenues are going, what are the potential sales channels for your business, who are your typical customers, what is your competition, do you have a competitive advantage over your competition, thinking about who is involved in your company and exactly what they will contribute, will you have any partners or is it just yourself, writing bios of each person that is involved in your company, establishing some basic financial information, what are your projected profits and losses, what is your projected cash flow, what your current balance sheet will look like, how much capital are you looking to raise and lastly what is the approximate valuation of your business.

The above examples are some ideas to get you started in going in the right direction. Once you have started your business plan you should have a much better idea of where you are going and what you will need to do.

Helpful Tools:
If you are really serious about your business than you should create a professional business plan and a great tool to help make this easier is Business Plan Pro.

Business Plan Pro helps you step by step with instructions and examples to build your plan quickly and easily. There are over 500 sample business plans to give you a jump-start.

Business Plan Pro offers the most preferred business plan format to present to banks, lenders, and VCs detailing exactly what they are looking for. With Business Plan Pro you will have everything you need to define your business, run what-if scenarios, compare industry ratios, set schedules, create personnel and marketing plans, and find funding.