Write it for the person who will read it. For a bank or a MUDRA loan (up to ₹10 lakh, or ₹20 lakh under Tarun Plus if you repaid an earlier Tarun loan), write a project report: the business, the market, the cost of the project and how it will be funded, and three years of projected profit and loss, cash flow and loan repayment. For investors, write a pitch deck instead, in Sequoia's order: company purpose, problem, solution, why now, market potential, competition, business model, team, financials. For yourself, a one-page Lean Canvas is enough. Either way, start with the customer and the problem, put the numbers in a spreadsheet with every assumption written beside them, and rewrite the plan once customers show which assumptions were wrong. The US SBA guide walks through the traditional sections one by one.
Part of Business plan on eChai Explore.
6 resources, 6 link-checked.
The SBA's guide to the two kinds of business plan, traditional and lean startup, with what goes in each section of a traditional plan and example plans.
From sba.gov by U.S. Small Business Administration 15 min
Steve Blank is the person who most clearly made the case against planning everything and then unveiling it in one big moment. His argument is that the plan you build before you talk to real customers is mostly untested assumptions, so a loud coordinated launch bets the company on guesses. If your co-founder wants the big reveal, this is the sharpest starting point for why shipping quietly and learning first is usually the safer bet.
From steveblank.com by Steve Blank 5 min read
The official MUDRA site for loans to non-corporate, non-farm micro and small enterprises: up to ₹10 lakh, and up to ₹20 lakh under Tarun Plus for those who have repaid an earlier Tarun loan. It also warns that MUDRA uses no agents or middlemen.
From mudra.org.in by MUDRA (Ministry of Finance)
The de facto global standard for pitch deck structure, straight from Sequoia. The same outline Airbnb's founders used; if you follow one template, follow this one.
From Sequoia Capital by Sequoia Capital 10 min read
A one page template that forces you to write down the problem, the customer, and why you are placed to solve it, all on a single sheet you can revise fast. Filling it in surfaces the weak spots in your idea quickly, especially whether the customer group is reachable and the problem is specific. Use it as a scoring sheet for a new idea rather than a formal business plan.
From leanfoundry.com by Ash Maurya one page
The actual one-page canvas, free to print or copy into a doc, so you can fill it in within the hour instead of reading a whole book first. Use it before your first round of customer conversations to write down what you think is true, then use it again after to see what actually changed.
From LEANSTACK by Ash Maurya
The same ground, over in Money, pricing & unit economics, our D2C track.
How founders actually use AI for this, over in Finance & Accounting.
The same ground, over in Close deals and price right, our GTM track.
The same ground, over in Founder money foundations, our Wealth track.
