One Page Business Plan Writing Guide & Ready to Use Template

Whether you are starting the next big thing with a big team or a micro business that can be operated right from the corner of your home, you do need a business plan. 

A business plan is an essential document for any business because it acts as a roadmap to the success of the business, and guides you at each stage to make the right decisions. Moreover, it helps you stay focused, plan things in advance and most important of all generate funding. 

Simple One Page Business Plan Vs Detailed Business Plan

Which one to use when?

Business plan in its true sense is a detailed document and may contain tens of pages, however, if you are a first time entrepreneur and do not want to spend too much time on creating a detailed document, you can get started with a simple one page business plan. Please, note that “one page business plan” may not exactly be just a single page and if it goes up to two or three pages, it’s still OK.

This one page business plan can not be the best alternative to an actual detailed business plan in many cases. For instance,  when you are going to start fundraising, you cannot use this document. Instead, you will need a detailed business plan that covers all the aspects of business, i.e. historical data, current status and expected numbers. 

A one page business plan best serves the situations when you have time limit to start a business or train your sales and marketing teams to plan targeted campaigns. And yes, a one page business plan can also be considered as the first step to develop a detailed business plan. 

As a fact of the matter, business plans need to be updated periodically, and getting started with a one page business plan is a great way to outline the most important points and expand each section gradually.

Let’s check what it takes to write a business plan and how to start developing this quick and simple business plan.

Before Creating a Business Plan an Entrepreneur Must Research

There are few things which must be well researched before starting working on a business plan and here is the list:

1- The Business Idea

You might have a killer idea in your mind, but it may not necessarily be equally feasible for the market in reality. Make sure to spend good time researching your business idea and calculating the feasibility of the same.

2- Market Research

Market research is the most important step after verifying the feasibility of a business idea. Market research includes researching consumer behavior, trends, competition, market saturation, etc. This research enables you to come up with the best offers and gain a competitive edge.

3- Personal Audit

It’s very important to conduct a quick research on yourself to identify your own strengths and weaknesses. It will help you identify things that you can do yourself and things that will require help from someone else. Depending on your findings you might want to have a co-founder or a partner onboard or consider outsourcing some tasks.

Once you have done this research, developing a simple one page business plan will be a quick and easy affair.

How to Write a Simple One Page Business Plan

With all the data from your research, all you need to do is to put a summary of this data into following sections.

1- Vision

A quick note about what you want to do with this business idea and where you want it to be at the end of the year 1, 2, and up to 5 or 10? You might want to expand your business gradually or aggressively or else you may have plans to build a profitable venture and then sell it out. Summarize all these details into a single paragraph.

2- Mission Statement 

It’s a single sentence that captures your company’s purpose; a catchy slogan that can enhance the brand value. Here are some really great examples of best mission statements for your inspiration.

3- Objectives

Objectives are the short term goals, i.e. number of users you should acquire in the first, second, third and last quarter of the year, expected quarterly sales & profits, % of market share etc. 

4- Strategic Plan

A quick list of strategies you will be using to achieve the objectives listed above. For instance if you are starting a bakery business, you need to list the following points.

• Marketing channels to promote your brand
• Vendors for creating branding & marketing materials 
• List of suppliers 
• Possible partners, i.e. supermarkets, cafes etc.
• Packaging
• Storage
• Transportation

Describe how you plan to execute the processes, i.e. when to buy materials, how much to stock, when to restock, how many products to be made, and when and how to transport the goods.

The strategic plan for each business will differ, i.e. the strategies that may work for a cleaning business might not be equally effective for a photography business or a real estate business.

5- Financial Plan

This section requires careful consideration and you need to list the following:

• Cost of starting up the business
• Running costs
• Expected sales revenue
• Expected profit
• How to increase profitability, i.e. by cutting costs or selling more

6- Action Plan

Action plan in the one page business plan should be a simple table of tasks with approximate deadlines, responsible person, and status. 

This is how a simple one page business plan looks like.

Download Ready to Use One Page Business Plan

Still not sure how to start developing a quick one page business plan for your new business? We have created a ready to use template of one page business plan to make it even easier for you.

The Bottom Line

One page business plan or a simple business plan consisting of a couple of pages cannot cover all the details of your business, and so may not answer a lot of benchmarking concerns, but it is a great way to get started and you can always develop a detailed business plan out of this simple one page business plan on a later stage.