tech start up business plan template

Technology Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Technology Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your own Technology business plan.

We have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their Technology businesses.

Technology Business Plan Example & Template

Below is a Technology business plan template and sample to help you create each section of your own business plan.

Executive Summary

Business overview.

Kearney Tech Inc., located in Houston, Texas is a tech startup that focuses on developing and commercializing new artificial intelligence (AI) technology applications designed for small-to-medium sized businesses. The company has created proprietary technology that helps businesses improve their profitability by using AI to increase customer engagement. We offer multiple products, including AI hardware, marketing AI software, and CRM AI software. Many of our most basic services are free, but the rest can be accessed by paying a subscription fee. By providing flexible and affordable subscription options for our clients, Kearney Tech Inc. aims to be the next big technology company in the AI space for small and medium-sized businesses.

Kearney Tech Inc. was founded and is led by Abigail Kearney. Abigail has been a senior software engineer for nearly 10 years and has extensive experience in artificial intelligence and machine learning. In addition to her experience, she has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and an MBA. Her education and experience are sure to lead Kearney Tech Inc. to success.

Product Offering

Kearney Tech Inc. will showcase a variety of different applications for its AI technology that companies can utilize to increase their customer engagement from day one. Businesses can choose the platform package that works for them, based on a freemium subscription pricing structure.

The following are the services that Kearney Tech Inc. will provide:

• AI Hardware
• Marketing AI Software
• Customer Relationship Management AI Software
• Customer Support AI Software
• Technology Training: Training sessions on how to use our AI solutions and integrate them into their businesses

Customer Focus

Kearney Tech Inc. will serve small to medium-sized businesses within a 30-mile radius of Houston, Texas. Many of the businesses in our target demographic are startups looking to expand their reach and thus would benefit from technology that can increase their customer base.

Management Team

Kearney Tech Inc. will also employ an experienced assistant to work as a business analyst and help with various administrative duties around the office. She will also hire several developers, salesmen, and other administrative staff to assist her.

Success Factors

Kearney Tech Inc. will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

• Management: Abigail Kearney has been extremely successful working in the technology industry and will be able to use her previous experience to provide the best service experience. Her unique qualifications will serve customers in a much more sophisticated manner than Kearney Tech Inc.’s competitors.
• Relationships: Abigail Kearney knows many of the local leaders, business managers, and other influencers within Houston, Texas. With her 10 years of experience and good relationships with business leaders in the area, she will be able to develop an initial client base.
• Proprietary technology : The company has developed proprietary AI technology that will be used to add new data sources, expand on valuable insights, launch advanced features like benchmarking, provide predictive and prescriptive analytics, and ensure self-guided data discovery.
• Client-oriented service: Kearney Tech Inc. will have full-time customer service and sales managers to keep in contact with clients and answer their everyday questions.

Financial Highlights

Kearney Tech Inc. is seeking a total funding of $400,000 of debt capital to open its office. The funding will be dedicated to office design, software development, marketing, and working capital. Specifically, these funds will be used as follows:

• Office design/build: $50,000
• Software development: $150,000
• Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities): $150,000
• Marketing costs: $25,000
• Working capital: $25,000

The following graph below outlines the pro forma financial projections for Kearney Tech Inc.:

Company Overview

Who is kearney tech inc..

Abigail began researching what it would take to create her own technology company and did a thorough analysis of the costs, market, demographics, and competition. Abigail has compiled enough information to develop her business plan in order to approach investors.

Kearney Tech Inc.’s History

Once her market analysis was complete, Abigail Kearney began surveying the local vacant office space and located an ideal location to house the technology company. Abigail Kearney incorporated Kearney Tech Inc. as a Limited Liability Corporation in April 2023.

Since incorporation, the company has achieved the following milestones:

• Located available office space for rent
• Developed the company’s name, logo, and website
• Determined equipment and necessary supplies
• Began recruiting key employees

Kearney Tech Inc. Services

Industry analysis.

As of 2021, the global technology industry was valued at approximately $5.2T. Of all countries worldwide, the United States currently has the largest technology market, with 32% of the market share at $1.7T. The technology industry in the U.S. accounts for a large part of the nation’s economy.

The Information Technology market can be segmented by categories such as software, devices, infrastructure IT and business services, emerging technology, and telecom services. In the United States, IT and business services hold the greatest market share (30%), followed by software (20%) and telecom services (20%).

Market drivers include the economy, employment rates, and the digital transformation of daily life for a growing number of people and businesses worldwide. Corporations and organizations are seeking IT service providers that can help improve their software, cybersecurity, data, and infrastructure. Technology companies that can provide products and services that cater to these issues can be competitive in the constantly evolving market.

Technology is an integral part of society. Developments in AI and machine learning are essential to keep society moving forward and make businesses more efficient. Therefore, businesses will always be in need of AI solutions to bring in more customers and streamline their services and products. According to Market Watch, the Technology industry is set to grow at a CAGR of 25.73% from now until 2027. Very few industries see this growth, which shows how much demand there is for technological solutions. Therefore, we expect Kearney Tech Inc. to see great success in our local market.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

Kearney Tech Inc. will serve the small and medium-sized businesses of Houston, Texas, and the surrounding areas.

Many small businesses in the community are startups or established enterprises looking to expand their reach and thus would benefit from technology that can increase their customer engagement.

Customer Segmentation

Kearney Tech Inc. will primarily target the following customer profiles:

• Small businesses
• Medium-sized businesses

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Kearney Tech Inc. will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.  

Tekuserv has been a reliable technology company in Houston, Texas for more than fifteen years. The company is known for its wide range of technology solutions that serve many small-to-medium-sized businesses. With its large number of experts focused on delivering customer satisfaction, the organization maintains its high standard of developing quality products and providing exceptional customer service. Tekuserv provides business software on a freemium subscription basis. It develops enterprise technology solutions with a focus on customer relationship management.  

Prime AI Business Solutions

Prime AI Business Solutions is a technology development company in Houston, Texas. In business for several years, the company has developed highly-rated AI solutions used by many well-known businesses in a variety of industries. Prime AI Business Solutions now offers a range of AI hardware and software products geared toward helping businesses of all sizes increase their customer base. The company has also introduced a “pay-as-you-grow” pricing model that scales to provide users with more support as they scale up.  

AICE Developments

AICE stands for Artificial Intelligence for Customer Engagement. AICE Developments is also a local technology company that manufactures and distributes a variety of technology products. AICE Developments was established in 2009 in Houston, Texas, providing integrated AI applications and platform services. Its products include applications and infrastructure offerings delivered through various IT deployment models, including on-premise deployments, cloud-based deployments, and hybrid deployments. The company serves automotive, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, utilities, construction, etc. It provides AI solutions for enterprise marketing and customer engagement.

Competitive Advantage

Kearney Tech Inc. will be able to offer the following advantages over the competition:

• Proprietary technology: The company has developed proprietary AI technology that will be used to add new data sources, expand on valuable insights, launch advanced features like benchmarking, provide predictive and prescriptive analytics, and ensure self-guided data discovery.

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

Kearney Tech Inc. will offer a unique value proposition to its clientele:

• Service built on long-term relationships
• Big-firm expertise in a small-firm environment
• Thorough knowledge of the clients and their varying needs
• Proprietary technology developed by skilled software engineers

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Kearney Tech Inc. is as follows:

Kearney Tech Inc. understands that the best promotion comes from satisfied customers. The company will encourage its clients to refer other businesses by providing economic or financial incentives for every new client produced. This strategy will increase in effectiveness after the business has already been established.

Social Media

Kearney Tech Inc. will invest heavily in a social media advertising campaign. The brand manager will create the company’s social media accounts and invest in ads on all social media platforms. It will use targeted marketing to appeal to the target demographics.

Website/SEO

Kearney Tech Inc. will invest heavily in developing a professional website that displays all of the features and benefits of the technology company. It will also invest heavily in SEO so that the brand’s website will appear at the top of search engine results.

Direct Mail

Kearney Tech Inc. will blanket businesses with direct mail pieces. These pieces will provide general information on Kearney Tech Inc., offer discounts, and/or provide other incentives for companies to use the AI platform.

Kearney Tech Inc.’s pricing will be on par with competitors so clients feel they receive great value when purchasing the technology.

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for Kearney Tech Inc.:

Operation Functions:

• Abigail Kearney will be the Owner and CEO of the company. She will oversee all the operations and executive functions of the company. In the beginning, she will also provide customer support and market/sell AI products to potential clients.
• Abigail will employ an experienced assistant to work as a business analyst and help with various administrative duties around the office.
• Abigail will also hire several developers to maintain and develop AI products and services.
• Abigail will also hire a solid sales team to sell our products to potential clients. As the company grows, she will also hire a team that is solely dedicated to customer service.

Milestones:

Kearney Tech Inc. will have the following milestones completed in the next six months.

5/2023 – Finalize lease agreement

6/2023 – Design and build out Kearney Tech Inc.

7/2023 – Hire and train initial staff

8/2023 – Kickoff of promotional campaign

9/2023 – Launch Kearney Tech Inc.

10/2023 – Reach break-even

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

Kearney Tech Inc.’s revenues will come primarily from its technology solution subscription sales. The company will use a freemium subscription model, in which basic functions can be used by any company for free. Additional solutions and support will be available in a tiered package model based on the enterprises’ size and the number of users.

The office lease, equipment, supplies, and labor expenses will be the key cost drivers of Kearney Tech Inc. Ongoing marketing expenditures are also notable cost drivers for Kearney Tech Inc.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Key assumptions.

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and pay off the startup business loan.

• Average number of clients per month
• Annual rent: $20,000

Financial Projections

Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, technology business plan faqs, what is a technology business plan.

A technology business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your technology business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections. You can easily complete your Technology business plan using our Technology Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Technology Businesses?

There are a number of different kinds of technology businesses, some examples include: Network technology, Software technology, and Customer relationship technology.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Technology Business Plan?

Technology businesses are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Start a Technology Business?

Starting a technology business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Technology Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed technology business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your technology business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your technology business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Technology Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your technology business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws.

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your technology business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms.

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations.

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events.

7. Acquire Necessary Technology Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your technology business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation.

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your technology business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising.

Learn more about how to start a successful Technology business: How to Start a Tech Company

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How to Write an IT Tech Startup Business Plan [Sample Template]

Are you about starting an IT tech startup? If YES, here is a detailed sample IT tech startup business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE . If you are a software developer or you have a background in the ICT industry and you are looking for An IT business to start, then you need to look far because there are loads of businesses in the industry and one of them is software as a service (or SaaS) company.

Software as a service (or SaaS) is an emerging paradigm business that enables software to be delivered as a service. This is an arrangement that enables companies to expand their network capacity, and run applications directly on a vendor’s network, offer a host of advantages with the most primary being radically lowering IT costs.

The lower budgetary requirements and commitments allow even smaller companies to piece together an IT project without spending on purchasing legacy server, and storage systems. However, due to the technical nature of this business, it would be wise to consult with a business consultant before starting off.

If your business concept is a great one, the business consultant would offer you tips and suggestions on the way forward. Below is a sample IT tech startup company business plan template that can help you successfully write your own with little or no stress.

A Sample IT Tech Startup Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

An IT technology company (often tech company) is a type of business entity that focuses on the development and manufacturing of technology products, or providing technology as a service. “Technology”, in this context, has come to mean electronics-based technology. This can include businesses relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce.

For the purpose of this business plan, we will be looking at software development as a service. Software as a service (or SaaS) is part of the Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry and players in this industry consist of companies that are into ERP software, bi software, crm software, scm software and other software development and they may decide to strictly adopt the Software as a services (SaaS) Business model.

A recent report published by IBISWorld shows that the Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry has grown steadily due to favorable demand conditions caused by high corporate profit and investment. Over the five years to 2018, industry revenue rose at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent, driven by businesses’ increased technological complexity and the eagerness to adopt efficiency-enhancing software.

The report also shows that many industry products, such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning software systems, have become basic tools in the management of large companies. In 2018, industry revenue is expected to rise 2.6 percent to $55.4 billion. The world’s largest software companies have spent the past five years acquiring high-performing enterprise software vendors, cloud companies and data.

The report further states that over the past five years, the Business Analytics & Enterprise Software Publishing in the US industry has grown by 7.1 percent to reach revenue of $55bn in 2018. In the same timeframe, the number of businesses has grown by 10.0 percent and the number of employees has grown by 10.2 percent.

The Business Analytics and Enterprise Software Publishing industry is indeed a growing industry and is gaining ground in most countries of the world. Statistics has it that in the united states of America alone, there are about 2,869 registered and licensed business analytics and enterprise software publishing companies (Software as a services (SaaS) business model inclusive) responsible for employing about 139,347 people and the industry rakes $55 billion annually.

The industry is projected to grow at 7.1 percent annual growth within 2013 and 2018. The companies holding the largest market share in the Business Analytics & Enterprise Software Publishing in the US industry include SAP SE, International Business Machines Corporation, Salesforce.com Inc. and Oracle Corporation.

Some of the factors that encourage entrepreneurs to start their own Software as a service (SaaS) business could be the growing recognition of economic and operational benefits and the efficiency of this business model. As companies ease out gradually from the economic uncertainties and financial shackles, widespread adoption of Software as a service is in the offing.

The successful adoption of this technology concept will pave the way for mass enterprise adoption of Software as a service in the upcoming years. The transition of enterprises from virtual machines to the cloud will additionally extend the impetus required for strong growth of Software as a service (SaaS).

Poised to score the maximum gains will be end-to end cloud-computing solutions that offer complete functionalities ranging from integration of internal and external clouds, automation of business-critical tasks, and streamlining of business processes and workflow, among others.

Over and above, starting a software as a services (SaaS) company requires professionalism and good grasp of how the ICT industry works. Besides, you would need to get the required certifications and license and also meet the standard security expected for players in the industry in the United States.

2. Executive Summary

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is an IT tech startup that will specialize in offering software as a service (SaaS). The business will be based in Overland Park – Kansas and we were able to secure a well – positioned and standard office facility.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is a client – focused and result driven IT tech startup company that is into ERP software, bi software, crm software, scm software and other software development. We will provide broad – based software development services at an affordable fee that won’t in any way put a hole in the pocket of our clients. We will offer standard and professional services to all to our clients.

At Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc., our client’s best interest would always come first, and everything we do is guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hire professionals who are experienced in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in general.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will at all times demonstrate her commitment to sustainability, both individually and as a firm, by actively participating in our communities and integrating sustainable business practices wherever possible. We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely.

Our plan is to position the business to become the leading brand in software as a service (SaaS) business in the whole of Overland Park – Kansas, and also to be amongst the top 10 IT tech startup companies in the United States of America within the first 10 years of operation. This might look too tall a dream but we are optimistic that this will surely be realized.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will be owned and managed by Joel Rogers. He has a Bachelor of Technology. He is a certified SOC 2 – Trust (SOC 2 is designed specifically for SaaS operations) and has over 10 years’ experience working in related industry as a senior software engineer prior to starting Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.

3. Our Products and Services

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is going to offer varieties of services within the scope of the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in the United States of America. We are well prepared to make profits from the industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the United States to achieve our business goals, aim and ambition.

Our business offerings are listed below;

• ERP software development
• BI software development
• CRM software development
• SCM software development
• Other software development

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

• Our vision is to build an IT tech startup company that will be among the forerunners when it comes to offering software as a service (SaaS) in the world.
• Our mission is as an IT tech startup with bias in software as a services (SaaS) is to help a wide range of clients develop customized software that will help them simplify their businesses and operations.

Our Business Structure

Ordinarily we would have settled for two or three staff members, but as part of our plan to build a standard IT tech startup company in Overland Park – Kansas, we have perfected plans to get it right from the beginning which is why we are going to ensure that we have competent, honest and hardworking employees to occupy all the available positions in our firm.

The kind of IT tech startup company we intend building and the business goals we want to achieve is what informed the amount we are ready to pay for the best hands available in and around Overland Park – Kansas as long as they are willing and ready to work with us.

Below is the business structure that we will build Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. on;

• Chief Executive Officer
• Programmers and Software Developers

Admin and HR Manager

• Digital Marketers (Marketing and Sales Executive)
• Customer Care Executive / Front Desk Officer

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Office:

• Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results
• Creating, communicating, and implementing the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
• Responsible for providing direction for the business
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization

Programmers and Software Developer

• Responsible for designing, installing, testing and maintenance of software systems for the organization
• Identifying areas for modification in existing programs and subsequently developing these modifications
• Writing and implementing efficient code
• Determining operational practicality
• Developing quality assurance procedures
• Training users
• Working closely with other developers, UX designers, business and systems analysts
• Presenting ideas for system improvements, including cost proposals
• Working closely with analysts, designers and staff
• Producing detailed specifications and writing the programme codes
• Maintaining and upgrading existing systems once they are up and running
• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Regularly hold meetings with key stakeholders to review the effectiveness of HR Policies, Procedures and Processes
• Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
• Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
• Defining job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carrying out induction for new team members
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
• Oversee the smooth running of the daily office activities.

Marketing and Sales Executive

• Identify, prioritize, and reach out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
• Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts
• Writing winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with company policy
• Responsible for handling business research, marker surveys and feasibility studies for clients
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
• Document all customer contact and information
• Represent the company in strategic meetings
• Help increase sales and growth for the company
• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• create reports from the information concerning the financial transactions as recorded
• Prepare the income statement and balance sheet using the trial balance and ledgers
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensuring compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for the company
• Serves as internal auditor for the company

Technical Help Desk Officer

• Provide technical assistance and support for incoming queries and issues related to our software
• Identifies problems and issues by performing relevant research using the appropriate tools and by following established procedures.
• Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s services
• Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the company’s promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to clients

6. SWOT Analysis

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. engaged the services of a professional in the area of business consulting and structuring to assist the firm in building a well – structured IT tech startup company that can favorably compete in the highly competitive business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry.

Part of what the business consultant did was to work with the management of our organization in conducting a SWOT analysis for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.;

We can boast of a competent technical team that has analytical and critical thinking skills that can help them find creative solutions for our clients. Aside from the synergy that exists in our carefully selected workforce, we have a very strong online presence and we are well positioned to attract loads of clients from the first day we open our doors for business.

One of the weaknesses that is obvious to us is the lack of capacity and inability to compete with big players in the industry especially as it relates to economy of scales.

• Opportunities:

The opportunities in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry is massive considering the fact that the world is going the way of technology, and software as a service (SaaS) is indispensable in the value chain of the info tech industry.

Some of the threats that we are likely going to face as an IT tech startup business operating in the United States are hosting issues, installation or upkeep troubles, piracy, unfavorable government policies , and global economic downturn which usually affects purchasing/spending power.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

The advancement we are enjoying in our world today can be attributed to the advancement of technology. Technology has indeed given leverage to all aspects of human endeavor. To start with, it is the advancement of technology that landed man in the moon.

It is the advancement of technology that made communication either via the telephone or computer easier and faster. It is the advancement of technology that made transportation faster and perhaps cheaper. It is the advancement of technology that made the manufacturing of goods faster and cheaper, etc.

The technology industry is so wide and vibrant and there is still room large enough for those who are interested in the industry to come in and create their own impact. One thing is certain, the world will always celebrate any inventor who is able to invent machines or devices that can ease the process of doing things.

8. Our Target Market

We are aware that the nature of our business is geared to words serving B2B clients, hence Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will initially serve small to medium sized business, from new ventures to well established businesses and individual clients, but that does not in any way stop us from growing to compete with the leading IT tech startup companies that offer software as a services (SaaS) in the United States.

As a standard and licensed IT tech startup company that offers software as a service (SaaS), Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will develop software apps for the following clients;

• Financial services providers
• Insurance companies
• Businesses in the health sector
• Supply chain businesses
• Other related businesses that may need software as a services (SaaS) technology

Our competitive advantage

The level of competition in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry does not in any way depend on the location of the business since most companies that offer software as a service (SaaS), can operate from any part of the world and still effectively compete in the industry.

We are quite aware that to be highly competitive in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry means that we should be able to develop software apps that will help simplify business and operation process for clients.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. might be a new entrant into the industry in the United States of America, but the management staff are considered gurus. They are highly qualified software programmers and developers in the United States. These are part of what will count as a competitive advantage for us.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category in the industry meaning that they will be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our aims and objectives.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

We are mindful of the fact that there is fast – growing competition amongst IT tech startup companies and other players in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry in the United States of America and around the globe; hence we have been able to hire some of the best business developer cum digital marketers to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited base on their vast experience in the industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of the organization. We will also ensure that our excellent job deliveries speak for us in the market place; we want to build a standard IT tech startup company that offer software as a services (SaaS), that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

• Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to all the companies, institutions and organizations within and outside the United States
• Promptness in bidding for software as a service (SaaS) contracts from companies, and organizations within and outside the United States
• Advertise our business in relevant programming magazines, radio and TV stations
• List our business on local directories/yellow pages
• Attend international software as a services (SaaS) developers related, seminars, and business fairs et al
• Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets
• Leverage on the internet to promote our business
• Join related associations around us with the main aim of networking and marketing our services; we are likely going to get referrals from such networks.

Sources of Income

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the business analytics and enterprise software publishing industry and we are going to ensure that we do all it takes to attract clients on a regular basis.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will generate income by offering the following services and products

10. Sales Forecast

We are well positioned to take on the available market in Overland Park – Kansas and in the cyberspace and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first six months of operation and grow the business and our clientele base beyond Overland Park to other cities in the United States of America and in the cyberspace.

We have been able to examine the business analytics and enterprise software publishing market, we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. Below are the sales projections for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc., it is based on the location of our business and the services we will be offering;

• First Fiscal Year (FY1):  $300,000
• Second Fiscal Year (FY2):  $550,000
• Third Fiscal Year (FY3):  $1.5 million

N.B : This projection was done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and internet shutdown within the period stated above. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We have been able to work with our brand and publicity consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market. We are set to take the software as a services (SaaS) industry by storm which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our IT tech startup company.

Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.;

• Place adverts on both print (community – based newspapers and magazines) and electronic media platforms
• Sponsor relevant community – based events/programs
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our brand
• Install our billboards in strategic locations all around Overland Park
• Ensure that all our workers wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our company’s logo et al.

12. Our Pricing Strategy

At Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. we will keep our product and service fees a little bit below the average market rate by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to startups, nonprofits, cooperatives, and small social enterprises who want to develop software apps for their business.

• Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will make available to her clients;

• Payment via bank transfer
• Payment with cash
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via mobile money
• Payment via Point of Sales Machines (POS Machines)
• Payment via check

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment without any stress on their part.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

These are the areas we are looking towards spending our startup capital on;

• The total fee for incorporating the Business in the United States of America – $750.
• Legal expenses for obtaining licenses and permits as well as the accounting services P.O.S machines – $3,300.
• The total cost for payment of insurance policy covers (general liability, workers’ compensation and property casualty) coverage at a total premium – $9,400.
• The amount needed to acquire a suitable Office facility in a business district for 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) – $40,000.
• Marketing expenses for the grand opening of Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. in the amount of $3,500 and as well as flyer printing (2,000 flyers at $0.04 per copy) for the total amount of $3,580.
• The total cost for hiring Business Consultant – $2,500
• The cost for equipping the office (computers, software apps and hardware such as Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines, internet server, printers, fax machines, furniture, telephones, filing cabins, safety gadgets and electronics et al) – $25,000
• The cost of launching our official website – $800
• Budget for paying at least two employees for 3 months and utility bills – $75,000
• Additional expenditure (Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions et al) – $2,500
• Miscellaneous – $10,000

Going by the report from the research and feasibility studies, we will need about Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand US Dollars ($250,000) to set up a small scale but standard IT tech startup company in the United States of America.

Generating Funds/Startup Capital for Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is owned and managed by Joel Rogers. He may likely welcome partners later which is why he has decided to restrict the sourcing of the startup capital for the business to just three major sources.

• Generate part of the startup capital from personal savings
• Source for soft loans from family members and friends
• Apply for loan from the bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $50,000 (Personal savings $40,000 and soft loan from family members $10,000) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $200,000 from our bank. All the papers and documents have been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

The future of a business lies in the number of loyal customers that they have, the capacity and competence of their employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business (company), then it won’t be too long before the business closes shop.

One of our major goals of starting Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running. We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to offer our software as a services (SaaS) a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and we are prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.

Joel Rogers® Technologies, Inc. will make sure that the right foundation, structures and processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and retraining of our workforce is at the top burner of our business strategy.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of three years or more as determined by the board of the organization. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List/Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check : Completed
• Business Incorporation: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Leasing a standard and well positioned office facility in the heart of Overland Park – Kansas: Completed
• Generating part of the start up capital from the founder: Completed
• Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
• Writing of Business Plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
• Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
• Printing of Promotional Materials: Completed
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the needed software applications, internet server, furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
• Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
• Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
• Establishing business relationship with vendors and key players in the industry: In Progress.

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Template Highlights

• There are ten sections, including the executive summary, introduction to your company, a market analysis, the problem you want to solve, your innovative/disruptive/other -ive word solution, who's on your team, the sales & marketing strategy, your financial plan, your implementation plan, a conclusion, and any additional resources
• The instructions are specific and easy to follow, so all you have to do is fill in the blanks. Bonus: thinking about these things will prepare you for meetings with potential investors, customers, and employees as well
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Startup Business Plan Template

The term “startup” has become a familiar part of the business lexicon and is often used to describe fast-growing, entrepreneur-led companies in the technology sector. Actually, a startup is any business enterprise that has recently been established. If you are in the early stages of starting a business, one of the first steps you will need to take is to create a business plan.

This simple template was designed to help someone new to the business world to easily put together a professional plan describing a new venture. Keep your startup plan short. As your business matures, you can adapt the plan to include additional detail.

You can create different iterations of it for different audiences. The bank will want more financial information, but a new employee might be more interested in your company’s mission statement and your plan for selling the product or service.

Executive Summary

An executive summary is a crucial part of any business plan. It should come first in your document. The executive summary gives the reader, who may be a very busy bank executive, a chance to understand your business in a quick, one-page read.

In no more than a short paragraph for each point, summarize the sections of your business plan:

• Give your elevator pitch and briefly describe your company

• Summarize the market research you have done

• Present the problem you are aiming to solve

• Describe how your product or service solves the problem

• Introduce key management

• Provide a synopsis of your sales and marketing plan

• Explain your financial plan

Close your executive summary with a clear explanation of your project, why it is needed, and how it will benefit future customers and investors.

HubSpot Tip: Write this section last, after you have written all of the other sections. It should summarize your entire business plan in about a page.

About the Company

Describe what makes your company different. This section should convince readers that your business idea is important and that the product or service that you will offer is needed.

Present your company’s name, location, type of business, ownership, and significant assets.

Describe your company’s mission: What is your reason for existence? Describe the values on which you are founding the company.

List the company’s goals and objectives and explain how you fit into the industry.

HubSpot Tip: Keep this section brief. The remainder of the document allows space for you to go into more detail about your business.

Market Analysis

Before writing your business plan, you need to conduct research on the market and industry you are planning to enter. Based on that research, you should describe your industry, the opportunities it offers, and the growth it is experiencing.

Describe the key environmental trends in your industry. What are the barriers to entry (e.g., high production or marketing costs, tariff barriers, regulatory challenges, extensive training)? How is the industry progressing? What is changing?

You should also define your target customers. Who will buy your product or service?

Who are your major competitors? Identify and describe them.

Identify what defines your product or service in the marketplace. What distinctive competencies or offerings do you provide that other companies do not?

HubSpot Tip: Note the key factors for success in this industry, and focus on proving that your company has them.

The Problem

Describe the need in the market that your business idea will fill. How did this need arise and why has it not been filled yet? Explain how you identified the need and how your product or service will meet it.

HubSpot Tip: Keep this section short, as the focus should be on your solution, which you will describe in the next part of the business plan.

Our Solution

Describe the products or services your business will provide. Include your value proposition - describe how your service/product is attractive to customers.

You should also include a description of the features and benefits of your product or service to your customer. Consider capturing this in a simple table like the one below.

Product/Service Feature

Benefit to the Customer

HubSpot Tip: You can include photos or brochures of your products, but consider putting them in an appendix so that they do not interrupt the message in your narrative.

Organizational Structure

Since your company is just starting, it is likely that you do not have many people on your staff. Describe the key operations and management roles in your company, and provide brief biographical sketches of your leadership. The aim is to show to readers that your team has the skills and qualifications to implement what you have outlined in the business plan.

If you receive advice from a board of directors or any high-level external advisors, mention them in this section.

HubSpot Tip: The biographical sketches should include the educational credentials, relevant experience, and related accomplishments of your leaders. Consider personalizing your plan by including headshots of your staff.

Sales and Marketing Strategy

In this section, you should describe how you will promote your new product or service. Begin by identifying challenges with entering the market and explain how you will overcome them. You can use a table like the one below to outline the barriers and your solutions.

Market Barrier/Challenge

Justify the following choices you have made:

• Location – Does it bring cost savings? Is it close to your customer base?

• Pricing Strategy – How will it entice customers to buy your products or services? How will it lead to profits for your business and investors?

• Promotion Plan - Will you use print, radio, television, or social media? Will you hire a marketing manager?

Note the budget for your marketing strategy and tell the reader how you will obtain the funding for this important aspect of your business. If you plan to use consultants or an advertising agency, include these costs in your budget.

HubSpot Tip: Consider including a few mockups of your company’s logos, branding, or marketing materials in an appendix.

Financial Plan

Describe the cost structure and financial aspects of the business. Explain the kind and amount of investment that you need, what you will use the money for, and how you envision your business becoming profitable.

To give readers a peek into your company’s projected financial future, you should include as much of the following financial information as possible. Remember, your business plan is a living document, so even if you do not have all of this information at the startup stage, you can add it as your business matures.

• Cash flow projection – An estimate of how much money you expect to flow in and out of your business.

• Capitalization plan – Lists the sources and uses of capital that your business plans to amass.

• Break-even analysis – A determination of what you need to sell in order to cover the costs of doing business.

• Income statement – Also known as a profit and loss statement (P&L), it shows the company’s revenues and expenses over a period of time.

• Balance sheet – A statement of the assets, liabilities, and capital of a business at a point in time.

Financial documentation is often long, so you should reference them here and include copies in an appendix.

HubSpot Tip: Not everyone is an expert in finance, but it plays an important role in starting a business. Unless you have an accounting background, consider seeking assistance on this section of your plan.

Implementation Plan

Tell the reader how you will implement your business plan. Consider including a timeline like the one below to illustrate the steps in the process to getting your business up and running. Customize it with your dates and the specific steps you will take.

HubSpot Tip: Set reasonable deadlines that you are able to meet, but that show your initiative and eagerness to realize your new venture.

In a few sentences, summarize the main point that you would like the reader to understand about your business. This can vary based on the target audience. For example, if you are presenting your plan to a bank to ask for a loan, this section should focus on your financial viability and why the bank should choose to finance your business.

Describe the next steps, and provide detailed contact information so that the reader can get in touch with you easily.

HubSpot Tip: Your conclusion should incite the reader to act. Make it easy for them by including all of the information they need to move forward.

Want to provide additional detail but need to avoid making your business plan too long? You can insert documents in the Appendices and reference them in the text. In this way, you can provide more information without breaking up the flow of your business plan text.

HubSpot Tip: Consider including examples of your marketing materials, a map of the business location, background research, images of your products, resumes of company leaders, or financial documents in the appendices of your business plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Technology Business Plan Template [Updated 2024]

Technology Business Plan Template

If you want to start a technology business or expand your current technology business, you need a business plan.

The following Technology business plan template gives you the key elements to include in a winning Technology business plan.

You can download our Business Plan Template (including a full, customizable financial model) to your computer here.

Technology Business Plan Sample

I. executive summary, business overview.

[Company Name], located in [Location] is a new technology company that focuses on developing and commercializing new artificial intelligence (AI) technology applications designed for small-to-medium sized businesses. The company has created proprietary technology that helps businesses improve their profitability by using AI to increase customer engagement. [Company Name] aims to be the next big technology company in the AI space.

Products Served

[Company Name] will showcase a variety of different applications for its AI technology that companies can start using to see an increase in customer engagement from day one. Businesses will be able to choose the platform package that works for them, based on a freemium subscription pricing structure.

Customer Focus

[Company Name] will initially serve businesses within a 30-mile radius of [Location]. The demographics of these customers are as follows:

• 1,500 businesses
• Under 100 employees (average is 42)
• Privately held companies
• Top represented sector: retail stores
• Average annual payroll for firms with 20-99 employees of $1.3M

Of the above mentioned businesses, many are startups or looking to expand their reach, thus would benefit from technology that can increase their customer base. [Founder Name] has a bachelor’s degree in technology. She is certified in artificial intelligence and machine learning. [Founder] has over [x] years of experience working as a senior software engineer prior to starting [Company Name].

[Company Name] will also employ an experienced assistant to work as a business analyst and help with various administrative duties around the office.

Management Team

[Founder Name] has a bachelor’s degree in technology. She is certified in artificial intelligence and machine learning. [Founder] has over [x] years of experience working as a senior software engineer prior to starting [Company Name].

Success Factors

[Company Name] is uniquely qualified to succeed due to the following reasons:

• The company will be providing a valuable solution to businesses seeking a way to increase their customer engagement through innovative AI technology.
• [Company Name] will fill a specific market niche in the growing community of [Location]. In addition, [Founder] has surveyed local businesses and received extremely positive feedback saying that they explicitly want to make use of [Company Name]’s AI solution when launched.
• The location is in an economically vibrant area where new businesses are starting at a fast rate.
• The local area is currently underserved and has few technology companies offering specific solutions to increase customer engagement.

Financial Highlights

[Company Name] is seeking a total funding of $200,000 of debt capital to open its office. Specifically, these funds will be used as follows:

• Office design/build: $40,000
• Software development: $90,000
• Working capital: $70,000 to pay for marketing, salaries, equipment and lease costs until [Company Name] reaches break-even

Top line projections over the next five years are as follows:

II. Company Overview

Who is [company name].

[Company Name], located in [Location], is a newly established technology company that focuses on developing and commercializing new artificial intelligence (AI) technology applications designed for small-to-medium sized businesses. The company has created proprietary technology that helps businesses improve their profitability by using AI to increase customer engagement. [Company Name] aims to be the next big technology company in the AI space for business use.

[Company Name] was founded by [Founder’s Name], a seasoned software engineer with a bachelor’s degree in technology. She is certified in artificial intelligence and machine learning. [Founder] has over [x] years of experience working as a senior software engineer prior to starting [Company Name].

[Founder] began researching what it would take to create her own technology company and did a thorough analysis on the costs, market, demographics, and competition. [Founder] has compiled enough information to develop her business plan in order to approach investors.

[Company Name]’s History

Once her market analysis was complete, [Founder’s Name] began surveying the local vacant office space and located an ideal location to house the technology company. [Founder’s Name] incorporated [Company Name] as a Limited Liability Corporation on [date of incorporation].

Since incorporation, the company has achieved the following milestones:

• Located available office space for rent that is in a busy commercial district
• Developed the company’s name, logo, and website located at [website]
• Determined equipment and necessary supplies
• Began recruiting key employees

[Company Name]’s Products/Services

The following are the services that [Company Name] will provide:

• AI Hardware
• Marketing AI Software
• Customer Relationship Management AI Software
• Customer Support AI Software
• Technology Training: Training sessions on how to use the AI solutions and integrate them into their businesses

III. Industry Analysis

The global technology industry is valued at approximately $5.2T. Of all countries worldwide, the United States currently has the largest technology market, with 32% of the market share at $1.7T. The technology industry in the U.S. accounts for a large part of the nation’s economy. The Information Technology market can be segmented by categories such as software, devices and infrastructure IT and business services, emerging technology, and telecom services. In the United States, IT and business services hold the greatest market share (30%), followed by software (20%) and telecom services (20%).

Market drivers include the economy, employment rates, and the digital transformation of daily life for a growing number of people and businesses worldwide. Corporations and organizations are seeking IT service providers that can help improve their software, cybersecurity, data, and infrastructure. Technology companies that can provide products and services that cater to these issues can be competitive in the constantly evolving market.

IV. Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

[Company Name] will serve the small and medium sized businesses of [Location] and surrounding areas.

Many small businesses in the community are startups or established enterprises looking to expand their reach, thus would benefit from technology that can increase their customer engagement.

Customer Segmentation

The Company will primarily target the following three customer segments:

• Startups: Businesses who have been in operation for two years or less often need help acquiring new customers and thus make an excellent target market for [Company Name]’s AI solution.
• Small businesses: The area has a lot of small businesses with less than 100 employees. Many of these businesses are looking for ways to increase their customer engagement through new technology applications.
• Medium sized businesses: The Company will also target medium-sized businesses (up to 500 employees) looking to improve their customer acquisition and retention through technology.

V. Competitive Analysis

You can download our Business Plan Template (including a full, customizable financial model) to your computer here. The following businesses are located within a 30-mile radius of [Company Name], thus providing either direct or indirect competition for customers:

Direct & Indirect Competitors

Tekuserv Tekuserv has been a reliable technology company in [Location] for more than fifteen years. The company is known for its wide range of technology solutions that serves many small-to-medium sized businesses. With its large number of experts focused on delivering customer satisfaction, the organization maintains its high standard of developing quality products and providing exceptional customer service. Tekuserv provides business software on a freemium subscription basis. It develops enterprise technology solutions with a focus on customer relationship management.

Prime IA Business Solutions Prime AI Business Solutions is a technology development company in [Location]. In business for several years, the company has developed highly rated AI solutions used by many well-known businesses in a variety of industries. Prime AI Business Solutions now offers a range of AI hardware and software products geared towards helping businesses of all sizes increase their customer base. The company has also introduced a “pay-as-you-grow” pricing model that scales to provide users with more support as they scale up.

AICE Developments AICE stands for Artificial Intelligence for Customer Engagement. AICE Developments is also a local technology company that manufactures and distributes a variety of technology products. AICE Developments was established in 2009 at [Location], providing integrated AI applications and platform services. Its products include applications and infrastructure offerings delivered through various IT deployment models, including on-premise deployments, cloud-based deployments, and hybrid deployments. The company serves automotive, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, utilities, construction, etc. It provides AI solutions for enterprise marketing and customer engagement.

Competitive Advantage

[Company Name] enjoys several advantages over its competitors. Those advantages include:

• Management: [Founder’s Name] has been extremely successful working in the technology industry and will be able to use her previous experience to provide the best service experience. Her unique qualifications will serve customers in a much more sophisticated manner than [Company Name]’s competitors.
• Relationships : [Founder’s Name] knows many of the local leaders, business managers, and other influencers within [Location]. With her [x] years of experience and good relationships with business leaders in the area, she will be able to develop an initial client base.
• Proprietary technology : The company has developed proprietary AI technology that will be used to add new data sources, expand on valuable insights, launch advanced features like benchmarking, provide predictive and prescriptive analytics, and ensure self-guided data discovery.
• Client-oriented service : [Company Name] will have full-time customer service and sales managers to keep in contact with clients and answer their everyday questions.

VI. Marketing Plan

[Company Name] seeks to position itself as a high-quality source of AI solutions for practical business applications. Clients can expect to receive the best technology on the market from skilled developers in [Location] and customized customer support, training, and troubleshooting services.

The [Company Name] Brand

The [Company Name] brand will focus on the company’s unique value proposition:

• Service built on long-term relationships
• Big-firm expertise in a small-firm environment
• Thorough knowledge of the clients and their varying needs
• Proprietary technology developed by skilled software engineers

Promotions Strategy

[Company Name] expects its initial target market to be businesses within a 30-mile radius of its location. [The Company]’s promotion strategy to reach these individuals includes:

Targeted Cold Calls [Company name] will initially invest significant time and energy into contacting potential clients via telephone. In order to improve the effectiveness of this phase of the marketing strategy, a highly-focused call list will be used, targeting startups and small businesses. As this is a very time-consuming process, it will primarily be used during the startup phase to build an initial client base.

Referrals [Company name] understands that the best promotion comes from satisfied customers. The company will encourage its clients to refer other businesses by providing economic or financial incentives for every new client produced. This strategy will increase in effectiveness after the business has already been established. Additionally, [Company Name] will aggressively network with business incubators, small business development centers, small business accountants, and others in a position to work with small businesses and startups. This network will generate referral leads.

Social Media [Company Name] will invest heavily in a social media advertising campaign. The brand manager will create the company’s social media accounts and invest in ads on all social media platforms. It will use targeted marketing to appeal to the target demographics.

Publications The company will place print advertisements in key local publications, including newspapers, area magazines, and business newsletters. Additionally, [Company Name] will print brochures and place them in specific locations frequented by target individuals, such as small business development centers.

Website/SEO [Company Name] will invest heavily in developing a professional website that displays all of the features and benefits of the technology company. It will also invest heavily in SEO so that the brand’s website will appear at the top of search engine results.

Direct Mail [Company Name] will blanket businesses with direct mail pieces. These pieces will provide general information on [Company Name], offer discounts, and/or provide other incentives for companies to use the AI platform.

Pricing Strategy

[Company Name]’s pricing will be on par with competitors so clients feel they receive great value when purchasing the technology.

VII. Operations Plan

Functional roles.

[Company Name] will carry out its day-to-day operations primarily on an appointment basis. Clients will make appointments for product demonstrations, interview sessions to gather information for proposals, and further meetings throughout client engagements. These will often occur at the company office location to remove clients from the distractions of their business. In-process meetings may occur on-site at the client’s business in order to increase the strength of the client relationship. If necessary, appointments can be conducted over the telephone.

[Founder’s Name] will work on an as-needed basis, but can be expected to be present in the office during normal business hours. The company will also employ an assistant/analyst who will staff the office during normal business hours and support marketing and client relationship development efforts.

Administrative and Service Functions

• General and administrative functions including marketing, bookkeeping, etc.

The following are a series of steps that lead to the company’s vision of long-term success. [Company Name] expects to achieve the following milestones in the following [xyz] months:

VIII. Management Team

Management Team Members

Hiring Plan

[Founder] will serve as the Owner and Manager of [Company Name]. In order to launch, she needs to hire the following personnel:

• Software engineer: 1 full-time employee to manage the software development process operations and assist [Founder] with managerial duties.
• Brand manager: 1 full-time employee who will be responsible for managing all marketing and advertising initiatives, maintaining the company website, and updating social media accounts regularly.
• Office staff: 3-4 employees who will manage the phone calls, scheduling, accounting, marketing, clerical, bookkeeping, billing, and any administrative task required.

IX. Financial Plan

Revenue and cost drivers.

[Company Name]’s revenues will come primarily from its technology solution subscription sales. The company will use a freemium subscription model, in which basic functions can be used by any company for free. Additional solutions and support will be available in a tiered package model based on the enterprises’ size and number of users.

The office lease, equipment, supplies, and labor expenses will be the key cost drivers of [Company Name]. The major cost drivers for the company’s operation will consist of:

• Technology development supplies and equipment
• Business Insurance
• Lease on business location and utilities

Ongoing marketing expenditures are also notable cost drivers for [Company Name].

Capital Requirements and Use of Funds

[Company Name] is seeking a total funding of $200,000 of debt capital to open its office.

Specifically, these funds will be used as follows:

Key Assumptions

5 Year Annual Income Statement

5 Year Annual Balance Sheet

5 Year Annual Cash Flow Statement

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Technology Business Plan Templates

Written by Dave Lavinsky

In the rapidly evolving technology sector, where innovation and market agility are paramount, a well-structured business plan is crucial for success. It serves as a vital strategic tool for technology entrepreneurs and startups, guiding them through the complexities of product development, market entry, and competitive positioning.

Our array of business plan examples cover various technology business types, including software development companies, hardware manufacturers, IT service providers, and tech startups exploring emerging fields like AI and blockchain. Each plan is carefully constructed to address key components such as market analysis, technological innovation, scalability, funding strategies, and go-to-market approaches. These business plans are essential for technology business owners, offering a comprehensive blueprint for navigating the highly competitive tech landscape, attracting investment, and managing rapid growth. They highlight the importance of detailed and forward-thinking planning in harnessing technological advancements, meeting market demands, and achieving sustainable success in the dynamic world of technology.

Technology Business Plans

Artificial Intelligence Business Plan PDF Biodiesel Business Plan Blogging Business Plan Clean Tech Business Plan Mobile App Business Plan Saas Business Plan Software Company Business Plan Technology Business Plan YouTube Business Plan  

Tech Startup Business Plan Template

What is a Tech Startup Business Plan?

A tech startup business plan outlines a company's strategy and objectives. It serves as a roadmap for how to start and grow a business, and covers all the important aspects of a business including marketing, operations, and finances. The plan also gives details on how to organize the company's resources to achieve the desired results. It also provides information on the goals and strategies for the company, and how to measure the success of the business.

What's included in this Tech Startup Business Plan template?

• 3 focus areas
• 6 objectives

Each focus area has its own objectives, projects, and KPIs to ensure that the strategy is comprehensive and effective.

Who is the Tech Startup Business Plan template for?

This Tech Startup Business Plan template is designed for tech startup founders, investors, and teams who are looking to launch a new tech venture. The template helps you to plan and organize all the important aspects of your business and provides a comprehensive overview of your strategy, goals, and objectives. With this template, you can easily set measurable targets and create actionable projects to reach those targets.

1. Define clear examples of your focus areas

A focus area refers to the key areas of your business that you want to focus on in order to achieve your goals and objectives. Examples of focus areas could include developing a business model, designing and developing software, or marketing and selling. Each focus area requires its own set of objectives, actions, and measurable targets (KPIs).

2. Think about the objectives that could fall under that focus area

Objectives are specific goals that you want to achieve within each focus area. For example, if your focus area is developing a business model, your objectives could be to establish a sustainable business model, or to implement and refine the model. Objectives should be specific and achievable.

3. Set measurable targets (KPIs) to tackle the objective

Measurable targets (KPIs) provide a way to measure whether or not an objective has been achieved. For example, if your objective is to increase customer base, a KPI could be to increase customer feedback. KPIs should be quantifiable and measurable in order to track progress and measure success.

4. Implement related projects to achieve the KPIs

Projects (actions) are the steps you need to take in order to achieve a KPI. For example, if your KPI is to increase customer base, an action could be to execute the business model. Projects should be concrete and achievable, and should be designed to help you reach your KPIs.

5. Utilize Cascade Strategy Execution Platform to see faster results from your strategy

The Cascade Strategy Execution Platform is a powerful tool to help you quickly and easily track your progress and measure your success. With Cascade, you can easily set measurable targets, create actionable projects, and track your progress. With Cascade, you can ensure that you reach your goals faster and with greater efficiency.

Free Startup Plan, Budget & Cost Templates

By Kate Eby | September 12, 2017

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A business plan describes how a new business will meet its primary objectives over a given period of time. It is both a strategic document that can act as a roadmap and a tool for securing funding and communicating with stakeholders. For a startup business, planning is key to developing a thorough understanding of the target market, competition, market conditions, and financing opportunities.

Included on this page, you'll find a variety of helpful, free startup business planning templates , like a SWOT analysis template , a competitive analysis template , a business startup checklist template , and more.

Startup Business Planning Templates

Competitive analysis template - excel.

Download Competitive Analysis Template

Excel | Smartsheet

Analyze multiple competitors based on the categories you want to compare, and use the results to identify your top rivals. This template contains several sheets to provide a comprehensive look at how your startup stacks up to the competition, the strengths of each company, and potential partnerships or opportunities.

SWOT Analysis Template - Excel

Download SWOT Analysis Template

While researching your business plan, both risks and opportunities are likely to arise. This critical information gives you the chance to plan for how you will take advantage of or address them as needed. A SWOT analysis helps you identify and gain a clear understanding of internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats. The results of the analysis will inform your business goals and strategies for reaching them. Once completed, you can add this SWOT template to a startup business plan or use it as a planning tool. If this template doesn’t have the details you require, you can find more of our  free SWOT Analysis Templates .

Marketing Plan Template - Excel

Download Marketing Plan Template

Easily create a detailed marketing plan for different campaigns, including projected and actual costs. It also doubles as a marketing calendar template, showing a weekly, monthly, and quarterly breakdown of your timeline and initiatives. A marketing plan is typically part of a business plan, but you can use this dedicated template for developing a thorough plan and schedule.

Business Startup Checklist Template - Excel

Download Business Startup Checklist Template

This template offers a simple checklist to help you organize all of the tasks that need to be accomplished, from initial research and planning to establishing professional partnerships and acquiring necessary permits. Edit the list to include relevant actions for a particular business. This is an easy way to ensure that important items are not overlooked and prioritize steps.

Business Planning Schedule - Excel

Download Business Planning Schedule

This template allows you to create a schedule for tasks with a visual calendar for planning. This layout can help you organize your planning process and provide a timeline for reaching certain milestones. The template is structured around planning stages, allowing you to separate tasks hierarchically. To use this template for another planning process, simply edit the tasks included and add your dates to the schedule.

Target Market Comparison Template - Excel

‌ Download Target Market Comparison Template - Excel

Utilize this worksheet to compare target markets in order to understand which are ideal for your product or service. Understanding your customers is vital not only for developing effective strategies, but also for showing investors that you’ve done the necessary research and understand how to reach potential customers.

Startup Business Plan Template - Word

Download Startup Business Plan Template

Word  | Smartsheet

This template offers a traditional outline for creating a business plan document. You’ll find sections for an executive summary, company description, marketing plan, product and operational information, financial data, and room for appendices. You can refine the plan to suit different industries and business types. For example, if you want to create a technology startup business plan template, you will want to show how the startup will deal with rapidly changing markets, and provide product and market research that shows how your business will be on the cutting edge. You may also need to provide longer-term financial projections since high-tech startups often operate for an extended time without profits. 

For additional resources, visit " Free Startup Business Plan Templates and Examples ."

One-page Business Plan Template - Word

Download One-page Business Plan Template

Excel  |  Word  |  PDF  | Smartsheet

Create a streamlined business plan document on a single page with this Word template. A simplified plan can be helpful for summarizing information into a brief report. This format gives readers a quick overview of your startup business plan while emphasizing key points. 

For additional resources, visit " One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide ."

Startup Financial Templates

Small-business budget template - excel.

Download Small-Business Budget Template

This basic budget is ideal for small businesses that want an easy, blank template to customize. To create a business budget, include both fixed and variable expenses along with revenue and funding sources. Use this template to track expenditures and revenue, maintain a balanced budget, and to help grow your business.

Sales Forecast Template - Excel

Download Sales Forecast Template

With this template, you get a 12-month sales forecast as well as sales data from prior years. You can organize the spreadsheet based on product names, target customers, or other categories, and then enter forecasted monthly sales, including adjustments for seasonal changes or other factors that might impact sales. The template also calculates monthly and yearly totals.

Business Startup Costs Template - Excel

Download Business Startup Costs Template

Startup costs begin to accrue before operations begin, so it’s important to determine expenses early on to avoid being underfunded or overspending. This startup costs template shows a summary of both funding and expenses at the top, with itemized details below. You can use this worksheet to outline expenses, create a tentative budget, and compare actual costs as they accrue. Similar to a start up budget template, this version helps you focus on expenditures.

Startup Budget Template - Excel

Download Startup Budget Template

A startup budget is an important tool for identifying what financial resources are available, determining how much revenue is needed to meet business goals, and pinpointing areas where you can save money. A budget works as a planning tool as well as a method for tracking actual expenditures. As part of a business plan, it supports the process of pitching to investors and completing loan applications. This budget template is geared toward startup companies and includes a section for projected monthly costs.

Startup Financial Projections Template - Excel

Download Startup Financial Projections Template

Similar to a pro forma template for startups, this version includes a 12-month profit and loss projection, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement. Use the template to analyze the current financial standing and run a future forecast for a business. The spreadsheet includes pre-populated fields with expenses and income sources, which you can easily edit to accommodate your business.

Personal Financial Statement - Excel

Download Personal Financial Statement

Some lenders may require a personal financial statement in addition to relevant business data. This template lists assets and liabilities in order to calculate net worth. You’ll also find space for adding a signature so you can certify that the information is correct.

Balance Sheet Template - Excel

Download Balance Sheet Template

This template can be modified to either show an opening day balance for a startup or to create a projected balance sheet. Choose a given time period, enter your numbers for assets, liabilities, and equity, and the template will provide automatic calculations.

First-Year Budget Calculator - Excel

Download First-Year Budget Calculator

Combining business and personal budget information into a single template can be useful for small business owners who are just getting started. This template focuses on first-year budget calculations including startup costs, operating expenses, estimated income, personal expenses, and more. You can identify fixed and recurring costs for a full view of expenses for the first year.

12-Month Cash Flow Forecast - Excel

Download 12-Month Cash Flow Forecast

This template shows all 12 months of the year for a monthly and annual cash flow forecast. In addition to creating a forecast, you can compare actual cash flow totals for each month. The template is divided into categories for cash on-hand, cash receipts, and cash paid-out, with an alternating color scheme for easy viewing.

Annual Business Budget Template - Excel

Download Annual Business Budget Template

As a startup becomes established, this template can be used to create a budget showing totals on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. You can create a projected 12-month budget as well as compare financial data to the previous year’s performance. The template provides detailed income and expense categories for thorough planning and tracking.

Financial Dashboard Template - Excel

Download Financial Dashboard Template - Excel

Create a visual financial report with this dashboard template, which tracks statistics over time using graphs and charts. Compare sales rep performance, product revenue, regional data, or other financial KPIs. A graphical report provides a quick overview of financial information in a format that is easy to understand and share with stakeholders.

Marketing Budget Plan - Excel

Download Marketing Budget Plan

Create a dedicated marketing budget with results displayed in both a spreadsheet format and pie chart. Calculate costs for various marketing campaigns in order to view fund allocation. The template includes space for comments and notes to aid in strategic business planning.

Website Budget Template - Excel

Download Website Budget Template

This startup website template provides sections for calculating initial development costs as well as creating a projected budget over three years. View a list of costs and benefits to see how the website will impact the business over time. This template can help you determine the value of your website investment and track actual annual performance.

Loan Amortization Schedule - Excel

Download Loan Amortization Schedule

Keep track of a loan balance, payments made, upcoming amounts due, and interest paid with this loan amortization template. Enter lender information and loan terms at the top of the template, and then use the schedule to track payment details. Startups owners will appreciate how easy it is to manage business loans and create repayment plans.

Why Write a Startup Business Plan?

The benefits of writing a startup business plan range from clarifying initial ideas to attracting potential investors. The process of business planning can help uncover weaknesses as well as opportunities you may have overlooked. Planning encourages entrepreneurs to examine each step required to start a business in order to avoid mistakes in the long run. Collecting data through market analysis can allow you to confidently make informed decisions and provide a dose of reality to your business idea by affirming or challenging initial assumptions about your product, business model, or strategies for achieving success. Once you clarify your startup vision, analyze financial and market data, and define goals, you can create a strategic action plan to use as a guide for reaching objectives and addressing potential challenges. 

After establishing a startup, continue business planning to identify ways to grow and improve the business as well as to plan for resource use and development. If you treat your business plan as a living document that you regularly review and update, you can also use it to measure progress over time. An effective plan communicates a company’s vision to team members and all stakeholders, and provides both a foundation and an adaptable model that can grow and change along with the business.

One key reason for startups to develop sound business plans is to convince investors and lenders to finance the endeavor. Most banks and investors will want to see detailed financial projections and a statement of your current personal and business financial standing. Investors may want to see market data and other proof that your plan has a high chance for success. Without adequate financing, no startup can succeed, so it’s essential to create an ironclad pitch for funders.

What to Include in a Business Plan

Business plans are tailored to fit a specific type of business and to serve a particular purpose, whether it’s to seek funding, influence a particular audience, or develop strategy for internal use. While you’ll need to continually revise plans need to fulfill a certain function, there are similar elements in all business plans. Here are some of the common sections included in a startup business plan:

• Summary and Objectives: This first section can provide background information, a detailed company description, general industry information, goals that you want to achieve, and long-term objectives. Depending on the size and type of business, this information may be divided into multiple sections or summarized in one pitch. 
• Marketing Plan: Providing market data and an outline for how you will market and sell products and services allows you to show a deep understanding of your target audience and your plans for branding and distribution. Be sure to conduct thorough research that you can use to back up your plans with supporting numbers and statistics. You may also include separate, detailed sections on competition, customer characteristics, product features, sales forecasts, and marketing strategy.
• Operational Plan: This section is concerned with the equipment, processes, and people involved in daily operations. You may want to include details on location requirements, production methods, legal issues (such as licenses or insurance requirements), staffing information, vendor needs, and other operational elements. 
• Management and Organization: A description of management positions and professional advisors provides an organized look at key roles, the experience individuals bring to the business, and important consultants or mentors. You can also include resumes for key employees and startup owners if the business plan is supporting a loan application or investor pitch.
• Startup Expenses and Financial Plan: Estimate expenses as accurately as possible and include contingencies for unforeseen costs. Creating estimates requires thorough research, and expenses should include even small items - while they are easy to overlook, they may add up to significant costs. A comprehensive financial plan can include profit and loss projections and other budget forecasts in order to provide a clear picture of a startup’s financial standing and future outlook. 

A business plan will, of course, look different for a restaurant, web-based business, technology service provider, or product manufacturer. Before getting started, consider what you want to accomplish with your business plan, and customize it accordingly.

Business Plan Tips

Taking the time for thorough research and planning can help you make informed decisions, avoid potential pitfalls, and craft an effective plan. Here are a few tips to consider as you create a business plan:

• Get Creative: Business plans can follow a simple outline, but turning your plan into a creative presentation can make a statement and grab investors’ attention. 
• Use Data Wisely: No matter what format or approach you take, a startup business plan should be concise and include compelling evidence and hard data to back up your claims. 
• Refine Your Plan: Consider your audience and review your plan to ensure the information presented is appropriate, sufficient, and clear. 
• Focus on Objectives: Connect every strategy to core objectives so that there is a clear path for attaining success. 

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Information Technology Business Plan

Start your own information technology business plan

Information Management Hawaii

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">.

By focusing on its strengths, its key customers, and the underlying values they need, Information Management Hawai’i, Inc. (IMH) will increase sales steadily in its first three years, while also maintaining the gross margin on sales, with a focus on cash management and working capital.

This business plan leads the way. It renews our vision and strategic focus: adding value to our target market segments, and reinforcing our ties with businesses in our local markets. It also provides the step-by-step plan for improving our sales, gross margin, and profitability.

This plan includes this summary, chapters on the company, products and services, market focus, action plans and forecasts, management team, and the financial plan.

1.1 Objectives

1. Achieve healthy earnings (EBIT) in the first year of operation.

2. Maintain a midrange gross margin throughout the entire operation.

3. Maintain just-in-time (JIT) inventory levels, or 11 turns per year.

4. Increase sales modestly but steadily in the second and third years.

1.2 Mission

To provide the Hawai’i business community with quality brand-name Information Technology business information solutions, reliable and professional Technical Support, and unparalleled Customer Service through the application of the principles of Kina`ole and heartfelt aloha, and to earn a fair profit for our employee-owners and stakeholders by embracing sound, ethical business practices.

1.3 Keys to Success

The keys to our success are:

• Customer Satisfaction Goals vs. Results

Company Summary company overview ) is an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure.">

Information Management Hawai’i, Inc., will sell and service digital office information systems for Hawai’i’s businesses, with a focus on the Neighbor Island business community. IMH will be formed as the result of the acquisition of three existing businesses: Maui Office Machines, Inc.; Electronics Hawai’i, Inc.; and, Kauai Office Equipment, Inc.

2.1 Company Ownership

IMH will be privately-held [C corporation] owned in majority by the IMH Employee Stock Ownership Trust. There are currently 15 employees, and all will own equal shares in the ESOT. New employees will be given the opportunity to become vested in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) after a suitable probationary period.

2.2 Start-up Summary

Our start-up costs will be $1M, which includes $450,000 for the acquisition of the Maui and Hilo operations of Servco Integrated Office Technology.

The remainder of the funds will be used for:

• Legal, Insurance, Rent & Misc: $125,000

The start-up funding will be financed by loans arranged through the Small Business Development Center, and by the Hawai’i Community Loan Fund, and the Small Business Administration as a guarantor. Start-up assumptions are shown in the following table and chart.

2.3 Company Locations and Facilities

We have two locations, one in Kahului, Maui and the other in Hilo, Hawai’i. The two offices are presently being leased by Servco Pacific, Inc., and we will rent from them on a month-to-month basis until we are able to relocate to more suitable facilities. On Kauai, we have a sub-contractor agreement with Kauai Office Equipment to handle installations and service.

Products and Services

IMH will acquire an existing operation whose primary business has been the sale and service of business appliances (copiers, facsimiles, printers, etc.) and has operated as a part of the office equipment industry. We will build from this base to transform the business into a value-added provider of the emerging services and technologies of the new Information Industry. Following the lead of Canon, USA and other manufacturers which we represent, we will approach the marketplace from a total systems solutions viewpoint.

This new paradigm will begin with an analysis of the client’s existing and planned business processes, and will provide total workflow solutions utilizing multifunctional imaging platforms and information distribution systems. These systems will be backed by professional and reliable technical service and proactive customer service. By forming strategic alliances with local Information Industry Value-Added Resellers, we will be able to offer turnkey Local Area Network (LAN) systems and the ability to retrofit existing LAN and peer-to-peer systems.

3.1 Sales Literature

Copies of our product and sales literature are attached as appendices. Of course, one of our first tasks will be to change the message of our literature to make sure we are selling the company, rather than the product.

3.2 Product and Service Description

IMH will market and sell brand name business information distribution systems and hardware, technical service and support for these products, and the consumable supplies used by these systems. We will be a single-source provider for business information and imaging products and services.

After researching our various manufacturer’s offerings and evaluating our core competencies, we will focus our marketing and sales efforts around the digital products offered by Canon USA and eCopy, Inc. We will supplement this product line with Lexmark and Hewlett Packard printer products. As we continue to transition the company into the digital marketplace, we will form alliances with additional IT manufacturers and suppliers who can round out our product and services line.

Hardware product offerings will include:

• Hewlett Packard Printer products (laser)

Software offerings will include:

• Canon Image Platform (document distribution)

Service Products include:

• Sale of consumable products for all brand names (Canon, Ricoh, Xerox, HP, Lexmark)

Professional Services include:

• Network design and installation (sub-contracted)

3.3 Competitive Comparison

The only way we can hope to differentiate well is to define the vision of the company to be an information technology ally to our clients. We will not be able to compete in any effective way with the large mainland-based office equipment companies by selling boxes or products as appliances. We need to offer a real alliance to our local customers.

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Unfortunately, we cannot sell the products at a higher price just because we offer services; the market has shown that it will not support that concept. We have to also sell the service and consumable supplies and charge for them separately. This monthly recurring revenue is the foundation of our financial stability.

3.4 Technology

New technology has changed almost everything about the traditional office equipment (copier) industry, and for all practical purposes it no longer exists. The new Information Industry has emerged because of the technology of convergence. The primary driver of convergence of different forms of information is technological change, specifically the rapid diffusion of digital technology into an ever-wider array of information businesses. Beyond digitization, dramatic changes in computing and telecommunications industries (mainly in faster microprocessors and increasing bandwidth) are also driving convergence.

IMH will make convergence the theme of its vision, planning, and marketing strategies. We will move into the new Information Industry’s technology with the aim of bringing the most efficient workflow solutions to our clients while providing value-added customer support and service, and earning a reasonable profit in the process.

3.5 Service and Support

Our strategy hinges on providing unparalleled service and support, which is critical to setting us apart from the competition. We need to differentiate on service and support in order to become true partners with our clients. Our service offers will include:

• Upgrade analysis : we will periodically assess our client’s business processes and requirements, and offer cost-effective upgrade solutions to meet changing needs.

3.6 Future Products and Services

Beginning at start up, we will explore and research new information technologies for inclusion in our product offerings. The products which we choose will be in line with our vision to transition the company from being an appliance seller, to being a provider of total information management solutions. These convergent information products will include:

• Media transport and reproduction (distribute and print)

3.7 Fulfillment

We have an established relationship with our manufacturers and suppliers, and will be able to take advantage of all discounts and promotions in order to keep our margins at roughly 49% throughout the operation. We will also implement and employ “just-in-time” inventory strategies for hardware, supplies, and service parts orders to further strengthen our margins.

As we continue to grow the business, we will evaluate other IT industry manufacturers and product lines to strengthen our offerings with a view primarily to quality and margin advantages.

Market Analysis Summary how to do a market analysis for your business plan.">

IMH will focus on local markets, including small offices and home offices (1-9 employees), medium to large businesses (10-99 employees), corporate Hawai’i (multiple locations or 100+ employees), and local government offices.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Our market segmentation scheme is fairly straightforward, and focuses on all Neighbor Island businesses. The information contained in our customer analysis table is taken directly from the 2000 US Census and government directories, and clearly shows that our largest market potential is the small office and home office (SOHO) segment. This segment is largely overlooked by most of our competitors because of its “low end” buying habits, and a reluctance to compete with the major retail chain box movers. We will target the SOHO market segment with value-added and affordable business solutions customized to its unique needs, and offer the same quality of service and support as are afforded the larger businesses.

The next largest market segment is medium to large businesses, and is the arena where we now focus most of our sales efforts. We will continue to target this segment, but with a different approach than our predecessors. The strategy used by former management has been to bring in selected products, and then attempt to find a buyer. This resulted in inventory overstock, and obsolescence. We will work with the medium to large businesses to determine their needs, and design customized solutions before ordering the required systems (JIT inventory strategy). This segment will remain an extremely important part of our marketing mix, and contains a large portion of our current clients. A majority of our systems upgrade opportunities and repeat business will come from this market segment initially.

Although the Corporate Hawai’i market segment is the smallest in numbers, it has the potential to provide a significant share of our revenues and growth (the 80/20 rule). We have a scattering of current clients in the Corporate Hawai’i segment, but we need to do a better job of penetrating this lucrative end of the market. We will accomplish this by offering professional services to include workflow and network design, MIS support, and other value-added support benefits such as “uptime guarantees.” We will develop long-term relationships within this segment, and earn their business.

The local government market segment is unique in that we act primarily as a “middle man” for our manufacturers due to GSA price schedules and other national government-only programs. This segment is fiercely competitive, very price-focused, and buying decisions are often influenced by “who you know,” as well as price. We are fortunate in that we have long-established relationships within the County and State government agencies, and have many loyal clients in this segment. We will increase our share of this market segment by offering the same value-added service and support benefits that we bring to our commercial clients.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

Developing a market strategy is a departure from the way the company has been managed in the past. We will change the paradigm of being a product- and price-focused sales organization, to that of becoming a customer- and market-focused organization, with all departments sharing responsibility for customer satisfaction. We will accomplish this paradigm shift through the implementation of a balanced scorecard philosophy of management, with special attention to employee learning and growth.

As mentioned previously our market segmentation strategy is straightforward, and addresses all components of the Neighbor Island business community. Planning and implementing specific strategies for each of the four identified segments will be an on-going process, and we will consult with marketing specialists, and our manufacturers, to further refine these efforts as we develop our marketing plan.

4.2.1 Market Trends

That is the primary reason that IMH has chosen Canon USA as its preferred manufacturer. Canon has led the way in the industry with it’s digital technology innovations, and its ability to bring both the product and the concept to the marketplace. We will follow Canon’s lead and bring this efficient, productivity-enhancing technology to Neighbor Island businesses.

4.2.2 Market Growth

As computer prices continue to fall, unit sales increase. The published market research on sales of personal computers is astounding, as the United States market alone is absorbing more than 30 million units per year, and sales are growing at more than 20 percent per year. We could quote Dataquest, Infocorp, IDC, or others; it doesn’t matter, they all agree on high growth of CPU sales.

This rapid growth rate holds true for productivity systems which connect to the computers being sold. The stand-alone analog systems and appliances which abound in the business marketplace today, will be replaced by connected digital convergence systems in the coming months and years. IMH will position itself to be a value-added provider of this rapidly emerging technology for new businesses, while continuing to maintain and upgrade our current analog customer base.

4.2.3 Market Needs

All businesses have in common a need to be continuously productive, and they rely on their service providers and vendors to sustain their productivity. Effectively filling this need requires that the vendor bring to the table sound planning, quality products, reliable service, and a true partnership and support relationship.

Specific business needs include the ability to gather, compile, analyze, and distribute information in various media formats. This is where IMH’s strengths will be most beneficial to our clients, both big and small. Anyone can sell the “box” at an attractive price, but only a true value-added provider can offer the peace-of-mind that comes from a customer-focused approach to the relationship.

Primarily due to geographic isolation and smaller populations, the Neighbor Island business community has an additional common need of being able to rely on other locally-based vendors and suppliers for quick, reliable, customer service and support. Having to call someone on Oahu, or the mainland, to place a service call, or to order supplies, or get an answer to a simple billing question, is both an irritant and a hindrance to most Neighbor Island-based businesses. Our primary goal is to fill this need by bringing true pro-active, and total, customer service to the Neighbor Island business community, and to gain their confidence and loyalty. This will become one of our underlying strengths.

4.3 Service Business Analysis

IMH is a part of the Information Industry, and specializes in providing information management systems and technology for business processes. We envision that a converged information industry operating within the context of an advanced information infrastructure will be a huge boost for U.S. businesses. Several Washington think tanks estimate that it could spur more than $300 billion annually in new sales and increase worker productivity by 20 to 40 percent.

At the present time, an estimated two-thirds of all American jobs are information related, and that number will increase as the shift from manufacturing to service industries continues. The convergence of information industries will continue because the technological and business imperatives are compelling. If one company does not see the possibilities, another will.

4.3.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

Business decision makers and finance managers understand the concept and value of service and support, and are much more likely to pay for it when the offering is clearly stated.

There is no doubt that we compete more against the box pushers than against other service providers. We need to effectively compete against the idea that businesses should  buy information platforms as plug-in appliances that don’t need ongoing service, support, and training.

Our research and experience has indicated that our target market segments think about price, but would buy based on quality service if the offering were properly presented. They think about price because that is what is traditionally presented to them first. We have very good indications that many would rather pay 10-20% more for a relationship with a long-term vendor providing back-up and quality service and support. They end up in the box-pusher channels because they are not aware of the alternatives.

Availability is also very important. The business decision makers tend to want immediate, local solutions to problems.

4.3.2 Distributing a Service

Medium to large business segment buyers are accustomed to buying from vendors who visit their offices. They expect the copy machine vendors, office products vendors, and office furniture vendors, as well as the local graphic artists, freelance writers, or whomever, to visit their office to make their sales.

Unfortunately our SOHO target segment buyers may not expect to buy from us. Many of them turn immediately to the retail superstores (office equipment, office supplies, and electronics), the Web, and mail order to look for the best price, without realizing that there is a better option for them for only a little bit more. We will overcome this hurdle through innovative service offerings, and targeted marketing.

4.3.3 Main Competitors

In our higher-end targeted segments (medium to large businesses, corporate Hawai’i, and government offices), the primary competitors are Xerox and Lanier. The secondary “low end” competitors on the Neighbor Islands are Maui Office Machines and Business Equipment on Maui, and Electronics Hawai’i and Stationers on the Big Island. Our overall competitive strategy in these segments will be Canon’s superior technology, and superior value-added service and support.

In our SOHO target segment, the primary competitors are the superstores: Office Max, Office Depot, Sears, and to some extent Costco, Hopaco, and the Web. While these outlets can offer lower prices, they offer no (or very little) aftermarket service or support. That is our competitive advantage in this segment, and will differentiate us from these “box movers.”

4.3.4 Business Participants

The traditional office equipment (copier) industry has been dominated by only a few major manufacturers: Xerox, Canon, Oce, and Ricoh (and its OEM products – Lanier, Savin, and Gestetner); and then come the low-end players: Sharp, Toshiba, and Minolta. With the exception of Xerox, which maintains its own sales force, the other manufacturers distribute and sell mainly through authorized dealers.

The rapidly emerging Information Industry’s digital convergence products will most likely be dominated by the same participants as described above. While Xerox has been a past leader in the manufacture and sales of analog products, Canon has emerged as both an innovator, and the leader, in the new Information Industry with their ImageRunner digital products and Image Platform information distribution systems. Canon is also (and has been for many years) the front runner in color repro-graphic systems, and holds the most patents of any manufacturer in the industry.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

We must differentiate ourselves from the box pushers. We need to establish our business offering as a clear and viable alternative for our target markets, to the price oriented sales pitch to which they are accustomed.

• 30-day sales window – war with competition mainly on price.

The industry’s cheese has been moved. In order to shift to a more contemporary paradigm, our marketing and sales efforts will need:

• A new marketing concept – customer oriented, profit oriented, integrated efforts.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Our competitive edge is our positioning as a strategic ally with our clients, who are clients more than customers. By building a business based on long-standing relationships with satisfied clients, we simultaneously build defenses against competition. The longer the relationship stands, the more we help our clients understand what we offer them and why they should both stay with IMH, and refer us to other businesses. In close-knit communities like the Neighbor Islands, reputation is extremely important, and word-of-mouth advertising is invaluable.

5.2 Strategy Pyramid

Our main strategy will be placing emphasis on service and support, and our main tactics are networking expertise, systems training, and implementing a customer relationship management system (CRM) from e-automate. Our specific programs for networking include mailers and internal training. Specific programs for end user training include direct mail promotion, and on-site customer programs. Implementing the CRM software and training will be coordinated with the e-automate Corporation.

Our second strategy is emphasizing relationships. The tactics are marketing the company (instead of the products), more regular contacts with the customer, and increasing sales per customer. Programs for marketing the company include new sales literature, and direct mail. Programs for more regular contacts include call-backs after installation, direct mail, and sales management. Programs for increasing sales per customer include upgrade mailings and sales training.

5.3 Value Proposition

IMH offers its clients peace-of-mind by being a vendor who acts as a strategic ally, and delivers quality products backed by premium service and support, at a premium price.

5.4 Sales Strategy

We will sell the company and its ability to act as an ally. We will sell IMH, and the reputation of the industry-leading manufacturers it represents.

We will sell our service and support. The hardware is like the razor, and the support, service, software, and training, are the razor blades. We need to serve our customers with total solutions, and not just product features. The products are a means to arriving at end solutions.

The Yearly Total Sales chart summarizes our conservative sales forecast. We expect sales to increase from $3.1 million in the first year to more than $4 million in the third year of this plan.

5.4.1 Sales Forecast

The important elements of the sales forecast are shown in the following Chart, and Table 5.4.1. Non-hardware sales increase to almost $2 million total in the third year, or 47% of total sales.

5.5 Milestones

The following table lists important program milestones, with dates and managers in charge, and budgets for each. The milestone schedule indicates our emphasis on planning for implementation. The most important programs are the sales and marketing programs listed in detail in the previous topics.

5.6 Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy is the core of our main strategy:

• Develop specific programs for each target market segment:
• Government Offices – workflow/process surveys, uptime guarantees, GSA rates and incentives

5.6.1 Sales Programs

Specific sales programs will be included in our new Marketing Plan, and will be included in this Business Plan as they are finalized. In general however, our sales programs will be centered around conducting workflow and information distribution analyses, direct mail, and placing an emphasis on the benefits which IMH and its manufacturers will be able to offer its clients through “total care” service and support.

5.6.2 Positioning Statement

For businesses who want to be sure their information distribution systems are always working reliably, IMH is a vendor and trusted strategic ally who makes certain their systems work, their people are trained, and their down time is minimal. Unlike the product/price oriented vendors, it knows the customer and goes to their site when needed, and offers proactive support, service, training, and installation.

5.6.3 Pricing Strategy

We must charge appropriately for the high-end, high-quality service and support we offer. Our revenue structure has to match our cost structure, so the salaries we pay to assure good service and support must be balanced by the revenue we charge.

We cannot build the service and support revenue into the price of products. The market can’t bear the higher prices and the buyer feels ill-used when they see a similar product priced lower with the competition. Despite the logic behind this, the market doesn’t support this concept.

5.6.4 Promotion Strategy

We will employ the following general promotional strategies for the various market segments:

• SOHO: We will depend on periodic local newspaper advertising, to reach new buyers in this segment. We will also utilize direct mail and and the resources of the local Chambers of Commerce and other affinity groups to reach this segment. The message will emphasize service first, and “complete product and service packaging” as a secondary theme.
• Medium to Large Businesses: Direct face-to-face contact (direct sales) will continue to be our primary strategy for this market segment. Direct selling will be supplemented by periodic promotional direct mailings and personalized system upgrade opportunities.
• Corporate Hawai’i: This segment will be handled by direct contact and relationship building only. We will make personal presentations to the decision makers in this group, and stress our service and technical benefits and advantages.
• Government Offices: We will utilize a combination of direct mail and face-to-face promotional strategies with this segment, and the message will be the local service and technical advantages of IMH. We will produce an attractive RFQ/RFP response package to accompany our submissions.

5.6.5 Distribution Strategy

IMH is first and foremost a direct sales organization, meaning that we must present our services and products directly to the majority of our customers and clients. Having said that, for our planned penetration into the SOHO market, we will need to establish a presence as a Value-Added Reseller (VAR) for certain low-end product lines which don’t carry the margins necessary to sustain the costs of direct sales. We will plan our new locations accordingly.

5.6.6 Marketing Programs

As we work to complete this Business Plan, we are simultaneously working on our Marketing Plan. As you can see from the milestones table, we anticipate completion of our detailed Marketing Plan by 9/30/01, or one month from start-up. Because we are acquiring an on-going business, the shift to our vision of customer- and market-focused strategies will not happen overnight. We must plan this shift carefully, and implement it judiciously, so as not to disrupt our immediate operations. We have budgeted for, and will utilize, marketing advisors and consultants (including our manufacturers) in the design of our Marketing Plan.

5.7 Strategic Alliances

Our alliances with our manufacturers, and especially Canon USA, will be the most pivotal to our success. We will remain a Canon Authorized Dealer, and continue to enjoy all of the benefits of this long-standing relationship.

We will form alliances with other locally-based VARs and computer network providers to enable us to provide complete turnkey packages for our clients. These relationships will be included in our Marketing Plan.

Management Summary management summary will include information about who's on your team and why they're the right people for the job, as well as your future hiring plans.">

Our management philosophy is simple and is an integral part of our values: doing right things right, the first time (Kina’ole).

IMH will be an employee-owned company and we all share the same vision of providing our clients (who in many cases are friends and neighbors) with the very best in customer service – period. We will encourage personal growth, creativity, and enable individual empowerment to achieve this goal. We will manage the business by setting achievable Balanced Scorecard goals, measuring them, and making mid-stream adjustments as necessary.

6.1 Organizational Structure

Our team includes 15 employees initially, and is organizationally flat. The departmental divisions are sales and marketing, service, and administration. Operational managers include:

• Systems Manager (two positions – Big Island and Maui): Oversees all service issues including service agreements, service call prioritization and response, carry-in service, customer support, and systems training and development. Will be assisted by Systems Engineers, and Systems Technicians.

6.2 Personnel Plan

The total head count moving over from Servco at the time of the acquisition will be 13. We are adding two former employees at startup to round out our team, for a total startup head count of 15.

There are an additional six positions shown as “vacant” in the Personnel plan. During each quarterly business plan review, we will assess the need to fund these positions to sustain our growth, and more evenly distribute the workload.

6.3 Management Team

Bill Harding, president and general manager:  XX years old, and has lived on Maui for 43 years. Joined SIOT in 1998 as Maui branch manager, and became general manager for Neighbor Island operations six months later. Prior management experience includes: BTA market manager of the Neighbor Islands for VoiceStream Wireless, Neighbor Island area sales manager for Central Security Systems, and radar project manager for Telcom International in Nigeria, West Africa. Bill has attended numerous management and sales training courses and seminars throughout his career.

Laurie Watson, secretary/treasurer and administrative manager: XX years old, and local Maui resident. Has been at the same location through three different owners prior to Servco’s acquisition of The Office Place in 1995, for a total of 15 years of local office equipment industry experience. Laurie has extensive knowledge of service procedures and dispatching, A/R and A/P procedures, inventory control and tracking, as well as an intimate knowledge of our customer base. Her experience and knowledge will be invaluable in recovering our customer base, and in growing the business.

Anne Tioganco, office manager (Hilo): XX years old, and local Hilo resident. Anne has also been with the company through all of the acquisitions, and has XX years experience in the office equipment industry. She will assist Laurie by handling the administrative and customer service tasks for our Hilo branch, and will be instrumental in our Big Island customer recovery efforts.

Earle Oshiro, systems manager (Big Island): XX years old, and local Hilo resident. Like Laurie and Anne above, Earle has been with the company through four different owners, and has XX years of local office equipment service management experience. Earle has also completed Canon’s “train the trainer” course, and will be a great asset in the on-going training and development of our systems engineers and technicians.

Joseph Alfonsi, systems manager (Maui): XX years old, and local Maui resident. Joe joined the Maui branch of SIOT in 1999 as field service manager, after transferring from the SIOT Honolulu branch. He has XX years of local office equipment industry service experience, and is familiar with both Canon and Ricoh products. Joe is an asset to the Maui team, and has outstanding customer service skills.

6.4 Management Team Gaps

We believe we have a good team for covering the main points of the business plan. Key members have the experience and knowledge to manage and grow the business, and are highly motivated by the employee-owner concept.

The obvious management gap is a plan to fill the general manager’s position at some point in the future, before the current GM reaches retirement age. As an employee-owned company, the preferred strategy will be to promote from within, and fill vacancies as they occur. As the company grows, we will seek out additional talent in all operational areas.

Financial Plan investor-ready personnel plan .">

Although we are treating the business as a start-up company, the financial plan is solidly based on past performance. We have taken actual SIOT P&L income and expenses from the past three years, and eliminated corporate overhead expenses such as warehouse and administrative costs, inventory penalties, and corporate nominal interest. We then projected income based on actual past performance, and factored back in the revenue base that was relocated to Honolulu over the past two years (mainly service and supplies).

We approached the financial planning from a conservative standpoint, and based those numbers on achievable gross margins. Also, our actual interest and tax rates will most likely be lower than the assumed rates due to our being structured as an employee-owned corporation (ESOT).

7.1 Important Assumptions

The financial plan depends on important assumptions, most of which are shown in Table 7.1. As mentioned previously, we assumed interest and tax rates based on a “worst case” scenario, and these will be adjusted once we have finalized the initial funding and establish the ESOT. We have also assumed our personnel burden at 30% of payroll in order to allow for above-average benefits for our employees. As we shop around for benefits vendors, this assumption will be subject to revision as well.

Other key business assumptions are:

• We assume access to the start-up funding necessary to re-shape and re-build the company, and to provide adequate initial capitalization.

7.2 Key Financial Indicators

As shown in the Benchmarks chart below, our key financial indicators are:

• Inventory Turnover: We will maintain just-in-time inventory levels, or 11 turns per year. This will require accurate sales forecasting, and working closely with our manufacturers. We have already begun this process under SIOT, and the Neighbor Island inventory levels are well below previous years.

7.3 Break-even Analysis

For our break-even analysis, we assume running costs which include our full payroll, rent, and utilities, and an estimation of other running costs. Payroll alone, at present, is about $65,500 per month (including benefits and taxes).

We will monitor gross margins very closely, and maintain them at a midrange percentage by taking advantage of all promotions and discounts offered by our manufacturers. Canon USA has tentatively agreed to offer us “end column” pricing as a new dealer incentive.

The chart shows what we need to sell per month to break even, according to these assumptions. This is about 78% of our projected sales for our first year, and is well below what we have achieved annually over the past three years under more adverse operating conditions.

7.4 Projected Profit and Loss

Our Pro Forma Profit and Loss statement was constructed from a conservative point-of-view, and is based in large part on past performance. By strengthening our service position, and rebuilding our customer relationships, we will widen our customer base and increase sales.

Month-to-month assumptions for profit and loss are included in the appendix.

7.5 Projected Cash Flow

Because we are treating the new company as a start-up, the cash flow for FY2002 is somewhat exaggerated by the instant influx of new capital. Subsequent years however show a healthy growth in cash flow, mainly due to the short 60-month repayment of the start-up loan and increased sales.

7.6 Projected Balance Sheet

The Projected Balance Sheet is quite solid. We do not project any trouble meeting our debt obligations as long as we achieve our specific objectives.

7.7 Business Ratios

The following table shows our main business ratios, and is compared to national averages. Our SIC industry class is currently: Office equipment, nec – 5044.99.

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Innovation Blog

7 steps to create a technology startup business plan.

• Published on: April 26, 2022
• Author: masschallenge

Many entrepreneurs still overlook the importance of a technology startup business plan. In a space as competitive as the tech industry, a lack of preparation will surely pave the way to disappointment.

Instead of diving in without any concrete strategy, a plan provides a foundation for sustainable business growth.

In this article, we’ll explore the essential elements of a tech startup business plan, and provide the insights you need to create a plan for success.

What Is A Business Plan?

A tech startup business plan is a document that details the premise of your technology business, summarizing vital financial objectives and operational goals, as well as details on how you will accomplish these goals.

Put simply:

It’s a road map that describes what you intend to do, and how you intend to do it.

A typical business plan will comprise the following seven elements:

• Executive Summary
• Company Description

Market Research

• Description of Products and/or Services
• Management & Operational Structure
• Marketing Plan
• Financial Plan

3 Reasons You Need a Business Plan

Before we dive into the individual aspects of a startup business plan, let’s first consider why you need one.

Just what are the benefits of a business plan?

1. It Offers Greater Clarity

Having a business plan will give you a much better understanding of your business and the objectives you are trying to achieve. Even the most basic technology startup business plan example will seek to define your goals in more objective terms.

For example, you can set specific targets for website traffic, sales volumes, or profit margins. This makes it easier to track and measure success and aligns your decision-making with sales and marketing initiatives.

2. It Increases the Chances of Success

A report from the Harvard Business Review found that companies with a business plan are 16% more likely to succeed.

Furthermore, companies that have a business plan also enjoy higher growth rates than companies without a plan.

3. You Are More Likely to Get Investment

Angel investors and venture capitalists aren’t in the habit of making bad bets. When they part with large sums of money, it’s a carefully considered decision they base on the likelihood of earning a positive return on investment (ROI). When you have a business plan, you give your startup strategic focus, which helps you create an identity that is built to succeed. This makes for a more attractive prospect in the eyes of investors, so it’s easier to raise capital for your startup when you have a plan.

How to Write a Business Plan for Your Tech Startup (7-Steps)

So, now that you understand the motivation behind creating a tech startup business plan, it’s time to see how it’s done. By including the seven elements below, you’ll have a plan that gives your company a much stronger footing.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary is, without a doubt, the most critical element of your tech startup business plan. Despite this, a lot of plans fail here because the summary doesn’t captivate readers. If you can’t hook prospective investors, partners, or employees with your executive summary, they may never read the rest of your business plan.

Source: The Balance

This section should be compelling yet concise, giving people enough to understand what makes your startup unique, and how it will be able to offer solutions in an existing, competitive market.

While you want to keep it brief, there is a lot to pack into this opening section of your business plan. Here are the crucial components of an executive summary:

• Business Model – What is your product or service? How will you make money?
• Target Market – Who will benefit from this product or service?
• Business Opportunity – Why do consumers need your product or service?
• Marketing Strategy – How will these consumers learn more about your product or service?
• Competition – What other companies are competing for market share?
• Goals – How will your startup transform the marketplace with this product or service?

As the executive summary is such a vital aspect, it’s a smart move to write it last. By waiting until you have finished the rest of the business plan, you can draw from the other sections to craft an excellent executive summary.

2. Company Summary

The company summary essentially boils down to a single sentence, otherwise known as a headline statement.  When it’s done right, this summary can be the perfect elevator pitch to capture the imagination of would-be financial backers or partners, and it will serve as a natural lead-in to your more detailed business plan.

Source: Gusto (credit: LivePlan)

The company summary or headline statement should do the following:

• Give people a brief overview of what your company does.
• Communicate the value you offer.
• Highlight the opportunity in the market.

Here is a good template to create your company summary:

<Your company> is a <type of business> who sells <product or service> to <target customer> , who needs <solution> , but doesn’t get it from <competition> .

Don’t worry if you can’t create the perfect summary now. When you develop your business plan, you will get a better understanding of what this headline statement should be, and then you can refine it to reflect your vision and value proposition.

We’re sure you have a great idea, but that’s no guarantee that everyone is going to love it as much as you do. No matter how good you think your startup may be, you still need to conduct proper market research to learn more about your ideal customers and competitors.

Identify your Target Market

Without a viable market for your product or service, your business is doomed.

Many startups have failed quickly because the owners were so obsessed with their own product that they were effectively blind to the fact that nobody else cared about it.

Source: CB Insights Image: Cleveroad

Initially, you can adopt a broad scope to get a sense of your total addressable market (TAM), which is the potential revenue opportunity your new product or service could generate. Of course, with the competition, and changing consumer interests, it’s unlikely you will dominate the entire TAM.

Once you have this broad idea, you can hone your sights to go more niche. While this presents a smaller audience, it is more effective. By narrowing your targeting, you can market to a more engaged audience that will be more receptive and likely to purchase your product or service.

Consider the following factors when segmenting your audience:

• Demographic – What age group? What gender?
• Geographic – In what country or city do your prospects live?
• Behavior – What websites/blogs/news sources do they use? What are their purchasing habits? What retail sites or brands do they buy from?

With in-depth data analysis and evaluation of your prospective customers, you can create detailed buyer personas that help you refine your marketing strategies.

Perform Competitor Analysis

During the market research stage of your tech startup business plan, you should also carry out a thorough competitor analysis.

This will help you determine the key differentiators between your company and the competition.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Why should people choose my product or service?
• How can I improve on the existing solutions in the market?
• Why do people not already buy the products in the market?

By thinking about current trends or flaws in existing products, you can identify opportunities for innovation so that your business can connect with customers on a deeper level.

Knowing your audience is crucial, and therefore, your business plan must demonstrate a deep understanding of your target market, and your competitors.

3. Description of Products and/or Services

Here, you must highlight the link between what you are offering, and what people need, so you can prove that people are ready and willing to pay for your product or service.

Research Problems in Market

It helps to conduct some face-to-face research, asking potential customers about the problems they have. Don’t try to usher the conversation in any direction or shoehorn their answers to fit your product – instead, look to learn from their honest responses about the solutions they need.

You should do this research before creating the product. After all, it makes more sense to create a product for an existing problem, instead of trying to find a problem for your product.

Source: ProductTribe

Tailor Product to Problems

After doing your research on the existing problems in the market, trim your list to focus on a few of the most important issues. Describe how your product or service will be the ultimate solution to these problems.

For instance, if people believe the existing solutions are too expensive, you can offer a product with a more attractive price point.

By matching up consumer problems with specific solutions, you can develop a product or service that has a more significant value proposition.

4. Management & Operational Structure

The next stage of the traditional technology startup business plan template delves into the people that make up your company. You must highlight the strengths and experience of your existing team, as new partners effectively invest their money in the team as much as the business idea.

Ideally, your team will consist of several experts whose respective skill-sets complement one another. For example, your tech startup may have a coder, a graphic designer, an inbound marketing expert, and a sales professional. Discuss the merits of each team member to convey the value they add to the business.

You can also speculate about prospective new hires and the key attributes you will seek in future team members. If you haven’t already got a chief financial officer (CFO), it’s a smart move to mention adding one soon. This will add backbone to your business plan by reassuring people that you have good financial sense.

Organizational Chart

Here, your plan should clearly define the organizational structure of your startup. For now, it may just be you and a couple of business partners.

However, by including a graphic that visualizes the structure you intend to build, people will get a clear understanding of the distribution of power and chain of command.

For example, it may look something like this:

Having a hierarchy prepared before starting helps prevent any debates about who is in charge of each department, and makes it easier to understand who reports to who.

5. Marketing and Sales plan

No tech startup business plan would be complete without mentioning the marketing and sales strategies you intend to use.

Sales channels

To clarify the difference, marketing channels are used to promote your business, and its products or services, whereas sales channels are the mediums that enable people to purchase those products or services.

You may only have one direct sales channel to begin with, such as an online e-commerce store. Make sure you explain it in your business plan.

Marketing activities

In this section, you must detail how you will acquire leads and customers.

At the base level, you should do the following:

• Launch a company website
• Develop strategy to get organic traffic (i.e. visitors from search engines like Google)
• Develop a PPC strategy to get immediate online exposure for your most important product/service keywords
• Develop channel partnerships
• Build an email subscriber list

Over time, you can use marketing to nurture stronger customer relationships, which in turn, help you build an audience of loyal followers that will, hopefully, become customers.

The marketing section of your business plan will need to account for several factors, including your goals, risks in the market, and your budget. Which brings us to the final aspect of your tech startup business plan.

6. Financial Plan

Lastly, any good business plan must include pertinent details about your company budget and sales goals.

This can be daunting for many new entrepreneurs and is all the more challenging when you have no balance sheets, cash flow reports, or even any stable income on which to base your projections.

That being said, it’s still possible to make educated projections – so long as you have done solid market research.

When it comes to financial matters, your business plan should include details about:

• Revenue streams – how will the company generate income?
• Major expenses – What high costs do you anticipate in the year ahead?
• Salary demands – Are you still bootstrapping or are you and the partners taking a salary? If so, how much?
• Financial milestones – Detail your expansion strategy by considering future hires or store openings that will impact the books.

Many startups aren’t profitable in the first year. Your financial projections should maintain a long-term view for success, keeping ambitions realistic and honest. That way, you’ll be able to produce a more accurate break-even analysis .

With these long-term projections, you must consider the financial impact of expanding. You may be making more money in Year 3, but opening a new store will set you back.

Keep everything in perspective and make sure you don’t set yourself or your investors up for any nasty shocks down the road.

5 Tech Startup Business Plan Templates

When you have all the elements above in place, your business plan will be in good shape. However, presentation matters. If you want to make the best first impression, getting creative with your technology startup business plan template can make a big difference.

Not only will your research and expertise shine through, but you will have a visually stunning presentation that catches the eye of investors.

Here are five tech business plan examples to inspire you.

Business Plan Infographic PowerPoint

This plan allows you to present in-depth market analysis, statistics, and projections in a professional visual infographic. With several hundred editable slide options, it’s well worth the $16 fee for the license.

Source: Medium

Emaze Business Planning With Analytics

This is more than the average technology startup business plan template. Emaze has a diverse array of creative collaboration tools, making it easy and enjoyable for teams to create unique plans together from any of the built-in templates. Furthermore, you can incorporate analytics, which is perfect for impressing investors. That said, $19 per month for the premium version may seem a little steep for some small businesses.

Source: Emaze

Lean Canvas 1-Page Business Plan

A tech startup business plan doesn’t need to take weeks to create. In fact, with this template, you can have a basic – yet brilliant – business plan all together on a single page in just 20 minutes.

Source: Lean Stack

StartUp Pitch

For $15, you can access the full array of colorful slides in this presentation, which are all customizable to your needs. This template includes many ready-made aspects of the typical business plan, such as SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, and project timelines.

Source: Envato

This is another user-friendly tool for creating short business plans. You enter the information, and then LivePlan will generate a one-page plan in an infographic style.

Source: LivePlan

Make Your Tech Startup Business Plan a Priority

It’s not enough to have a great startup idea.

If you want to stand out from the pack, secure investment, and build a successful company that can earn real profits, growth, and customer loyalty, then you absolutely must have a solid tech startup business plan.

It’s time to create yours.

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How to Write a Software Startup Business Plan in 2024 [With Templates]

Updated 28 Aug 2023

16359 Views

Business analyst

Every company is rooted in a unique business concept. However, having ideas isn’t enough for a company's prosperity and success. Many startups fail due to faulty training in their first year. An IT startup business plan is the first thing that can be corrected by organizing your thoughts and even finding the right people to work with, turning your idea into a prosperous project.

We'll cover how to write a startup business plan, thoroughly covering each part, give some advice, section templates, and more.

Why Does Your Startup Need a Business Plan

Before we go into precise statistics and data, let’s have a closer look at the notion of a business plan. It will assist you in better navigating the subject. The tech startup business plan is a document that summarizes strategies and ideas for the new company launch, support, and even an exit.

Now, we’ll look at stats to understand why a business plan is required. Startups fall due to a bunch of reasons: among the most widespread ones, CBInsights mentions running out of funds (for 38% of startups), absence of market need (for 35%), etc. A business plan can raise startup success chances.

Such a document serves companies for different purposes. The most common of them are:

• Attracting investments
• Building a development strategy
• Predicting your upcoming financial expenses and needs

How can the IT startup business plan assist business owners in implementing these purposes into life? It’s possible due to the following benefits such a document brings:

A technology business plan benefits

Remember that to gain these benefits, you must adhere to a specific structure when drafting your startup business plan. It must contain the following parts:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Marketing plan
• Financial projections
• Team structure

“How to write a startup business plan” is a common question, and many entrepreneurs are looking for an answer. We’ll discuss it in detail, looking closely at each section.

Executive Summary of Technology Company Business Plan

This section serves as an introduction to the entire document. A well-written executive summary grabs readers' attention and instantly illustrates what your technology business plan is all about.

It typically includes the following parts:

Business overview

Introduce your startup to readers, tell them about your plans and offers. This section should be short - about 1-3 sentences.

Target market

Define the target market for your startup company. To make the section more useful and demonstrate your future startup value, provide a detailed market overview and client issues you would solve with your product.

Competition

Portray your possible competitors as well as the attributes that will set your company apart. Describe how you will compete in pricing, quality, or service structure in this part of the executive summary in your software startup business plan.

Emphasize your company's goals and particular milestones, illustrating the said with charts (including profit, sales, and ROI) for greater clarity of prospective investors. Think about financial estimates for different periods.

Briefly describe your team composition or tell about the lack of particular specialists and your possible ways to find them. Portray the existing staff members along with their experience, and don’t forget to mention software development partnership .

The final section tells potential investors how much money you'll need to bring your idea to life. Tell this aspect to stakeholders beforehand, including the appropriate data to the executive summary.

Sometimes even the perfect technology company business plan is not enough for the stakeholders to pay attention to your project. They’ve reviewed piles of such documents, so one more, looking like the previous, may not interest them a lot. But you can change the situation by preparing a presentation of your business plan, where you can mark the vital concepts you’d like to share (e.g., company overview, problems you’d like to solve, startup team composition, etc.).

6 Tips to Create an A+ Executive Summary

We've compiled a list of recommendations to help you create an excellent executive summary of the whole technology startup business plan.

Tip #1. Write it last

Executive summaries should be written last as they summarize the entire business plan. That's why you should complete your research for all areas of your startup business plan and then write the executive summary.

Tip #2. Capture readers’ attention

An executive summary's main objective is to emphasize critical information about the tech company business plan. But, it's vital not to overload the summary with unnecessary details regarding the concept. It should grab people's interest and make them want to learn more.

Tip #3. Keep it structured

A well-defined structure of summary will convey your ideas. Consider including an introduction, main body, and conclusion that are short but informative. The important takeaways from your tech business plan would be provided by this structure.

Tip #4. Mention exit strategy

An exit strategy is an essential part for stakeholders. It can be an acquisition by another company after running technical due diligence , share selling, or employee buyout.

Tip #5. Use facts

Your primary goal is to persuade people to invest in your company. If your startup's goals, experience, and market perspectives are based on facts, they will have more impact. For instance, you may give information about market valuation and your expected market share.

Tip #6. Avoid cliches

There are a few hazards to avoid if you want your executive summary to succeed. For example, don’t mention the team’s passion and enthusiasm. Investors already know it. They’ve seen hundreds of passionate startups before. Instead, provide decision-makers with facts and let them say that for you.

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Company Description

The company description section of a technical business plan exposes its history, aims, team structure, etc. However, it is frequently the shortest part of the business plan.

Company history

This part is based on your company's current stage. If you're an established organization looking for money for a new project, it's a good idea to provide investors with some company background. In case you are a startup business without a rich history, you may tell who is behind the company and how the founders came up with the idea.

Give a brief description of your company's location, including a physical address, or inform investors about your prospective location coordinates. Whether you'll buy or rent an office, as well as how long you'll be using it as a company location. If you have a home office, also indicate this aspect.

Type of business

This section provides information about your industry. It should be brief but not excessively so. Don't write something like, "We're going to sell things." Indicate your domain: travel, healthcare industry, etc. Finish this section off with a domain description.

Management and employees

This is a chance for investors to get acquainted with your team. Mention all staff members and management personnel, defining their duties, abilities, experience, and accomplishments. Also, don't forget to include information about yourself as an opening. Describe any gaps in the team (if you have ones) and explain how you plan to fill them.

Legal structure and ownership

This data is critical for investors because taxation varies based on the legal structure. Specify if you're an LLC, a C-Corp, an S-Corp, a Sole proprietor, or in a partnership. Specify who runs the enterprise and what technical co-founder equity they have.

Company’s mission and principles

Write this part in a creative manner. Come up with one or two lines that precisely define the aims and ideals of your business.

Critical parts of Company description

You can also include the following parts in this section of a tech business plan:

Business scaling strategies

Scaling a business equates to laying the groundwork for your company's future development. So, writing this section of the business plan for technology company, think about appropriate systems, personnel, procedures, technology, or funding — everything you need to scale.

Business opportunities

Prospective investors want to understand why your company’s considered to be profitable. Tell them about your business opportunities, offering information about factors of your future success, specialists you’ve consulted about your business, and their thoughts about it, reasons for selling the certain articles/services, and profit they may bring, etc.

Marketing Plan

It outlines the company's competitive advantage as well as its marketing objectives. This part of the business plan for startup also aids in the particular domain identification and the development of a viable business strategy.

Moreover, you can define and put down such important data as a qualitative concept description and strategies for attracting clients to show stakeholders how to differentiate your startup activity from your competitors’ and ways you may engage the users to cooperate.

This part of the business plan for a tech startup is typically divided into three sections:

Marketing plan components in a nutshell

Target Audience Analysis

Customers are vital to every company. So, you must determine to whom you will offer your services. Begin with easy tasks and work your way up to more complicated ones.

Let's say your firm is an online car parts store that you want to open on the West Coast of the USA. Your potential core audience may look like this after brainstorming:

• Gender (Males)
• Age (16 - 60)
• Location (Los Angeles, CA)
• Education (Secondary)
• Income ($60,000 - $75,000)
• Ethnicity (drivers, service stations workers)

After determining general characteristics, it is time to dive deeper into the analysis. It can be done in a variety of ways in every sample business plan for tech startup.

Conduct surveys

According to your audience assumptions, you may collect focus groups and conduct surveys. It is possible to complete them both online and personally for technology business plans. Surveys can help you learn more about your consumers to provide better service.

Analyze competitor’s audience

Competitors already meet consumers’ needs, and your task is to identify their audience and understand what makes them use their product or service.

Examine your rivals' marketing channels to see how they do it. Visit their websites, follow them on social media, and sign up for their newsletter. These procedures will assist you in identifying the pain areas of your clients.

Create a buyer persona

The final stage in the target audience study is to create a buyer persona based on the research findings from prior steps of every tech business plan example. Let's take a closer look at it.

A buyer persona is an ideal consumer description, including how they use their leisure time, the obstacles they face, and their decisions. Such a description may be created using various methods. For example, HubSpot's Make My Persona product works perfectly for it.

Learn more about how to define target audience in our article!

Competitor Analysis

Competitor research is critical to the company's success. It allows you to have a deeper understanding of your target market, as well as identify competitors, their tactics, and offerings, among other things.

You should follow three phases while conducting a competitive analysis for a business plan for tech startup.

Step #1. Find competitors

Start by searching for basic requests in Google. Make a list of your rivals in the same business as you and have similar ideas. After that, do some in-depth research, analyzing their social media posts, news reports, or consumer reviews.

Step #2. Examine them

It’s time to dig deeper. But keep in mind that you may need special tools like Ahrefs or SimilarWeb. Carefully examine the following criteria essential for every tech business plan sample:

Pricing. Analyze the charges for their services. It will assist you in determining the pricing boundaries for your goods. However, bear in mind that you are not obligated to value your product lower than your competitors in order to win the competition.

Organic traffic. Determine how many visits they receive due to a Google search. These metrics will display the popularity of your competitors. To handle them, you can use tools like Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, and Alexa.

Social media mentions. It's another way to look into your opponents' activities and see what consumers say about them. With tools like Followerwonk, Social Searcher, and Sprout Social, you can monitor engagement rates, keywords chosen, or social shares and mark them in your business plan.

Time on the market. You must determine the time on the market to see if you will compete with a major company or a start-up. The WHOis.net service may be used to examine the domain name registration date, server stats, and contact information.

Step #3. Categorize them

Even having learnt everything about your competition, you still need to watch your rivals and follow their movements. The next step would be to split competitors into three categories based on their “danger level”:

Primary competitors

These are the main ones oriented to the same core audience as you.

Secondary competitors

They can provide high or low-level versions of your services to a different target audience than yours.

Tertiary competitors

They are indirectly related to your company.

SWOT Analysis

It’s the final step of the section in every tech startup business plan example.

SWOT is an abbreviation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats:

• Strengths contain your strengths, killing features, and those able to help stand out from the competition.
• Weaknesses mean your weak sides and flaws that may slow you down in a competitive race.
• Opportunities are the levers that’ll help you in business development.
• Threats are external threats that may impact your startup yet don’t depend on your decisions.

The SWOT matrix is a tool used by businesses to compile all their data into one page. To simplify this process, we recommend using the below technology business plan template (namely, one for SWOT analysis).

SWOT analysis template

Financial Plan

A financial plan is a projection of future income and costs for your business. It's an important aspect of strategic planning that can turn vague objectives into concrete milestones.

Complete the following parts in your business plan tech startup example or create them yourself:

Balance sheet

This part illustrates your present financial situation. A balance sheet is a wonderful method to forecast your future financial condition and design your growth objectives if you're searching for finances.

Expense projections

You must plan your future expenses classified into fixed and recurring costs to make your concept clearer to stakeholders. In general, estimate how much money will be spent on your idea implementation and how frequent these expenses would be.

Income projections

This part of the business plan tech startup needs summarizes the project's future earnings and sales. To begin with, you must predict your product's sales. After that, forecast the possible revenue for your startup using the sales projection.

Cash flow projections

The cash flow estimates are the last element of the financial plan. In a nutshell, it's a summary of all the money going in and out of the company. It shows your company's financial health at all stages of development, including the company's income and expenses. Depending on it, the remaining cash balance is calculated for a given time.

Monetization strategies

A company establishment and a beginning of the product development flow are only half of the way to market launch, impossible without a proper monetization strategy — a method of future profit gaining. For example, if your upcoming product is a fitness mobile application, you can implement advertisements, in-app purchases, freemium strategy, and others.

For successfully hitting your aims, you should know your destination, as well as the tools and methods you need to achieve established objectives. All this information can be included in your sales plan.

Though it’s considered to be a separate document looking like the business plan, the essential difference is that the business plan contains your objectives, and the sales plan mentions how to achieve them.

You can also include a sales plan as a section in a startup business plan, containing your situation assessment, financial forecasting, resources, revenue targets, etc. Document templates (for example, one from 150 Startups below) will help you understand which direction to choose.

Financial plan section

Tips to Make a Financial Plan

Preparing a financial strategy for a starting firm might be difficult, but it is essential for any business plan. To make the process easier, we've compiled four helpful hints answering how to write a business plan for a tech startup, namely this section.

Keep your financial plan in line with the business plan

The statistics in your financial predictions should back up all of your verbal goals outlined in earlier parts. For example, if you want to launch your product in the third quarter of 2022, you'll need to budget for marketing, shipping, and other expenses during that time.

Your financial assumptions must be clear

Even if the precision in figures of a financial plan is critical, most investors care about your projections comprehension. Demonstrate your understanding to them, providing enough material to back up your financial assumptions: annual financial statements, market/competitor analysis data, etc.

Be optimistic yet realistic

Even a significant financial plan requires a healthy dose of optimism. But don't go too far with it, or you'll come out as a dreamer to the investors. It's critical to balance the accuracy of the facts and the need to show a financially viable project to stakeholders.

Use templates

Many business owners have no clue where to start when creating a financial strategy or how to present it. If so, use pre-made templates with all of the essential sheets and columns.

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Team Structure

This is the final section of the business plan, informing investors about your startup's organizational structure. It may contain the following parts:

Management Team

Team composition is essential for a proper startup functioning, as well as for its future growth. If you’re going to launch a software development company, at the beginning of the startup’s existence, your project team formed may include:

• Chief Executive Officer (CEO) — an expert responsible for company management, supervising, human resources running, communication with CTO, etc.
• Chief Technology Officer (CTO) — a team member competent in development and technology areas, UI/UX design, back-end, or QA team supervising
• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) — a specialist responsible for the clients’ perception of your service or product offered
• Chief Sales Officer (CSO) — an expert running all activities connected with business development

The software development team composition should contain the following specialists as UI/UX designers, front-end and back-end developers, QA engineers, and others essential for the product’s appropriate development.

How to build a software development team — revealed! Check our recent guide to know more!

So, list and briefly characterize each key management person in your business. Try to tie their expertise to your company's current responsibilities, using the business plan template tech startup requires, or write this part on your own.

For instance, if your VP of Sales has previously worked for an organization that increased sales from $5 million to $10 million, it would be a wonderful addition to demonstrate their knowledge and value on the team. You'll also demonstrate to investors that you've assembled a strong team they can trust with their funds.

Management Team Gaps

This is common when a company lacks some management team members while developing a business plan. If it's your case, you should make a list of any absent personnel and the particular skills for future candidates, such as experience in the needed sector, duties, etc.

For example, if you want to find a CTO for a startup , you can say that the perfect candidate must have 10+ years of experience, top-class knowledge of modern technologies, and extensive skills to effectively manage the team and develop the product.

Board Members

The Board of Directors is a hired group of individuals that assist you in running your business properly. Even if a Board of Directors is uncommon for startups, you may spot one in the team structure and care about these gaps to be filled.

Supplementary Sections For Your Business Plan

If you need to provide stakeholders and other readers of your business plan with additional information about your startup company, you may give it in a supplementary appendix section to your business plan example tech startup needs (or one created by yourself). It isn’t essential; however, your possible investors may need some more data about you and your business (a credit history, for instance).

So, the appendix should be prepared beforehand to save time in the future. You can include in it:

• Charts, tables, and other illustrations absent in the central parts
• Trademark/patent documentation
• Market researches in details
• Credit history
• Supportive papers (contracts, agreements, etc.)

You may also add here:

A production plan: it is your helper during production activity setting tasks that should be completed for aims achievement, every employee function in such a completion, and so on.

An operations plan: it may identify your startup’s primary business needs, such as equipment, requirements to inventory, office building, or location.

Preparing an appendix, care about its simplicity in reading and comfort in use. If it’s too long or contains too many documents to read, make a supplementary table of contents for more straightforward navigation of your plan readers. Disclosing confidential data, please monitor users having access to it and remind them about the necessity of maintaining confidentiality.

On top of that, the readers can skip the supplementary section as it’s the last part of your business plan; your prepared plan should be understandable and self-reliant. Otherwise, it will need reworking.

The Famous Startups Succeeded Due to Planning

A way to success and prosperity isn’t a bed of roses. World-famous companies began their way from startups one day, thoroughly planning every step on the road to fame. For you to inspire, we’ve prepared a shortlist of such startups’ success stories.

Samples of startups successful due to accurate planning

In the beginning, Pinterest was an invitation-only service. To go further on their development path, the company planned every business step, thinking about a proper UX for their product: Ben Silbermann even gave users his personal phone number to contact him about the site at any time of day or night. This perseverance paid off. Now Pinterest is a unique platform with $633 million revenue.

Canva is one of the leading graphic design platforms designers love to use for everything. This successful Australian business has raised over $US 1 billion of revenue. Due to proper scheduling policy and belief in workforce empowering, Canva CEO Melanie Perkins could make her company successful, having an audience of more than 10 million customers.

The well-known messenger allowing people to communicate worldwide was invented in a gym. When Jan Koum and his co-founder Brian Acton were annoyed with missing calls while at the gym, they created WhatsApp, which allows users to update their "status" to indicate when they are ready to accept calls. They only wanted to make a good product for customers, which approximately turned into more than $5.5 billion of revenue.

Netflix, which started its way as a rent-by-mail DVD service that required users to pay for each rental, is now worth more than $30 billion. It's a brilliant illustration of how pivoting a business model can significantly affect a company's direction. Netflix was able to further establish itself as the go-to media company by pivoting from DVD by mail to developing award-winning programming and gaining revenue of more than $US 7.5 billion .

Creating Your Own Business Plan

Strict planning of business steps was one of the essential things all the above companies had in common to grow and become more successful. We can personally propose a tech startup business plan template from Shopify that most nearly meets the points discussed above.

Shopify tech company business plan template

But remember that such a document will properly work if its critical blocks are created with the help of qualified experts. Cleveroad, a skilled IT consulting company and software solution provider from Ukraine, Eastern Europe, is ready to help you with initial project development phases and further ones. Since 2011, we've been assisting startups and organizations of all kinds in acquiring cutting-edge technologies.

During the collaboration with us, you’ll obtain a wide range of services, containing (but not limited to):

• Proven in-depth software development experience in a variety of sectors
• Working with high-qualified, certified, and agile-oriented Business Analysts, Solution Architects, and other tech specialists able to help you solve business issues
• Consultations from our Business Analysts and tech experts about your project
• Initial project estimates from our Sales Managers for free, with no hidden costs
• Honesty with our clients and partners as a critical component of developing outstanding products

You can also apply to us if you have problems with business plan creation. We’ll help you solve them quickly and efficiently build a software product for your business.

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Wrapping Up

Developing an information technology startup business plan is a complicated and time-consuming process that practically every company should undertake. You can adapt pre-made templates, but no one-size-fits-all template will work for every company. That’s why you may make your job easier, applying to specialists competent in software development.

A business plan can help you organize your thoughts, ideas, and even find the right people to work with. Even though making a business plan (or completing a technology startup business plan example) is a long and complex process, almost every startup should go through it.

Your startup business must have these sections:

• Executive summary. This section sums up the entire business plan and works as an introduction.
• Company description. This part reveals history, goals, team structure, and other details about your company.
• Marketing plan. A marketing plan is a representation of the startup’s competitive advantage and marketing goals.
• Financial projections. In plain language, it’s a forecast of the future revenue and expenses of your startup.
• Team structure. This section serves to familiarize investors with the hierarchy of your startup team.
• Step 1. First of all find a flexible template to jot down your business plan.
• Step 2. Write company description.
• Step 3. Define your goals, make a market research and jot down it's results in marketing plan.
• Step 4. Write financial plan.
• Step 5. Write your management team structure.
• Step 6. Sum previous section in executive summary.

Evgeniy Altynpara is a CTO and member of the Forbes Councils’ community of tech professionals. He is an expert in software development and technological entrepreneurship and has 10+years of experience in digital transformation consulting in Healthcare, FinTech, Supply Chain and Logistics

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Nice piece of information. You've nailed its explanation. Besides, these templates that you've attached are really great. I think that they will suit perfectly for new startups.

May 01, 2024

Oct 05, 2023

Sep 29, 2023

Tech Startup Business Plan

Many of us have this wild dream of becoming a hot-shot CEO with a cup of overpriced coffee on one hand and the latest smartphone on the other, but to get there, you still need to start fresh. You may also see  business plan outline with examples .

• Business Plan Outline with Examples
• How to Create a Business Plan?

Having a good business idea is one thing, but turning this vision into a reality is another matter that many individuals refuse to invest on when the struggles they need to go through become known.

Technology Startup Business Plan Template

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Tech Startup Business Plan Example Template

With the many opportunities and promising business ideas to choose from, business owners are starting to recognize what technology can offer them not just for personal use, but as a corporate investment as well.

Amidst the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Sony comes the wide variety of tech startups emerging in the marketplace at rapid speed. So in this article, we discuss what it takes to become a successful tech startup with the help of a simple business plan .

Tech Startup Business Plan Template

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Educational Tech Startup Business Plan Example

What Is a Tech Startup?

With the wide use of technology being more prominent now than ever, many tech startups are making the attempt to make a breakthrough in the competitive market with their innovative (and sometimes peculiar) product and service offers for consumers to enjoy. You may also like  business plan guidelines examples . A tech startup is a company whose purpose is to bring various forms of technology-based products and services to the market. These companies are set to deliver a wide range of new or existing technology products or services in a variety of ways.

They come in the form of a company, a partnership, or a temporary organization that is designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model to launch. With technology being an essential factor of our day-to-day lives, startups aim to bring innovativeness, scalability, and growth through their creations. Though it might be a while until robots and artificial intelligence completely replace manual labor, we can expect a lot from these promising tech startup ideas, especially those with an exceptional business plan in place. You may also see  business operational plan examples .

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Mobile Tech Startup Business Plan Example

10 Essential Elements of a Tech Startup Business Plan

Every tech startup is different, with each company specializing in one thing that’s fairly different from the other. But if there’s one principle that every startup company needs, then it’s the universal wisdom of experience. You may also like to learn  how to create a business plan . Truth is, many companies have attempted to try new things but failed while at it. Others have pivoted and re-branded hoping to get another shot with investors and clients, only to come out empty-handed.

Transforming your big idea into a revenue-generating reality can be a daunting experience of disappointments and rejections. But then again, in order to succeed in business (and life in general), you need to learn from these experiences to come out a million times better. The following items explain what makes a tech startup successful and the factors that you need to keep in mind when constructing your business plan :

1. Think Highly of Yourself.

This may sound like an egoistic move, but don’t take it the wrong way.

As a startup business, it wouldn’t hurt to pretend you’re a lot bigger than you actually are. They say that this can attract the type of energy you hope to achieve. Acting like a bigger company will also allow you to grow into the efficiencies it gives you. It also requires you to work just as hard as the big dogs do. Not to say you’re prohibited from having a fun work environment, as you do want to keep employees happy for them to stick around long enough for the company to prosper, but insisting on a disciplined execution will definitely keep the business afloat. This will make it easier to partner or collaborate with other successful brands who might just offer you your big break. You may also check out  market analysis business plan examples .

2. Choose the Right Partners.

As a startup founder, choosing the right partners to complement your skill set and realize your vision is crucial to corporate success. Partnerships can be a tricky business, especially when it has become so easy for offshore or outsourcing companies to squeeze the money out of a vulnerable (and rather gullible) startup. It’s best to do your research on existing companies and startup founders, preferably those who have been a part of a successful company in the past, before you engage in a potential deal. You may also see  network marketing business plan examples .

3. Create a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Plan.

You know how TV shows come out with pilot episodes first before they can release an entire season of the show? With the same concept in mind, experts believe that it’s always best to start selling parts of your product before completing a full platform. Getting market validation early on in your startup’s growth stage will give an idea of what your target customers are looking for in a product or service. This will also help you start building revenue as you continue to understand how the entire process works. You may also like  how to make a business plan .

They also believe that while a good business idea is important, so is the way it is presented to investors and clients. Allowing your prospects to see your capabilities will work wonders for your startup along the way. You may also check out  importance of business plan .

4. Go for the Standout Pitch.

It’s always hard to make a pitch with a potential investor. With the dozens of business ideas that come their way, standing out from the “good” and the “pretty good” is crucial to getting noticed. Your pitch with a prospect will only end with one of two ways: you either get accepted or declined. Naturally, getting accepted is the only thing that matters most. You might be interested in  free business plan examples .

Since it may be difficult to identify the things that you should do and should not do for your pitch, it’s a good idea to speak with entrepreneurs with businesses that did not make it. It’s easy to focus on the successes, but not many seem to recognize the value of failures as well. This provides you with enough insight regarding how and why a company or an idea did not make the cut. You may also see  bookkeeping business plan examples .

Professional Tech Startup Business Plan Example

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5. Prepare to Be Rejected.

You’ve probably heard this a thousands times before, and it couldn’t be emphasized enough. Rejection will always be a possibility, but just because a couple of investors have said “no” to you before, don’t use this as a reason to give up.

Getting the first check is the hardest, which is why many successful business owners suggest to spend the time building VC (Venture Capital) relationships before funding, and to continue networking until you have secured the necessary funds. The rejection will definitely take a toll in your spirit and drive to move forward, but you need to learn to get back up and rise above the negativity for a better and brighter future. You may also see  hotel business plan examples .

6. Keep It Innovative.

There should never be a reason to stop building. You can always turn a “good” idea into something “great.” And even if it feels like you’ve reached the peak of greatness, there will always be room for more improvement.

Take tech giant Apple as an example. Even when people thought that the Touch ID of the iPhone 5S was a phenomenal feature, Apple released a facial recognition feature through Face ID which was specially designed for the iPhone X. The system was designed just a few years after the Touch ID, which proves just how the company continues to uphold the value of innovation through their products. You may also check out  advertising and marketing business plan examples .

7. Aim for a Deliverable Product.

Startup founders tend to be optimistic and idea-driven, yet, they can’t seem to confine to the status quo. Though adapting to market demands is also important, picking a single area of innovation and focusing on a product that’s better than anyone else’s is key. You need to make sure you’re moving toward the right direction by understanding the exact things that your target market wants. You may also like  business plan examples .

However, you need to work quickly. Trends fade and people get bored too easily. If you want to prosper, start delivering products as soon as you can and stay focused on making them a hit.

8. Put Pen on Paper.

Even after an investor has made a vow to work with you, you still need to put it in writing. Contract documents  are a real thing, and you need to be responsible for them. This goes both ways in your professional relationship, as you’d want to make your counterpart feel comfortable to work with you, and you need to be able to trust that these prospects would stick to their word.

Though creating these formal documents may be pricey, it’s definitely worth the spend to guarantee long-term business relationships.

9. Be Careful with Cryptocurrency.

You might have heard about various prediction market platforms and forecasting tools that have allowed users to foresee the outcomes of real-world events, as well as buying and selling shares through smart contracts. You might be interested in  simple business plan examples .

While building on blockchain or relying on cryptocurrency may seem like a promising venture, you’d still want to sketch out a full architecture of your plan, challenge it, and then build it.

10. Plan for the Long-Term.

Even with the potential risks and challenges that may cause your business to fail along the way, you still need to be optimistic enough to plan for the long-term. Investing in strong talent and developing a culture for your business to thrive on will help build a solid foundation for your startup. This will also pave the way for many opportunities, leading your business to the right direction. You may also see  bar business plan examples .

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How to Write a Business Plan for Your Startup

Anyone can have a great idea; in fact, you can ask a 12-year-old for a business idea and they’d probably give you something more imaginative than what any other 30-year-old could offer. But transforming this idea into a viable business is a different ballgame you wouldn’t want to mess up. You may also see  e-commerce marketing plan examples .

So if you’re hoping to launch a tech startup anytime soon, here are a few tips on how you can create an effective business plan:

1. Have a clear objective.

Set a clear objective that’s anything but ambiguous. You need to be specific about what you hope to achieve. Since starting a business requires you to offer a solution in order to address a problem, your business plan should identify who you are and what you aim to do. You must also state the kind of products and services you’ll be offering and in what industry for a more specific approach. You may also see  convenience store business plan .

2. Identify your target audience.

Although your products and services will be made available for the general public, it isn’t exactly designed for everyone. Some tech startups create products for other businesses, while others cater to buying customers of a specified demographic. Knowing who your target consumers are will help you determine every detail of the product, its ideal market price, the right distribution channels, as well as your promotional strategies. You may also see  business checklist examples .

3. Study your competition.

Another important factor to include in your research is your competition. You need to remember that as a startup, no one knows about you, let alone care that you exist. With so many direct competitors in the marketplace, standing out is a definite must. Figure out what makes you different from other existing companies, and you can go from there. A SWOT analysis may also be used for proper assessment.

4. Budget properly.

Running out of cash is one of the primary reasons why many businesses fail. You might start out with a million dollars in capital, but be down to your last thousands after a year or two. When this happens, your business is at risk of closing and filing for bankruptcy. This is why it’s important to take the time to budget accordingly to help minimize the risk. You may also check out marketing strategy business plan examples .

5. Define your power structure.

Running a tech startup can never be a one-man show. You need to have a reliable team of staff members to manage each department of the company, including your accounting, marketing, operations, and HR sectors. This doesn’t have to be too complex, as new businesses usually start small before they begin expanding. You may also see  digital marketing plan examples .

Launching a startup company can be an exciting experience for any ambitious entrepreneur. However, it’s easy to rush into things and wind up regretting your wrongful decisions. So before anything else, always remember to write a good business plan to launch your company on the right foot. You may also like  business plan examples in PDF .

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Business Plan Template for Technology

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Starting a technology startup can be an exhilarating journey filled with endless possibilities. But without a solid business plan, those possibilities can quickly become overwhelming. That's where ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Technology comes in to save the day!

This template is specifically designed for tech startups, helping you outline your vision, set clear objectives, analyze your target market, assess the competition, project your finances, and strategize your funding approach. With this template, you'll have all the tools you need to effectively communicate your business model and secure the investments you need to thrive.

So, why wait? Get started on your tech startup journey with ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Technology today!

Business Plan Template for Technology Benefits

• Streamline the process of creating a comprehensive business plan, saving time and effort
• Clearly define your startup's vision, objectives, and target market, ensuring alignment within the team
• Conduct a thorough competitive analysis to understand your market position and identify opportunities
• Develop accurate financial projections to demonstrate the potential profitability and growth of your startup
• Present a well-structured plan to potential investors, increasing your chances of securing funding
• Continuously update and refine your business plan as your startup evolves and new opportunities arise

Main Elements of Technology Business Plan Template

ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Technology provides all the essential elements to help startup companies in the technology industry effectively communicate their business model and secure investments:

• Custom Statuses: Track the progress of different sections of your business plan with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do.
• Custom Fields: Use custom fields like Reference, Approved, and Section to add important details and categorize different parts of your business plan.
• Custom Views: Access different views like Topics, Status, Timeline, Business Plan, and Getting Started Guide to organize and visualize your business plan from different angles.
• Collaboration Tools: Utilize ClickUp's collaboration features such as comments, notifications, and task assignments to work together with your team members and stakeholders.
• Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with other tools like Google Drive, Microsoft Office, and more to easily import and export your business plan documents.

How To Use Business Plan Template for Technology

If you're starting a technology business and need a solid business plan, ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Technology can help guide you through the process. Follow these 6 steps to create a comprehensive and effective business plan:

1. Executive Summary

Start by writing an executive summary that provides an overview of your technology business. Include key information such as your company mission, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial goals. This section should be concise and capture the attention of potential investors or partners.

Use the Docs feature in ClickUp to create a professional and well-structured executive summary.

2. Market Analysis

Conduct a thorough analysis of the market for your technology product or service. Identify your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. Evaluate market size, growth potential, and any barriers to entry. This information will help you understand your competitive advantage and position your business for success.

Use the Table view in ClickUp to organize and analyze market research data, including market size, competitor analysis, and industry trends.

3. Product or Service Description

Provide a detailed description of your technology product or service. Explain how it works, its features and benefits, and how it solves a problem for your target audience. Highlight any unique selling points or proprietary technology that sets your offering apart from competitors.

Use custom fields in ClickUp to outline key product or service details, such as features, benefits, and competitive advantages.

4. Marketing and Sales Strategy

Outline your marketing and sales strategy for reaching and acquiring customers. Identify your target audience and develop a plan for reaching them through various marketing channels, such as social media, content marketing, or partnerships. Detail your pricing strategy, sales process, and distribution channels.

Use the Gantt chart view in ClickUp to create a timeline for your marketing and sales activities, ensuring that tasks are assigned and deadlines are met.

5. Financial Projections

Create financial projections that demonstrate the potential profitability and sustainability of your technology business. Include a sales forecast, expense budget, and cash flow statement. Evaluate your break-even point and projected return on investment. This section should provide a clear picture of your financial viability.

Use the Goals feature in ClickUp to set financial targets and track your progress towards meeting them.

6. Implementation Plan

Develop an implementation plan that outlines the steps and milestones necessary to launch and grow your technology business. This should include a timeline, resource allocation, and responsibilities for each task. Consider any potential risks or challenges and develop contingency plans.

Use the Dashboards feature in ClickUp to monitor the progress of your implementation plan and track key milestones.

By following these 6 steps and using ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Technology, you can create a comprehensive and compelling business plan that will impress potential investors and guide your technology business towards success.

Get Started with ClickUp’s Business Plan Template for Technology

Startup companies in the technology industry can use the ClickUp Business Plan Template for Technology to effectively communicate their business model and secure investments.

First, hit “Add Template” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create a comprehensive business plan:

• Use the Topics View to organize your business plan into different sections, such as vision, objectives, target market, competitive analysis, financial projections, and strategies for obtaining funding
• The Status View will help you track the progress of each section, with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do
• The Timeline View will give you a visual representation of your business plan's timeline, allowing you to set deadlines and milestones
• The Business Plan View will provide a holistic overview of your entire business plan, allowing you to see how all the sections fit together
• The Getting Started Guide View will provide step-by-step instructions on how to use the template and create a successful business plan
• Utilize the custom fields, such as Reference, Approved, and Section, to add additional information and categorize your business plan
• Collaborate with team members to brainstorm ideas, gather data, and refine your business plan
• Regularly review and update your business plan to ensure it remains relevant and aligned with your company's goals
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How to Create a Business Growth Plan (+Template)

• February 17, 2022

Every startup should have a strategic business growth plan to create clear alignment and accountability. We want to make sure all startup leaders can reap the benefits, so we’ve put together a business growth plan template.

A plan with achievable and measurable goals can make the difference between success and stagnation. This holds true for most people, from entrepreneurs to athletes. Identifying where you want to end up — and the steps you need to take to get there — will ensure you’re acting purposefully and efficiently. 

What Is a Business Growth Plan?

A business growth plan is a strategic document that enables organizations to develop the strategies and implement the tactics needed to accomplish their goals. It also includes data-driven checkpoints to help executives and other stakeholders evaluate their progress and measure success.

Every department, from sales and marketing to product development, must help build this plan on a detailed level. This collaboration helps achieve alignment and empowers you to work faster and smarter. Growth plans also get your board of directors aligned to what success looks like for your startup company in the coming months and years.

Business Growth Plan Template

Why you need a business growth plan.

A strategic business growth plan drives strategy formulation (where you want your business to get to) and implementation (how you get there).

Startup founders should make sure everyone in their business, from advisors to freelancers to leadership teams, knows what they’re trying to achieve as a collective group. This instills confidence, allowing colleagues to move quickly because they know they’re heading in the right direction. It also empowers individuals to work independently, reducing the need for constant meetings to get realigned. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, it promotes measuring success with real metrics instead of gut feelings.

How Do I Write a Business Growth Plan?

To write a business growth plan, break down your goals like this:

• Strategic business objectives
• Annual objectives
• Action items
• Measurement

Our business growth plan template will help you organize your thoughts, but I’ll explain a little further here.

I like to think of a business plan as a nesting doll. Within each goal, you have smaller objectives that help you achieve your vision. Over time, small steps add up to set you in the right direction. This approach breaks down a business plan using the popular Hoshin Kanri Strategic Planning Model :

Most startups already have a vision statement: the long-term, overarching, big-picture mission of their company.

Example: At York IE, our vision is to change the way startups are built, scaled, and monetized.

2. Strategic Business Objectives

Break down the vision into two or three broad business growth goals to achieve in the next one to three years. These goals are relevant to each arm of your business but mean something different within each team.

Example: something simple yet powerful, like “increase our customer base by X%” or “achieve $X in ARR, representing Y% growth year over year.”

3. Annual Objectives

For each strategic business objective, you’ll need two or three annual objectives to help you make progress. These goals should be more focused and measurable over the course of a year.

Example: If your strategic objective is to achieve $X in annual recurring revenue , an annual objective for the go-to-market team might be, “Increase team quota carry through hiring and deploying new sales enablement tools.”

4. Action Items

For each annual objective, generate three to five tangible, impactful and actionable tasks. These are items you can check off on a list as you go along.

Examples: Launching a hiring campaign to add 10 new team members, completing a budget that demonstrates 0% to 5% profitability or rolling out a significant new product feature.

5. Measurement

You’ve surely heard that numbers don’t lie. Of course, I am a numbers person, but it’s true! Quantitative benchmarks help us objectively determine if we’re on track.

Examples: Generate X number of leads over the next 12 months, increase website traffic by X%, maintain gross margin between X% and Y%, achieve revenue per employee of $X.

Get Started with a Business Growth Plan Template

There’s plenty more to know, but you don’t need to be an expert to get started.

Download the business growth plan template below, grab your leadership team and start identifying the steps you’ll take to achieve your startup’s vision this year — and beyond.

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• Small Business
• How to Start a Business

How to Start a Business: A Comprehensive Guide and Essential Steps

Building an effective business launch plan

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Conducting Market Research

Crafting a business plan, reviewing funding options, understanding legal requirements, implementing marketing strategies, the bottom line.

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Starting a business in the United States involves a number of different steps spanning legal considerations, market research, creating a business plan, securing funding, and developing a marketing strategy. It also requires decisions about a business’ location, structure, name, taxation, and registration. Here are the key steps involved in starting a business, as well as important aspects of the process for entrepreneurs to consider.

Key Takeaways

• Entrepreneurs should start by conducting market research to understand their industry space, competition, and target customers.
• The next step is to write a comprehensive business plan, outlining the company’s structure, vision, and strategy.
• Securing funding in the form of grants, loans, venture capital, and/or crowdfunded money is crucial if you’re not self-funding.
• When choosing a venue, be aware of local regulations and requirements.
• Design your business structure with an eye to legal aspects, such as taxation and registration.
• Make a strategic marketing plan that addresses the specifics of the business, industry, and target market.

Before starting a business, entrepreneurs should conduct market research to determine their target audience, competition, and market trends. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) breaks down common market considerations as follows:

• Demand : Is there a need for this product or service?
• Market size : How many people might be interested?
• Economic indicators : What are the income, employment rate, and spending habits of potential customers?
• Location : Are the target market and business well situated for each other?
• Competition : What is the market saturation ? Who and how many are you going up against?
• Pricing : What might a customer be willing to pay?

Market research should also include an analysis of market opportunities, barriers to market entry, and industry trends, as well as the competition’s strengths, weaknesses, and market share .

There are various methods for conducting market research, and these will vary depending on the nature of the industry and potential business. Data can come from a variety of places, including statistical agencies, economic and financial institutions, and industry sources, as well as direct consumer research through focus groups, interviews, surveys, and questionnaires.

A comprehensive business plan is like a blueprint. It lays the foundation for business development and affects decision-making, day-to-day operations, and growth. Potential investors or partners may want to review and assess it in advance of agreeing to work together. Financial institutions often request business plans as part of an application for a loan or other forms of capital. 

Business plans will differ according to the needs and nature of the company and should only include what makes sense for the business in question. As such, they can vary in length and structure. They can generally be divided into two formats: traditional and lean start-up. The latter is less common and more useful for simple businesses or those that expect to rework their traditional business plan frequently. It provides a vivid snapshot of the company through a small number of elements.

The process of funding a business depends on its needs and the vision and financial situation of its owner.  The first step is to calculate the start-up costs . Identify a list of expenses and put a dollar amount to each of them through research and requesting quotes. The SBA has a start-up costs calculator for small businesses that includes common types of business expenses.  

The next step is to determine how to get the money. Common methods include:

• Self-funding , also known as “ bootstrapping ”
• Finding investors willing to contribute to your venture capital
• Raising money online by crowdfunding
• Securing a business loan from a bank, an online lender, or a credit union
• Winning a business grant from a donor, usually a government, foundation, charity, or corporation

Different methods suit different businesses, and it’s important to consider the obligations associated with any avenue of funding. For example, investors generally want a degree of control for their money, while self-funding puts business owners fully in charge. Of course, investors also mitigate risk; self-funding does not.

Availability is another consideration. Loans are easier to get than grants, which don’t have to be paid back. Additionally, the federal government doesn’t provide grants for the purposes of starting or growing a business, although private organizations may. However, the SBA does guarantee several categories of loans , accessing capital that may not be available through traditional lenders. No matter the funding method(s), it’s essential to detail how the money will be used and lay out a future financial plan for the business, including sales projections and loan repayments . 

Businesses operating in the U.S. are legally subject to regulations at the local, county, state, and federal level involving taxation, business IDs, registrations, and permits.

Choosing a Business Location

Where a business operates will dictate such things as taxes, zoning laws (for brick-and-mortar locations), licenses, and permits. Other considerations when choosing a location might include:

• Human factors : These include target audience and the preferences of business owners and partners regarding convenience, knowledge of the area, and commuting distance.
• Regulations : Government at every level will assert its authority.
• Regionally specific expenses : Examples are average salaries (including required minimum wages), property or rental prices, insurance rates, utilities, and government fees and licensing.
• The tax and financial environment : Tax types include income, sales, corporate, and property, as well as tax credits; available investment incentives and loan programs may also be geographically determined.

Picking a Business Structure

The structure of a business should reflect the desired number of owners, liability characteristics, and tax status. Because these have legal and tax compliance implications , it’s important to understand them fully. If necessary, consult a business counselor, a lawyer, and/or an accountant.

Common business structures include:

• Sole proprietorship : A sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business that has just one owner, who pays personal income tax on its profits.
• Partnership : Partnership options include a limited partnership (LP) and a limited liability partnership (LLP) .
• Limited liability company (LLC) : An LLC protects its owners from personal responsibility for the company’s debts and liabilities.
• Corporation : The different types of corporations include C corp , S corp , B corp , closed corporation , and nonprofit .

Getting a Tax ID Number

A tax ID number is the equivalent of a Social Security number for a business. Whether or not a state and/or federal tax ID number is required will depend on the nature of the business and the location in which it’s registered.

A federal tax ID, also known as an employer identification number (EIN) , is required if a business:

• Operates as a corporation or partnership
• Pays federal taxes
• Has employees
• Files employment, excise, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms tax returns
• Has a Keogh plan
• Withholds taxes on non-wage income to nonresident aliens
• Is involved with certain types of organizations, including trusts, estates, real estate mortgage investment conduits, nonprofits, farmers’ cooperatives, and plan administrators

An EIN can also be useful if you want to open a business bank account, offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan, or apply for federal business licenses and permits. You can get one online from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) . State websites will do the same for a state tax ID.

Registering a Business

How you register a business will depend on its location, nature, size, and business structure.  For example, a small business may not require any steps beyond registering its business name with local and state governments, and business owners whose business name is their own legal name might not need to register at all.

That said, registration can provide personal liability protection, tax-exempt status, and trademark protection, so it can be beneficial even if it’s not strictly required. Overall registration requirements, costs, and documentation will vary depending on the governing jurisdictions and business structure.  

Most LLCs, corporations, partnerships, and nonprofits are required to register at the state level and will need a registered agent to file on their behalf. Determining which state to register with can depend on factors such as:

• Whether the business has a physical presence in the state
• If the business often conducts in-person client meetings in the state
• If a large portion of business revenue comes from the state
• Whether the business has employees working in the state

If a business operates in more than one state, it may need to file for foreign qualification in other states in which it conducts business. In this case the business would register in the state in which it was formed (this would be considered the domestic state) and file for foreign qualification in any additional states.

Obtaining Permits

Filing for the applicable government licenses and permits will depend on the industry and nature of the business and might include submitting an application to a federal agency, state, county, and/or city. The SBA lists federally regulated business activities alongside the corresponding license-issuing agency, while state, county, and city regulations can be found on the official government websites for each region.

Every business should have a marketing plan that outlines an overall strategy and the day-to-day tactics used to execute it. A successful marketing plan will lay out tactics for how to connect with customers and convince them to buy what the company is selling. 

Marketing plans will vary according to the specifics of the industry, target market, and business, but they should aim to include descriptions of and strategies for the following:

• A target customer : Including market size, demographics, traits, and relevant trends
• Value propositions or business differentiators : An overview of the company’s competitive advantage with regard to employees, certifications, and offerings
• A sales and marketing plan : Including methods, channels, and a customer’s journey through interacting with the business
• Goals : Should cover different aspects of the marketing and sales strategy, such as social media follower growth, public relations opportunities, and sales targets
• An execution plan : Should detail tactics and break down higher-level goals into specific actions
• A budget : Detailing how much different marketing projects and activities will cost

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Business?

Business start-up costs will vary depending on the industry, business activity, and product or service offered. Home-based online businesses will usually cost less than those that require an office setting to meet with customers. The estimated cost can be calculated by first identifying a list of expenses and then researching and requesting quotes for each one. Use the SBA’s start-up costs calculator for common types of expenses associated with starting a small business.

What Should I Do Before Starting a Business?

Entrepreneurs seeking to start their own business should fully research and understand all the legal and funding considerations involved, conduct market research, and create marketing and business plans. They will also need to secure any necessary permits, licenses, funding, and business bank accounts.

What Types of Funding Are Available to Start a Business?

Start-up capital can come in the form of loans, grants, crowdfunding, venture capital, or self-funding. Note that the federal government does not provide grant funding for the purposes of starting a business, although some private sources do.

Do You Need to Write a Business Plan?

Business plans are comprehensive documents that lay out the most important information about a business. They reference its growth, development, and decision-making processes, and financial institutions and potential investors and partners generally request to review them in advance of agreeing to provide funding or to collaborate.

Starting a business is no easy feat, but research and preparation can help smooth the way. Having a firm understanding of your target market, competition, industry, goals, company structure, funding requirements, legal regulations, and marketing strategy, as well as conducting research and consulting experts where necessary, are all things that entrepreneurs can do to set themselves up for success.

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Write Your Business Plan .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Calculate Your Startup Costs ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Fund Your Business .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Grants .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Loans .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Pick Your Business Location .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Choose a Business Structure .”

Internal Revenue Service. “ Do You Need an EIN? ”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Get Federal and State Tax ID Numbers .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Register Your Business .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Apply for Licenses and Permits .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Marketing and Sales .”

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