Legitimate Home Based Businesses

Posts Tagged ‘sharing’

Question: Is there a website available wit sample business plans for aE-Commerce home-based business?

Answer: I have not seen a home based ecommerce sample business plan

But here are some resources that can help you write your business plan:

- SBA Business Plan Basics http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
- PowerHomeBiz.com Creating a Business Plan section http://www.powerhomebiz.com/startup/businessplan.htm
- Entrepreneur.com Writing a Business Plan section http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizplan/0,7253,,00.html

You may also want to review some sample business plans to see how it actually looks like:

- Bplans.com http://www.bplans.com/sp/businessplans.cfm
- MOOT Corp Business Plan competition winners

http://www.businessplans.org/businessplans.html

- VFinance - View hundreds of real business plans in pdf format. http://www.vfinance.com/home.asp?bps=1&ToolPage=bps_main.asp
- Business Owners Toolkit Sample business plans and information on how to create a plan. http://www.toolkit.cch.com/tools/buspln_m.asp
- PlanWare Planning software and information. http://www.planware.org/
- Virtual Business Plan Walk through the design of a business plan. http://www.bizplanit.com/vplan.html
-SBA Business Planning Guide http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
- Small Business Advancement Center http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/business_plan/businessPlan.pdf
- Sample Business Plan General planning guide created by the Canadian Business Service Center. http://www.cbsc.org/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=CBSC_FE/display&c=GuideFactSheet&cid
- Business Plans Index - A subject guide to sample business plans and profiles for specific business types from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. http://216.183.184.20/subject/business/bplansindex.html

Some recommended books are :

- Business Plans Kit for Dummies
- The Complete Book of Business Plans : Simple Steps to Writing a Powerful Business Plan
- Writing Business Plans That Get Results : A Step-By-Step Guide
- Business Plans For Dummies®
- Your First Business Plan : A Simple Question and Answer Format Designed to Help You Write Your Own Plan

Importance of a Business Plan

East Village, Calgary

Question: Should I write a business plan if revenues will no be in the thousands?

I am a start-up business baking pastries and cakes in my home. I have seen sample business plans and my business does not have a projected revenue yet. I am told by others write a business plan. All of the plans I have seen have large financial projections.

Answer: You will need a business plan if you will use it to:

- Support a loan application
- Raise equity funding
- Define objectives and describe programs to achieve those objectives
- Create a regular business review and course correction process
- Define a new business
- Define agreements between partners
- Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes
- Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion

You will get a lot of advice that a business plan is needed.

However, what you need is the process that a business plan entails -- that is, the process of thinking through the business.
It will help if you follow the outline of a business plan -- e.g. defining your business, determining your unique selling proposition, identifying your target market, determining how you will market the business, knowing how much you need to launch the business successfully.

If you will not use it to apply for a loan or find an investor, you need not write your business plan.

There was an article from the Wall Street Journal that questioned whether a startup really needs to write a business plan and this is one of the studies they found http://startup.wsj.com/columnists/enterprise/20070110-spors.html

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A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated between 1985 and 2003. Comparing success measures such as annual revenue, employee numbers and net income, the study found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without them. The study concludes that "unless you need to raise external start-up capital from institutional sources or business angels, you do not need to write a formal business plan."
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You don't need a written formal business plan to succeed. However, you need to understand your business and know how to navigate the market in order to succeed

Paths to Profit: Unlimited Income, Learning from Successful Entrepreneurs