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The One-Page Business Plan

by: Arlinda

When I was working for one of the large telecom network providers in product marketing, I had to go through a scrutinizing exercise every time we planed a product launch. This exercise was called called “The One-Page Plan”. After spending a lot of time and effort in workshops, thinking, planning and writing the perfect product marketing launch plan I had to boil it down into one single page. I did not enjoy this exercise, I have to say, mainly because it meant I had to give up all the cool details that made the plan so special. However, I loved the end result. With that one page, I could go to anybody in the organization and professionally summarize what we were going to do for the upcoming six months and why it was important. It made perfect sense. Most of the people in the organization, apart from the team and probably my boss, did not have the time to read a full plan.

So, I'm glad to see that investors prefer the one-page planing too. If you are an entrepreneur seeking funding this is a valuable document to give to investors. It will also help you think your idea through at an early stage.

Here are some practical tips for drafting your One-Page Business Plan:

• What is your best idea? As an enterpreneur, you probably have a lot of good ideas so this planning process should help you to focus and get your best idea on paper.
• What is your vision? You need to know where you are taking your ship first and you need to articulate it. So, you need to summarize and articulate your vision.
• How you will get to your vision? Link your vision to concrete actions that will enable you to make your vision a reality.
• Keep sharing. Every time you share your vision it becomes more of a reality. Be prepared that people will not always agree. It is however important to stay true to your vision.

Also, take a look at this helpful tutorials by business coach Chad Gibson at Watercooler 101 and Babak Nivi at Venture Hacks for further inspiration:

About Arlinda

Arlinda Sipilä is pointed as our Chief Operating Officer and she will also join our Board Of Directors In addition to more established companies like Tellabs, Arlinda is familiar with growth startups by having worked in several of those in her career, including SSH Communications, SEVEN Networks Inc., and Xtract. In her Senior Marketing positions she''s been responsible for overall marketing strategies, planning, execution and managing the marketing team for product launches, branding, public relations and event management. In her blog, she love's writing about the use of technology in marketing, startup business, branding, design, traveling and culture.