“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” - Albert Einstein
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” - Confucius
1. 3-sentence business plan introduction
Almost all companies have three components they can’t do without a product or service, promotion, and financial sustainability.
Here is the 3-sentence business plan template:
- Product: What is the product and who is the target audience?
- Marketing: How will you promote the product?
- Finances: How will you generate revenue?
Narrowing things down to the bare essentials will help you focus on identifying the optimal business strategies.
Throughout these posts, we’ll plan a wide variety of businesses. Let’s start by going over two examples to solidify this concept.
2. 3-sentence business plan example for a technology product
Let’s start with a 3-sentence business plan for a mobile app that assists people in writing a business plan.
This is an established app I built years ago. I am using it as an example because I can use the wisdom of hindsight and behind the scenes information to give you deeper insights into this business.
Product: Mobile app to help entrepreneurs write a business plan
Marketing: App store search, publicity, social sharing, and ads
Finances: Revenue will come from subscriptions and upsells of educational business products and coaching
It is that simple to outline the core of a business with just a few lines. The sentences don’t necessarily have to be full grammatical sentences either. The app idea is explained in one line and the handful of most effective marketing and monetization strategies are also expressed in one sentence each.
3. 3-sentence business plan example for a lawn care business
Now let’s take a look at a 3-sentence business plan example for a lawn care business. It is a traditional business that most people have encountered before.
Product: Residential lawn care for residents of xx city?
Marketing: Google search, Yelp.com, YellowPages.com, and other local business listing websites, referrals, classifieds, business cards & business networking, fliers, paying for ads
Finances: We will focus on long-term customer retention to cover customer acquisition costs, charge customers more than the cost of labor and expenses, and keep the difference
See how simple it can be to express almost an entire strategy for a business? Now let’s try an exercise to help you create your 3-sentence business plan that we will later expand into a 1-page business plan and then a full-length business plan.
4. An exercise for your business
Try to address the questions that pertain to your situation. 99% of the time, it is possible to condense it into just three sentences.
Product:
- What is the product or service?
- What benefit does it provide and to whom?
- Can you make it inexpensively and of high quality?
- What form will it take? Website? App? Brick and mortar business?
Marketing:
- Identify a few of the most effective marketing strategies to promote your business
Finances
- What are the major sources of revenue?
- How will this happen profitably?
- When will you achieve financial sustainability?
- Do you need to raise money for this? How much?