| Generally speaking, I recommend having ten | | | | Providing Background |
| sections to your business plan. The purposes of | | | | The industry, customer, and competitive analysis |
| these sections boil down to the following five | | | | sections look at these key elements of the |
| purposes | | | | market to show how the business in question fits |
| Setting the Stage | | | | in. This research and analysis sets the stage for |
| The executive summary sets the stage for the | | | | the market situation, putting a particular focus on |
| entire plan to come, while the company overview | | | | how the business can exploit these elements to |
| gives readers a more in-depth idea of where the | | | | succeed. While these sections may be heavy on |
| company is, how it got there, who it consists of, | | | | statistics and data points, make sure to |
| and what it sells. These two sections provide | | | | synthesize the data with some of your own |
| readers with a basic idea of what the business is | | | | analysis as to how the information will affect your |
| and what it has achieved so far, leaving | | | | business. |
| supporting data to the sections to come. | | | | |