DESCRIPTION: Each prosperous company has become demanded due to the proper planning strategies. Let’s reveal how to build a tech project startup plan and not to fail.

Preparing a Tech Startup Plan Successfully: Main Recommendations and Benefits

Behind every successful project, there is thorough preparation. Writing a startup plan is not an easy process, especially when it comes to software development. A detailed and well-prepared plan can optimize the entire project process, which eliminates the failure of the startup successfully.

Let’s find out how to write a tech plan for a project and get acquainted with the most valuable recommendations on this topic. 

What Makes the Tech Startup Demanded

The main task of a business plan is to convince potential partners that this is an interesting project in terms of investment, which will pay back the money and effort invested.

Primarily, we should outline the notion of the tech business plan: it stands for an individually developed document that represents the roadmap for the software product completion as well as all the essential resources required for this. Many small and newly-established projects can’t meet the set goals due to the solution’s irrelevancy or insufficient financial investing. Here are the main benefits the tech business plan brings for businesses:

• Engaging financial contribution
• Creating an architecture roadmap
• Precise forecasting of the following expenses 
• Making the final product demanded

Every startup tech plan comprises specific integral parts; they are as follows:

• Executive summary
• Business overview 
• Roadmap for marketing
• Forecasts of spendings
• Section with employees

A business plan details the steps an entrepreneur must take to achieve his goals. But what are the main pieces of advice that can help make such a plan maximally beneficial? The next section of this post will disclose the elements it consists of as well as answer for the aforementioned question.

How to Prepare a Brilliant Executive Summary?

We may describe this part as a primary presentation of the whole idea. The successfully-developed introduction serves as an excellent presentation of your project concept and the solution’s peculiarities. Traditionally, the executive summary contains the  sections mentioned below:

Company’s description. A brief overview of the driving idea and its significance for users

Aimed audience. Describe the main clients your product is built for and define the solutions it delivers.

Rivals. Determine your primary competitors and the unique features that make your software stand out from the crowd.

Employees. Here you should acquaint readers with your software development team as well as the other staff and define the missing teammates. You may also include ways how to liquidate the expertise insufficiency. 

Suggestions to Create an Executive Summary Successfully

Here are the main tips on how to develop a top-quality executive summary:

Finish the project first. The introduction will be composed much better in case all the other sections are covered with in-depth research.

Include the information of primary importance.

Successful executive summaries comprise only vital and engaging parts avoiding excessive data.

Clearness and organization. Great readability and clearness imply that each section should be meaningful yet, pretty laconic.

Business Overview: What to Mention?

The given points describe the essential information to include when developing the company specification:

The company establishing story. Reveal the details of how the business was founded depending on what actual phase it is now. 

Region. State your headquarters’ location and the time gaps you would like to stay within the set location.

Market sector. The part is devoted to the industry your software solution is architected for. 

Control and operation. Tell about your team in more detail and provide the description of their responsibilities as well as expertise. 

Legal structure. This aspect determines the taxation model. Therefore, it’s vital to comprise. In addition, you should mention the company’s owner. 

Main target. The part where you are able to turn the imagination on and add the main priorities and values of your business. 

Offered solutions. Describe what makes your project rentable and what solutions it may offer for the audience. 

Company’s expanse. The fundamental step to take is to think over the expanse strategies. It implies having sufficient staff and suitable software to be able to cope with a higher workload as your business begins to grow.

A business plan is a description of actions for an entrepreneur who is just starting a business or wants to expand it. This document calculates in detail how the product or service will make a profit. It should answer two important questions: 

• How much money will be needed to launch the project?
• In what time frame it will pay off?

The main difference between a business plan and a business idea description- the availability of the calculations and figures. 

Creating a Marketing Strategy 

The goal of promotion is to successfully bring the product to market and capture its share of consumers.

The promotion plan answers the questions:

• What offer to make to the customer?

It includes not only the price of the product itself but also additional services your company is able to offer and deliver.

• What sales channels to use?

It can be not only direct contact with customers but also with partner channels.

• How do you stimulate sales?

You can introduce bonus programs, discounts for regular customers, and customer cards.

• What kind of advertising support should be chosen?

You can use direct advertising, participate in partner events, prepare articles for popular online resources, sponsor contests on social networks, and so on.

You should understand who your target audience is in order to be able to satisfy its requirements with relevant solutions. For this, characterize the customers according to the following points:

• Age 
• Placement
• Gender
• Education
• Revenue

Complete a quiz

Define the main attracting points in the products of your competitors. 

Build a buyer persona

This notion stands for an ideal client of your specific product. 

The Guide for the Rivals’ Analysis

How to complete this analysis properly? Let’s find out together:

1. Detect the competitors from the same niche. Study the market and list the most successful products from the same niche. 
2. Explore their solutions. Particularly, the potent and weak points of the products. You can also analyze how those aspects should be enhanced to implement a solution of a maximal quality.
3. Categorize them by the competitiveness level. Assess the uniqueness of your project and rank the rivals due to their success.

Completing a SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis is a planning method and a tool for evaluating external and internal factors that determine how a company or an individual product will develop in the market.

The insights this analysis delivers are also an integral part of the business plan:

• Strengths of your project and the original features that may increase the startup’s success
• Weaknesses that may decrease the demand for the product and influence its success on the market
• Opportunities provided by the solution are the methods you are able to utilize for the company’s expansion
• Threats which are the outer influencing factors

The Financial Projections Section

The financial outgoings and revenue should also be comprised in the business plan:

• Current financial state. The balance sheet included in the entire plan represents the actual revenue and can help forecast the profit.
• Expenses. You should mention the single and regular outgoings your project requires.
• Revenue. This refers to the forecasted profit your product will get.
• Monetizing. Define what monetization model your solution will have.
• Projecting sales. The ways and strategies to achieve the set objectives. 

How to Build a Financial Plan Successfully 

Think in advance about how much money you will use to develop your business. How much of your own money are you willing to invest? From whom would you be able to borrow additional money? For example, from banks or microfinance organizations. Or maybe you will turn to investors who will take a share in the company and become your partners. Here are some recommendations on the financial plan development:

Prove the information set in the financial section with the entire startup roadmap

• Make your profit forecasts maximally comprehensible. To attract more financial support, you should clearly describe the information to make it easier to perceive and understand the potential of your idea.
• Keep the plan thought-minded. Positive perspectives should be justified.  
• Benefit from existing examples. You may also explore the already developed financial plan. 

Staff description 

Serving as a concluding section, this part should disclose the specialists comprised in the team.  The primary aspects it should cover are the following:

Operational layer

To make the company’s workflow efficient and productive, you may employ the following experts in your company:

• Chief Executive Officer– the individual whose primary responsibilities are operating and guiding the business.
• Chief Technology Officer is a tech-savvy expert who is able to control the other developers and mentor the services they deliver.
• Chief Marketing Officer is a person who defines the marketing strategy of the enterprise, makes decisions at the highest level, and directs the work of the marketing service of the company.
• Chief Sales Officer– a head of sales, director of sales prediction, and the set goals to reach.

The tech part of the employees should involve such specialists as frontend as well as backend software architecture, UI/UX design team, Quality Assurance experts, and many others. 

Missing expertise

It’s a conventional challenge for many newly-established companies when the skills of the current team aren’t enough. If this issue is present in your business as well, you should state the lacking specialization, the skills, and knowledge essential for the particular position. 

Board specialists 

This department is your right hand that helps you to maximize the internal processes’ effectiveness and make the business successful. 

Extra Points to Include in Your Tech Roadmap

To deliver in-depth data concerning your startup, you may add some advanced parts to your tech plan. This is not an obligatory action to do, yet, it’s appreciated by investors, as they are able to find out more information about your project. What are the subjects you should describe there? Let’s single them out:

• Visual elements to enhance the perception of your project idea
• Required resources that represent the fundamental facilities that are indispensable for your company’s operation

In developing this extra section, you should keep in mind such significant aspects as the readability, well structure, and clearness. There are situations when this section stays unchecked, so the entire plan should be excellently written without this supplementary part. 

Global Solutions Becoming Popular Applying a Business Plan

Many well-known digital products that many of us use on a daily basis would not have achieved such popularity without a tech startup plan. Let’s take a look at the global corporations that have made a name for themselves in the marketplace through such a roadmap.

WhatsApp

Everyone’s favorite app for communication via chat, audio, and seen calls and messages was also once a small startup. The main idea was to indicate the network status of the interlocutor. This feature turned out to be very relevant to the target audience, and the diamond plan brought the product success and necessity across the world.

Pinterest

A modern app with a huge amount of aesthetic content shortly before its popularity served only to send out invitations. Quality preparation led to the rapid scaling of the company, as well as the implementation of new functionality in the software solution. 

Netflix

A globally-known platform for films and series watching was primarily invented as a company delivering the content per single rent. A thorough roadmap has made this corporation competitive and sought-after.

Canva 

The platform includes a huge variation of pre-built templates as well as the original development for different types of tasks within the design framework. Thanks to the first-rate strategy and equally diligent planning, the audience of users has crossed ten million.

Developing an Individual Startup Plan

Writing a business plan will also help identify not only the strengths but also the weaknesses of the business idea, analyze competitors and see when the business will start to make money.

Please note that such a project roadmap is highly complex to perform without the competent partners’ assistance. To receive top-quality service and complete a beneficial roadmap development, you should assess the expertise of the potential helpers. Apart from this, the modern world has moved to remote collaboration conditions, so you are able to find a tech development vendor online easily and quickly without bounding yourself to only one region.

Author’s bio

My name is Katherine Orekhova and I am a technical writer at Cleveroad – web and mobile app development company. I’m keen on technology and innovations. My passion is to tell people about the latest tech trends in the world of IT.