Write on Paper, Not “Parchment”

When writing your business plan, stay clear, concise and succinct. Follow these three simple guidelines to better make your point to your intended audience.

1. Cut pretense – and acronyms. If you focus on impressing your readers, you have already lost the plain English fight. Unless your business involves reinstating Shakespeare-era speech, use short simple words that we all understand. Similarly, don’t assume your audience – particularly a potential investor – understands your acronym. Spell it out at least once, please!

2. State your point in the first sentence. Make your point up front. Avoid the temptation to describe how the founders developed the Company or to use statistics and cite publications demonstrating the need for the product. This won’t impress investors and other readers of your business plan. Your ability to succinctly state your plan, however, can impress them by showing you understand and are focused on the market opportunity.

3. Use easy to read formatting. Few people read every word of your business plan before determining if they are interested in learning more about your startup. Use headers, bullet points and new paragraphs for each new idea so that a quick scan of your plan makes your business purpose and model clear. To keep it really clean, add a space between points and paragraphs.