Introduction to entrepreneurship/IENT102/Planning/Templates

Fortunately, for new entrepreneurs, there is plenty of free advice on the internet about how to produce a business plan. This includes templates for you to adapt and fill in with your own information and examples of completed business plans for different types of business, to give you inspiration.

Here are two resources to get you started:

• Prince's Trust (UK charity): tips and templates

• Over 500 free sample business plans from Bplans

Note that there are different types of business plan for different purposes - some of these are summarised in this article: 6 Types of Business Plans. As you read through any sample business plan, think about what type of business plan each one is. In this learning pathway, we are focusing on plans that are appropriate for a small, start-up business.

We suggest that you spend at least an hour reading and comparing templates and examples, including searching for ones for the resource bank activity below. This is important preparation for the learning challenge for this learning pathway - and for the assessment for this micro-course if you choose to take it.

Resource bank activity

It is important to use templates and examples that are appropriate for your business idea and your own way of working.

• Search the internet to find:
  • At least two templates that you think would be suitable for your start-up business
  • At least two examples of completed business plans that you find helpful, ideally ones for businesses that are similar to your own business idea
• Add the resources that you find to the resource bank, using the instructions below, so that your fellow/sister learners can find them. Note in the description why you have chosen them.
• Look at some of the resources that other learners have added, and comment on one or two of them.

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The resource bank is hosted at bookmarks.oeru.org. The system uses tags to search for related resources. Log in and vote for resources you find useful. Please use the following tags for this activity:
Required tags: : ient102a4-1
Suggested tags: : business plan template, business plan example (or other descriptive tag(s))
Quicklink: : ient102a4-1