Case Study: Using the Business Plan Builder Tool

Using the Business Plan Builder Tool offered by UKStartups.

When starting a small business in the UK, a business plan is critical to success. Not only does a well developed business plan act as a blueprint for your business, but it also helps small business owners attract potential investors such as the banks, private investors, business partners and even the UK government through its various funding agencies.

Tools such as the Business Plan Builder Tool are the ones that are in the spot light making it possible for British entrepreneurs to create a well developed business plan in little to no time.

Here is how:

What most people don’t realize until it’s too late is that a business plan is really a must have when starting your own small business. It’s not really written anywhere that you need one, but in our history of helping small business owners we didn’t see more than half a dozen businesses succeed without a business plan (or at least some sort of plan that mimics a business plan at least). So in other words, you need a business plan.

The Business Plan Tool provided to members of UKStartups.org is a complimentary tool within the Small Business Startup Portal. It is a fill in the blanks style tool which is created by business plan experts and small business owners to be effective, easy to understand and easy to complete, without having to worry about all that is too complicated or near impossible for the every day small business owner.

The Business Plan Builder Tool allows entrepreneurs to go through a step by step business plan builder as they develop their business plan. Each question is simply asked for easy understanding and only awaits an answer to be populated in the space provided by the business owner. Explain your business, your customers and your market, the products and services and use the easy to use financial projection section of the tool to create fully inclusive financial documents which accompany your business plan once completed.

As you write your business plan, a Business Plan Quality Score is calculated out of 1,000 points which determine the quality and completion of your business plan. The higher the points (calculated based on quality and completion of each question and section), the better your business plan is.

UKStartups.org conducted a study over a 12 months period to see how many small business owners used the Business Plan Builder Tool, and how many didn’t and compared the findings to those same business owners who had a business plan made versus no business plan at all, and how many business owners obtained funding with their business plan versus without. The case study findings were pretty convincing that a business plan is a must as expected, but the findings that those who used the Business Plan Builder Tool were very much likely to obtain funding due to the time invested in building a business plan on their own versus hiring professional help.

*these findings were based out of 1752 individuals over a 12 month period who were members of UKStartups

Findings  #1
Percentage of small business owners who had a business plan (with Business Plan Tool or without):

41% used Business Plan Builder Tool
12% hired professional help
9% completed a business plan on their own
38% no business plan at all

Findings #2
Percentage of small business owners who were successful at obtaining funding (personal, private, government):

2% with no business plan at all
16% with professional business plan
32% with Business Plan Builder Tool (and use of business plan review service and funding database)

Following up with a number of these business owners 12 months after the initial study was done, the success rate of business owners who have had a business plan versus those with no business plan also speaks greatly of the importance of having a business plan and a path to success.

Out of the 41% of those who use the Business Plan Builder Tool (74% had a business past 12 months)
Out of the 12% of those who hired professional help with business plan (71% had a business past 12 months)
Out of the 9% of those who completed a business plan on their own (51% had a business past 12 months)
Out of the 38% of those who didn’t have a business plan at all (12% had a business past 12 months)