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How to write a business plan ?
Things you should think of before writing a simple business plan ?
What’s the name of your project, URL (if any) and phone number:
What is your company going to make/do/offer?
For each founder please list: name; age; nationality; city of residence;
year, school, degree, and subject for each degree; email address;
personal url (if any); present employer and title (if any). Put
unfinished degrees in parentheses.
List the main contact first.
Separate founders with blank lines.
Please tell us in a two sentences about each founder that shows a
high level of ability.
What’s new about what you are doing?
What do you understand about your business that other companies in
it just don’t get?
What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make
doesn’t exist yet?
How will you make money?
Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who
do you fear most?
For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built?
(Include urls if possible.)
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet?
What tools will you use to build your project?
If you’ve already started working on it, how long have you been
working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?
If you have an online demo, what’s the url?
How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A
version you can charge for?
Which companies would be most likely to buy you?
If one wanted to buy you three months in (September Year), what’s the
lowest offer you’d take?
Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?
Do you have any ideas you consider patentable?
What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.)
If you’re already incorporated, when were you? Who are the
shareholders and what percent does each own? If you’ve had funding,
how much, at what valuation(s)?
If you’re not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the
company you plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to
give stock to. (This question is more for you than us.)
If you’ll have any major expenses beyond the living costs of your
founders, Internet access, and servers, what will they be?
If by September Year Y your startup seems to have a significant (say 20%)
chance of making you rich, which of the founders would commit to
working on it full-time for the next several years?
Do any founders have other commitments between July and September
YEAR Y inclusive?
Do any founders have commitments in the future (e.g. have been
accepted to grad school), and if so what?
Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual
property agreements that overlap with your project? Will any be
working as employees or consultants for anyone else?
Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your
founders? If so, how can you safely use it? (Open source is ok
of course.)
If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free
to list them. One may be something we’ve been waiting for.
Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has
discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.)

