Convert your idea into a business plan? Know the step by step process to make a great business plan in 2024

Innovative business ideas have struck your mind, but how to transfer your ideas from paper to reality? And not all ideas can be converted into reality. How to start a business in such a manner that it will benefit the customers and will not deplete the financial resources?

Before taking any step, we need to be sure that our idea is not just another trending topic. For that, we need to develop a market plan and conduct market research on our competitors and trends. Setting the groundwork and identifying the necessary steps to execute the idea will bring you closer to achieving your vision. There are a few steps to be followed to convert your idea into a successful business entity.

Figuring out the Problem:

Breaking down a company’s objective into its core functions helps us identify the kind of problem it is trying to solve. Initially, one should not only be enthusiastic about their idea but also focus on the solution it provides to a particular problem in the community. Many businesses claim to have a solution, but what specific problem are they really eliminating? The businesses must be aware of it.

Let’s consider an example of Amazon and Flipkart. During the initial days, these two e-commerce giants were considered expensive and inconvenient, but today they are the most affordable. The only reason is that they are getting more customer satisfaction and solving a particular problem for their target customers. The bottom line is that all successful companies’ products or services must enhance the lives of their customers.

Therefore, it is of utmost importance for an individual or even business to first figure out what kind of problem they are going to solve through their idea.

Conducting Market Research:

Conducting market research among your target market is one of the important steps in converting your idea into a business plan. It provides insights about your customer’s requirements, their pay capacity, and other important aspects that could be useful to you and help you in making important business decisions related to your products or services.

A target market is a group of people who share some characteristics and whom a company has identified as potential customers for their products. This helps the company to make decisions for design, packaging, and marketing of its products. A target market can be broadly categorised by age, location, income, and lifestyle. Demographically, it can be divided into stages of life, hobbies, interests, and career. All may be considered.

Two key objectives of market research.

1. Help a company or business develop through proper planning, organization, and control of both human and material resources, and thus satisfy all specific market needs at the right time
2. To satisfy the product or service needs of specific customers, the product must comply with the requirements and preferences of the customer when it is consumed.

Taking the help of a Business Consultant:

A professional guide can get you through, completing each step on your way to structuring an idea into a viable business. They will act as a mentor to help you talk through if the idea makes sense to pursue. They too have an abundance of connection networks that may help you to raise funds.

Having a Business Partner and network of entrepreneurs:

There are several benefits to having a business partner, especially when you are starting from scratch. They are the ones to support your idea, be a sounding board for your ideas, and convince others that you have a great idea. Aside from building a team, having a relationship with other entrepreneurs will give you invaluable knowledge.

Find a new entrepreneur and have a conversation with them. Talk to them about themselves and you will come to know what the challenges are that they have faced while bringing up one business. This kind of networking will allow you to gain insights for your business growth through learning from others’ mistakes and experiences.

Financial Planning:

Now, as one is done with their market research and gaining insights through the experience of professionals and networking, one needs to figure out if their business idea is financially feasible or not. One needs to create a bottom-up financial model that focuses on how their products and services are created, marketed, and sold to the individual customer. This will provide them an insight into how their business will work.

The second step is to create another financial model from the top-down approach, which will examine the size of your market and what goals you need to achieve to turn your business into a profitable one. So, once you are satisfied with your financial model, start to plan the first phase of business. This is a simple step to get your ideas into discussion with your team mentor. Give them your goals and success factors, competitive advantage in your target market, and basic strategy to get everyone on the same page to proceed further with the implementation.

Source For the Capital:

Generally, money should not be the focus for entrepreneurs, but it is still needed to get the business off the ground. The primary reason behind saying that money should not be the primary focus is that it diverts their minds from their purpose and they start chasing money for the sake of growing their businesses. Some sources for the funding of the business are self-funding, money from people you know (friends and family), credit cards, or loans.

Depending on the amount you need to start your business, angel investors or venture capitalists looking to take part in your mission and have some share of the profit as well as decision-making power may be a more helpful source. Whichever source you choose, consider that each one has its own rewards and risks. Therefore, one should carefully assess the different sources of obtaining funds before making a final decision.

MVP (Minimal Viable Product):

Building a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) provides you with the valuable feedback that is required before putting ideas on the market. After all, it is of no use to build a product that customers do not need. Minimal doesn’t refer to basics, but it is referred to a product that is already present but has room to improve. It is how early adopters jump onboard to use the product and, if they like it, will provide you with feedback to make it better for them.

Find The Pivot:

The information that you have gathered from the early adopters will help you to figure out what works best for your consumers and gets the most response from the audience. It’s so sure that their feedback will be different than what you had expected. This will help you to assess whether you should change your business model or change a fundamental part of it.

Changing the direction doesn’t mean that you failed entirely, but it will help you to prevent future failures that you may have encountered soon. It is all about what you’ve learned from your experience to create your future success. “Pivoting” is just recalculating a different route to get to your goal.

Conclusion:

Starting from scratch is always challenging and risky, but if the plan is clear in front of your eyes and you have certainty that your innovation will help the customers in some way or other in carving out their problems, then the above-mentioned steps will prove helpful to fulfil your dreams.

Want to know more about how to turn your business idea in to reality, Click here to Book your FREE Consultation Call with our Head Mentor

In case, if you feel that we have missed something important in this article and needs to be included for its betterment, feel free to share your suggestions with us through comments or mail us at rudrasupport@gyaannirudra.com.

Stay connected with us to be aware about the different career opportunities in other fields as well.

Wishing you all a splendid and exponentially growing career journey ahead.