Tell me more ×
Answers OnStartups is a question and answer site for entrepreneurs looking to start or run a new business. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

So i have an idea for a website.

In the development of the business plan, i would need to know what percent of people are going to use this website, how much money am i going to make and how am i going to generate the revenues.

Can someone help me with how do i go about all these things. How can i possibly know the exact numbers.

Also, where can i find the business plans for a website , that i can refer to. Kindly help me, as i am remaining with this part of the pan only. Thanks.

share|improve this question

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Your business plan should probably have the following sections:

Executive Summary

  • This section should summarize the entire plan into an easy to read page

Overall Mission / Vision

  • What's your overall goal for the website and company

About the Company & Team

  • Information about your business, who makes up the management team, credentials, education

Products & Services

  • What are the websites products / services.

Industry Analysis

  • This is where your question starts to come into play. You need to research your industry. How big is the market? How many possible customers could you have. Are you selling shoes? How many people buy shoes every year ;) how many dominant shoe sales sites are there. Is it a million dollar industry? A billion dollar industry? You need to understand the industry & market to have an idea of how many customers you could potentially sell to.

Target Marketing

  • Who is your website actually targeting. Mothers with children, Families, ... You need to outline your target market and audience in detail as it will determine how you are going to get your message to them, get them to your site, and have them buy your services / products. This should also have some numbers like there are over 90 million mothers in the United States... moms buy shoes for their kids, so we are going to target those moms... Example clearly, but I can directly answer your question since you provided no details on what your site actually does.

Sales/Marketing Plan & Financial Projections

  • This is another area it sounds like you may be struggling. But you need to outline a plan on how to reach your audience. How will you market to them (Google Adwords? Facebook? Classifieds, TV, Newspapers, e-newsletters, groupons...) How many do you expect to convert into users / buyers.
  • Based on the amount of people who visit your site, how many do you think will actually sign up / pay you.
  • Based on spending X amount on marketing and getting Y visitors to your site you expect to close a certain %, that will give you ideas for growth and subscriptions. In a business plan these are always best guesses. You can never know for sure.
  • You can also do worst case, and best case projections.

Competitive Analysis

  • Who else is in the market, and why are you better

Operational Plan

  • What is your business going to cost, develop the website, monthly costs, office expenses, how will it be run.

Exit Strategy

  • It's important early on to determine what your end goal is. To stay and work with the business forever, to sell to Facebook/Twitter/Google/Yahoo, to be bought by Amazon like Zappos. To sell for $5 million dollars to the first person who offers it. You have to think about what you want to do, and it's possible the exit strategy is to stick with it and turn it into a family business. But that should be outlined especially if you have business partners.
share|improve this answer
as you Financial Projections say: How many do you expect to convert into users / buyers? Now how do i actually answer these kind of questions? How do i know how many people are gonna use it, or how many will sign up. – Kraken Sep 25 '11 at 15:18
For your business plan these are going to be estimations and best guesses based on your market. You will just need to back it up with some of your reasons / opinions. I think the average conversion rate for a print / mail campaign is like 1%. An average Google Adword click thru rate may be 4% to your site. Then based on your pricing and position in the market you would have to estimate how many will buy. If you are selling shoes, and there are dominant players your buyer will measure based on price , trust, service. If you have 0 competitors in your market you can expect higher conversion. – Ryan Doom Sep 25 '11 at 15:24
@Karan: Will 1 million people use it? No? Will only 10 people use it? No? Your range is 10-1Million - all you need to do is narrow it down sufficiently using educated guesses and data like how Ryan suggested...you always know the range, the point is to select a realistic one and estimate based on that :) – PhD Sep 25 '11 at 18:58
up vote 0 down vote

For the part of your question regarding finding similar business plans you won't find one. Your business plan needs to be based on your business model. If you are looking for information on competitors to make sure the information in your business plan is credible, you should look at SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filings such as 10-K (i.e. annual report) or IPO (initial public offering) documents. There is usually a lot of information regarding the companies financials and key business drivers.

Hope this helps.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.