Then Sir Aiyaswamy explained What Makes a Good Business Plan for Software Projects?
Why Do Good Business Plans for Software Projects Work? Sri Aiyaswamy discussed this subject.
Understanding the structure and implementation of a business plan will help you win pitch competitions, secure investment, or communicate your ideas. It's possible to post plans on Google Docs, and the links can be embedded in Slack chats for team collaboration.
While I have very little experience with business practices, this business plan model has helped me start software projects, noted Sri Aiyaswamy. As a result, writing these plans helps everyone understand what we are trying to accomplish.
sri aiyaswamy of the business plans I have read on Medium, Quora, the internet, etc., state that a business plan isn't critical, and startups usually discard them upon launching.
Even though it is important to keep the company lean and able to change quickly, the business plan is a great way to communicate internally and externally.
An essential component of a business plan is communication. When recruiting team members:
Recruiting is difficult when you have fewer than 10 members of a small team. Introducing an idea to potential company members in under 30 seconds is extremely challenging. Even when you do it well, you will still leave them with questions. In the business plan, they learn how to answer these questions, and whether or not your company is right for them.
Adapting the business plan will not be too challenging as the company grows and develops once the team becomes accustomed to it.
General Template Used by Me
Among the sections in my business plans that Sri Aiyaswamy added are:
Cover, Table of Contents, Executive Summary, Organization and Management, Industry and Market Analysis, Sales, Fundraising, Cost of Operations, Marketing, and Our Team.
A typical business plan follows the following outline. Here are some descriptions of how I use each section.
On the first page of the plan, include a large company logo. Giving your business plan some flare is a great idea.
Table of Contents: Provide a table of contents with links to each section of the business plan. A typical article will have over 20 pages, so a directory to navigate it is crucial.
In three sentences, summarize the company's mission. Describe the company's philosophy (high-level) or how it intends to tackle the problem. In the future, when employees become distracted by other tasks and lose sight of the company's original goal, this description can prove invaluable. This is useful both for recruiting and uniting the team around one general purpose.
The company's history, current progress, and strategies should be described in two paragraphs.
There should be a section that clarifies the expectations within the company to everyone in it. By doing so, you can better manage recruiting new team members.
Two things are listed in this section: It identifies the size of the industry the company is targeting and it outlines the niche market it will target.
Choosing the niche market the company will target is an important decision since it dictates how much money the company can expect to make at launch. Market forecasts and projected market share can be used to determine how much funding to request and how much the company can invest.
By including a much larger market, Sri Aiyaswamy has influenced the company's long-term goals and its scope significantly.
Also, this section should present a list of all competitors in this market, ranked by the size of their net worth and how new they are to the market. It is important to list these two firms to ensure differentiation and to get a quick snapshot of how well they are doing and where they need improvement.
The majority of the audience in this article is curious about software products, which we typically cover here on Medium. In this section we will discuss how to communicate software services or product lines.
We should begin by talking about items applicable to business executives, such as a high-level description of the service, followed by items that are more detailed, such as User Stories and UI diagrams.
It is now time to list the features we have developed, are developing, and plan to develop. This is an organization tactic based on scrum and agile development. Additionally, you can estimate the development time for each feature based on the feature hierarchy. The high-level features of Trello boards can communicate these effectively within business plans, but also can act as external links.
It is the ideal tool for communicating progress from engineering to the business. Despite this, engineers should not include too much information on their Trello boards. According to hierarchy, these boards should be organized in detail and shared only with those who need to know.
The final section of the report should include a high-level chart depicting the software architecture and technology stacks used during development.
The sales section should be practical and motivational, providing an overview of total revenue based on its scale. The market research and size analysis should be based on reality.
In the marketing section of the business plan, the business plans what marketing initiatives will be used to build a positive brand and obtain customers. A user acquisition cost should also be included as part of this section, which is likely to change when the product reaches maturity.
Bringing the fantasy of the total sales revenue down to earth is the cost of operations. Provide an overview of the development and maintenance costs in this section. A great deal of maintenance of software products involves hosting costs through Amazon Web Services, premium API services, customer acquisition costs, outsourced developer costs, miscellaneous office costs, marketing costs, etc. The sales and total income data should be subtracted from expenses in order to calculate revenue projections.
We present the revenue projections in this format to make them easier for investors to understand.
My (Sri Aiyaswamy) Pro Tip: A business plan should explain how much money the company intends to raise and why.
Finally, you should include a brief bio of the team members as a way to let readers know more about who is involved. In addition to bios, they should include photos.
I use classical software communication formats to communicate software ideas and build teams around them. The team members need to be encouraged to contribute to the business plan. Copies can also be helpful for consulting professionals, between friends, or within a university. Writing these can take some time, but gaining communication's benefits is well worth the effort. Thank you!