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A. Executive Summary

A business plan should begin with an "executive summary" of one or two pages, which provides a five-minute overview of the key features of the plan. Its purpose is to enable prospective lenders to obtain quickly a sense of what your start-up is about, why they should be interested in it, and whether they should read beyond the first section.

Unless it captures the interest of the lenders and appears convincing, they will not bother to read further. Therefore, this section is VERY important. The executive summary should be written after thorough preparation of the remainder of the plan and should attempt to convey the essence of each section of the business plan. Before forwarding a business plan to prospective lenders it is wise to obtain comments and input from objective sources who will perform a draft review.

Include the following in Executive Summary:

1. Description of the business

2. Description of the market

3. The management team and its track record

4. A three-year summary of key financial forecasts:

Summary of Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement

Summarize in the following format:

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Income Statement
Revenue
Revenue annual growth
Gross margin
Net profit margin
Balance Sheet
Total assets
Total liabilities
Long term liabilities
Working capital (1)
Cash Flow Statement
Cash on hand

5. The amount of money sought from the lender or investor:

Summary of Capital Requirements

Summarize in the following format:

Uses of Fund	Amount
Cost of equipment	$
Cost of construction	$
Purchase of building (if any)	$
Working capital requirement	$
Contingency reserve	$
Total Uses	$
Sources of Fund	Amount
Personal investment	$
Angel investors (family & friends)	$
Other	$
Total Sources	$
Additional fund needed	$

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