The One-Paragraph Business Start-Up Plan

I'm including the answers I gave for my company, Sizzle It!

• What product or service does your business provide? The company produces and edits sizzle reels -- three- to five-minute promotional videos combining video, graphics, photos, audio and messaging for fast-paced, stylized product overviews.
• How does your business produce or provide the product or service? A team of freelance editors edits together media materials submitted by clients.
• How will customers use your product or service? Customers use it to offer their clients overviews of products, services or brands.
• How will your business generate immediate revenue? It produces revenue by charging these clients flat fees for editorial services.
• Who are the primary clients your business will target? The primary clients are boutique public-relations firms.
• How will you market your startup to prospective clients? Marketing efforts includes cold calls, search engine optimization and networking at public-relations industry events.
• How are you different from your competitors? Unlike competitors that offer large, diversified service rosters, the company will focus only on producing sizzle reels.
• What secondary and tertiary client bases will you target once you've achieved success with your primary base? The company will expand its client roster to include advertising agencies and small businesses.

When you organize these statements in paragraph form, you have a first draft of your plan. It not the final plan. Think of it as an outline for the beginning of your journey.

2. Write checklists.
This exercise is about field-testing your assumptions to learn whether they are true, false or incomplete and turn your paragraph into an action plan you can revise regularly. As you learn from your successes, failures and nonstarters along your journey, you can modify your plan to make it a formula for success.