Attachments and Milestones

Supplemental information

Attachments come at the end of the business plan and provide additional information for the reader without weighing down the body of the plan. This is often where you append things such as: a complete set of financial statements (including assumptions, income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets); the technological specifications of the production plan; and the formal résumés for each member of the management team.

Milestones

A milestone plan gives your readers a timeline for your creation of a successful business. Develop an ambitious schedule that you can meet, while still giving yourself room to handle unexpected problems that may slow you down (such as raw materials that don’t arrive on time or zoning snafus that tie up the permit for your new retail space). An aggressive yet realistic plan will impress your investors.

Include only major events (not each individual step) and choose milestones that can be clearly defined and easily measured—for example, “prototype development,” “installation of computer system,” “market testing completed,” or “first customer sale.” Use generic dates, such as “month six” or “year one,” rather than actual dates (see figure 2).

FIGURE 2
Milestone timeline