Ten blocks across four rows: company, market, product, customers, sales, ops, team, financials, risks, milestones. Built to survive cross-examination.
Layout
Business Plan
10 blocks · 4-row grid
"A business plan that hasn't named its risks hasn't been written yet."
What it is
A structured operational document. Each section answers a different reviewer: legal (company), strategy (market, product, customers), revenue (sales & marketing), execution (operations, team), CFO (financials), risk (risks), and board (milestones). The discipline is to make decisions in writing that PowerPoint decks let you defer.
Origin
Long-form business plans were the universal currency of small-business and corporate finance — banks, SBA loans, government grants, and board approvals all required one. The format predates startups by a century. The lean-startup era pushed founders toward canvases instead, but the business plan never went away: regulated industries, non-dilutive funding, and large-corp procurement still expect it.
When to reach for it
Applying for a bank loan, government grant, or SBIR funding.
Preparing for a board approval on a major spend or strategic shift.
A regulated industry where partners require a written operating plan.
The blocks
Worked example uses Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan).
What good looks like
Legal entity, incorporation date, HQ, mission, current stage and funding to date. Verifiable facts only.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Tesla Motors Inc., incorporated 2003, headquartered in Palo Alto. Mission: accelerate the transition to sustainable transport. Stage: pre-Model S, post-Roadster shipping (~150 units delivered).
What good looks like
TAM/SAM with derivation, growth, incumbents, the trend that changes the picture in 2–3 years.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
US auto market ≈ 16M new vehicle sales/year. Premium segment (>$70k MSRP) ≈ 1.2M units. Luxury EV sub-segment did not exist before Tesla; defining it is the wedge.
What good looks like
What it is, how it works in customer terms, and the roadmap. Architecture diagrams belong in an appendix.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Model S: a 4-door luxury sedan with 300mi range, OTA software updates, and a dedicated supercharger network. Battery pack and powertrain manufactured in-house in Fremont.
What good looks like
Primary segment defined sharply; secondary segments and why deferred; the buying process.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Primary: dual-income households earning $250k+ replacing a German luxury sedan. Secondary: fleet customers (corporate, ride-share). Geographic priority: California, Northeast.
What good looks like
Channels with current CAC, sales motion, marketing programs, funnel conversion at each step.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Direct sales through company-owned showrooms (no dealer network). Press-driven launches, reservation deposits as marketing signal. CAC near zero on the early waitlist.
What good looks like
Core systems, suppliers, fulfilment model, SLAs. Concrete vendors beat abstract org charts.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Vertically-integrated manufacturing in Fremont (formerly NUMMI). Supercharger network operated in-house. Battery cell supply from Panasonic under multi-year contract.
What good looks like
Founders, headcount, key advisors, the next 3 critical hires.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Elon Musk (CEO), JB Straubel (CTO), Tom Mueller (advisory). 850 employees; hiring battery & manufacturing engineers heavily through 2009.
What good looks like
Revenue, margin, burn, runway, and funding required for each year of the plan.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
$200M revenue projection year-1 post-launch, ramping to $1B by year-3. Gross margin 15→25% as volume scales. Burn $40M/quarter. Loan request: $465M.
What good looks like
Top market, execution, and regulatory risks with named mitigations. "Competition" alone is not a risk.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Battery supply concentration (single tier-1 supplier). Manufacturing ramp risk (first sedan, first factory). Reg risk on direct-sales bans in dealer-protected states. Mitigations include Gigafactory plan and direct-sales legal strategy.
What good looks like
4–6 dated, measurable milestones. Each one should de-risk something material.
Example — Tesla (2008 business plan for the DOE loan)
Model S production start Q2 2012. 5,000-unit cumulative deliveries by Q4 2012. Supercharger network ≥10 US sites by 2013. Cash-flow positive by 2014.
How to use it
Outline first. If you can't produce a 2-page outline before you start writing, the plan isn't ready.
Write the financials before the narrative. Numbers reveal which story the document has to tell.
Let each section be a self-contained argument. A reviewer should be able to skip to "Risks" and have it make sense.
Have a skeptic read it cold. Anywhere they get confused is anywhere the plan is weakest.
Common mistakes
Treating financials as window dressing. The model drives every other decision in the plan.
Burying the risk section. Reviewers expect honest risk-naming; its absence reads as naivety.
Writing operations as an org chart. Reviewers want supplier names and SLAs, not boxes.
Spin up the canvas in one click. Copilot will score every cell against the same rubric this guide describes.
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