All you need for business planning is a stack of sticky notes.
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What if I told you you could have a business plan in half an hour? It might sound too good to be true—but it’s not.
If you have a set of sticky notes and a pen, you can create a business plan. As I talk about in my book Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat., this is an exercise for you and your business partners—not the robust business plan you will show to your seed investors or use at a pitch competition.
So why sticky notes? Because when you’re coming up with your personal business plan, less is better. Since they’re small, they force you to focus only on what’s critical for your startup idea. And they are also sticky. We can post them on the board to focus on following the plan.
So now you’ve got your four multi-colored sticky notes ready, what do you put on there?
- STORY
- PEOPLE
- MONEY
- SYSTEMS
Now, what do each of these mean?
1. Story
Story is where you’re going to spend the most time. Think of it as your elevator pitch when someone asks, “So what do you do?”
Look at it like a journalist and ask, “Why, What, Who, Where, When, and How?”
- Why: Your purpose.
- What: The problem you solve.
- Who: Your customer profile.
- Where: Location for people to find you (physical, online, or both).
- When: Your timeline for success.
- How: What gives you the competitive edge—your X-Factor.
Concerning “When,” you’ve got to set up Stage Gates—a point in time to meet a milestone. These are different from goals in that they are tied to big decisions. You can miss a goal and be fine. But if you miss a Stage Gate, you’ll need to decide if you will pivot the business—or kill it.
More than regular goals, Stage Gates must be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. And when you meet a Stage Gate, it provides momentum because you can go back to investors and say, “Look, we did what we set out to do—so now we need to raise more funds to scale.”
2. People
Your People sticky note is all about who you need on your team to reach your Stage Gates. Even if you’re starting as a solo venture, you still need support: vendors, suppliers, marketing, web support, and so on.
Seek out a business mentor or coach. Find a local startup incubator where you can refine your idea, prove your concept, and develop your MVP. Incubators are also a great way to workshop your pitch for investors—or even connect with investors. Which brings us to…
3. Money
Many entrepreneurs think, “I can just put it out there, and the money will come,” but 82% of startups fail because they don’t have enough money to launch. You can have the greatest Story, People, and Systems ever assembled, but if you don’t have the money, those won’t matter. Money is the oxygen in your tank—run out, and you’ll suffocate.
Instead, figure out how to fund the company to reach that first Stage Gate. Also, it’s not enough to know the amount you need but where your funds come from: Self-funded? Friends and family? Business loan? Grants or government funding? Or one of my favorites—being customer-funded – the art of getting paid in advance to fund your startup.
4. Systems
Last but definitely not least, you need Systems in place to track your KPIs—your Key Performance Indicators—which are directly connected to your Stage Gates. You need to check on these daily to stay on track and mitigate risks. The startups that scale are often the same ones that develop repeatable Systems aligned to their Story.
Some systems are more obvious, like email or accounting software. But it can also entail hiring systems to identify the right salespeople, setting up distribution channels, establishing sales pipelines, and anything else needed to hit your next Stage Gate.
You can even use the 4-Sticky Note Business Plan as a system for business growth. As my close colleague Michele Van Tilborg said at a recent Startup Club session, it’s a great exercise for teams to do, too—a way to find a common mindset and clarity around business objectives.
With over a dozen startups under my belt, I still use the 4-Sticky Note Business Plan. If nothing else, it’s an easy way to figure out whether your idea is worth developing or not. If you can’t fill most of the four sticky notes, it’s not time to act.
If you are still stumped with blank sticky notes staring back at you. We put a free CustomGPT (AI Tool) to help you complete the 4-sticky-note plan found at www.startplanai.com. Do you have the right Story, People, Money, and Systems? Grab your sticky notes and pen, and take half an hour to figure it out.
Your future self will thank you.