How to write a business plan investors actually read

Most business plans are written for the wrong reader. They are written for a bank manager in 1998, or a grant panel, or the founder's own reassurance. The reader you actually have is an investor on a phone who has already seen four other businesses this evening and is deciding, in under a minute, whether yours is the kind of thing they back. Then, if you pass that, they give you ten minutes to convince them you will still be trading in three years and worth more than you are now.

So the plan has two jobs, in this order: survive the first minute, then survive a sceptical read. Everything below is organised around those two jobs.

The first minute: the six sections

On Find, the six sections of your listing are the plan most investors read. The PDF is for the ones who want to check. Write the six first, in this order, and let the document follow.

1. Summary (80–120 words)

What the business does, for whom, how it makes money, what this raise is for. Four sentences. If an investor reads nothing else, this has to stand alone. Test it on somebody who has never heard of you: can they explain your business back to you? If not, it is not finished.

Weak: "Bramble is a disruptive food-and-beverage platform reimagining community dining." Strong: "Bramble runs two bakery-cafés in Lancashire market towns doing £1.1m a year at a 14% operating margin. A third lease is signed. We are raising £400k to fit out sites three and four."

2. The problem (100–150 words)

What is broken for your customer today, and what it costs them — in money, time or risk. A problem with a number is a market; a problem without one is an opinion. "Small accountancy firms spend 6–8 hours a week on AML checks in spreadsheets, and 40% fail their first supervisory visit" is a problem. "Compliance is a headache" is not.

3. What you've built (100–150 words)

What exists and works now. Not the roadmap. Investors fund evidence and discount promises, and the fastest way to lose one is to describe a feature as if it exists when it is a ticket in a backlog. If you are pre-product, say exactly what stage the build is at and when it ships.

4. Traction (every number with a date)

This is the section investors jump to. Revenue, customers, growth rate, retention, gross margin, contracts, pilots, waiting list — every one with a date. "£38k MRR in July 2026, up from £21k in January" is traction. "Growing fast" is not, and neither is a chart with no axis labels.

If you are pre-revenue, show the next-best evidence and date it: signed letters of intent with the value, paid pilots, a waiting list with its source, a conversion rate from a test. Honest small numbers beat vague big ones every time.

5. The team (one line per person)

Relevant operating experience, not job titles. "Ran operations for a 40-site bakery chain for six years" tells an investor something; "experienced leadership team" tells them you are hiding something. Name the gap you will hire for with this money — it is a sign of self-awareness, not weakness.

6. Use of funds (the milestone, not the shopping list)

Rough proportions are fine — "60% fit-out, 25% working capital, 15% marketing" — but what matters is the milestone the money reaches and what that milestone makes possible. "Two further sites open and cash-positive by month 14, at which point the group funds its own expansion" is a use of funds. "Marketing and hires" is a list.

The ten minutes: the document

The PDF you attach expands the six sections and adds six more. Keep it under fifteen pages; anything longer signals that you could not decide what mattered. In order:

1. Market. Bottom-up, not top-down. Count customers you can actually reach, multiply by what they pay, and show your working. "There are 42,000 accountancy practices in the UK; 31,000 have under ten staff; at £250 a month our serviceable market is £93m a year" is credible. "The global compliance market is $18bn" is a slide from someone else's deck.
2. Business model. What you charge, who pays, when, and the gross margin per unit. If you have customer acquisition cost and payback, include them — they are the two numbers a growth investor cares about most.
3. Competition. Name them. Every business has competitors, including "doing nothing" and "a spreadsheet". Say honestly where they are better. An investor who has seen a market before knows the names already; pretending they don't exist tells them you haven't looked.
4. Milestones. Dated. What happens in months 3, 6, 12 and 18 if the raise lands. This is what the cashflow forecast is built from, so the two must agree.
5. Risks. The three things most likely to go wrong and what you would do. Founders who can write this section are the ones investors trust, because everyone knows the risks exist; the question is whether you do.
6. Financials. Last year, this year, next three: revenue, gross profit, overheads, net, cash. Monthly for the first twelve months of the forecast. State the assumptions in a sentence each. Attach the last filed accounts.

A worked example: the summary, rewritten

Before: "Kestrel is a SaaS platform leveraging AI to transform compliance workflows for SMEs in the professional services sector, with strong early traction and a clear path to market leadership."

After: "Kestrel is AML onboarding software for small accountancy firms: identity, sanctions and risk assessment in one flow, with the audit trail the supervisor asks for. Sixty firms pay £250 a month; MRR is £18k, up from £9k in January 2026, with 4% monthly churn. We are raising £600k to hire two salespeople and one developer, which takes us to £60k MRR in fourteen months on the current conversion rate."

Same business. One of these gets hearted.

The seven things that get a plan passed on

1. Claims without dates or numbers.
2. A market-size figure instead of a customer.
3. A valuation asserted but not explained.
4. Use of funds that is a list, not a milestone.
5. "No competition."
6. A forecast that hits £10m in year three from £100k today, with no explanation of what changes.
7. No video. Listings with a founder video get read to the end; listings without get swiped.

Before you publish

Read the six sections aloud. Anything you would be embarrassed to say across a table, cut. Then use the business plan builder to add the other six sections and export the PDF, and the cashflow tool so the numbers in the plan and the forecast are the same numbers. Investors check.

Questions founders ask

"We're pre-revenue. What do we put in traction?"

Everything that is evidence of demand, dated. A paid pilot is worth more than a hundred sign-ups. A letter of intent with a value and a named buyer is worth more than a survey. A waiting list is worth something if you say where it came from and what it cost to build. If the honest answer is "nothing yet", say when the first evidence arrives and what it will be — and expect investors to wait for it.

"How long should the PDF be?"

Ten to fifteen pages including the financials. Investors read the six listing sections first; the PDF exists for the ones who want to check the working. If you cannot get it under fifteen pages, you have not yet decided what matters, and the investor will notice that before they notice anything else.

"Should the plan and the forecast be the same document?"

They should agree. The milestones in the plan are the assumptions in the forecast: if the plan says two sites open by month 14, the forecast must show the fit-out cost going out and the revenue coming in on that schedule. Investors check the two against each other; a mismatch is the fastest way to lose them.

List my business All guides