A million and one. That’s how many things you have to figure out before you launch your STEM startup. So how do you prepare your STEM business without losing your mind? Simple, you develop a STEM education business plan.
As with any business, there are easier ways and harder ways to get it off the ground. Planning and preparation are both critical to help you achieve success.
In this article, we’ll cover business planning so you can start to develop a roadmap for a successful launch.
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, it’s best to keep things as simple as possible. Focus on one step at a time.
The first step as you start to prepare is your business plan.
A thorough plan not only helps you outline the business model, but it takes the mystery out of each individual component.
Take location, for instance.
How do you find and secure a great location for your business? Should you lease or buy? What zoning laws or building codes and regulations do you need to be aware of?
As you work through the sections of your business plan, you will answer all of these questions and more. Once finished, your plan serves as a map and a reference to guide you anytime you start to feel lost or overwhelmed.
Okay, so what should your STEM education business plan include?
Business plans are comprehensive documents and have many sections that are specific to your business goals.
While we can’t cover every possible section that your business plan should include, we can provide an overview covering the most common business plan sections.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these to give you an idea about what goes into each section.
From there, you can start your research and build out your own plan to light your path forward.
If you’d prefer to skip the research and get a proven, turn-key STEM education business plan go here to learn how.
Each section of your business plan is designed to give you clarity about the inner workings of your business. It’s not just for you, though.
Your plan shows financial institutions, investors, and other key stakeholders that you’ve done your homework, and you can likely succeed. In other words, you are a good investment for them.
Below is an overview of each section and what to include inside.
The Executive Summary summarizes your entire plan (briefly).
In this first section, you’ll want to include things like your services, financial overview, key team members, past achievements, and other indicators that you can bring this business to life.
The Executive Summary is not a deep dive into the plan. Rather, it highlights key points from each section for those who aren’t ready to read the entire plan yet.
Your Business Description covers legalities as well as other startup considerations. For instance, what legal formation will you use?
You’ll want to describe who owns the business if there is more than one owner and break down the percentage ownership for each individual.
You’ll also want to describe any office locations, lease arrangements, and lot size.
Lastly, you should share insights into the industry and what makes your business unique compared with others.
In this section, you’ll share the details of your market analysis (you did perform a market analysis, right?) and your approach to entering the space.
You’ll want to describe the size of your market, as well as its growth potential, trends, sales potential, and key competitors.
You’ll also want to share demographics about your target market – their age, gender, religion, location, etc.
Finally, you’ll discuss how you intend to position your business as a viable solution in the market and what you plan to do differently to stand out from competitors.
For this, you’ll need to know your competition well enough to accurately describe what makes your business the better choice.
The Research and Development section of your STEM education business plan should outline your products and services, as well as your R&D budget so investors can see the feasibility of your vision.
You can also use this section to share the history of your business and any research efforts you’ve gone through to improve your product offering over competitors.
It’s also a good idea to describe future areas of development or research that you’ll emphasize once the business is operational.
In the Operations and Management section, you’ll cover daily operations. Here, you’ll answer questions like:
Use this section to highlight the resources you’ve amassed to show you can operate this business.
This is a good place to break out your team members, and the management hierarchy. What positions do you have, who fills them, and how will you ensure everything runs like a well-oiled machine?
The final section of your STEM education business plan should get specific with your projected sales and expenses.
Share data about how many students you anticipate enrolling in your first year, the second year, and beyond.
Use charts and graphs for data visualization to give a bird’s-eye-view of the various financial outlays, incomes, and profit potential.
This section is of particular interest to investors and bankers who are considering providing funding for your business.
If you expect to need capital or to fundraise money to launch your startup, then make this component a priority and be very detailed.
A proven model for launching successful STEM education businesses already exists through iCode Franchise.
The iCode Franchise essentially offers a ready-to-launch business.
We’ve helped many entrepreneurs start STEM education businesses by providing a roadmap, training, resources, and an established brand to make them successful early on, even without experience.
When you invest in an iCode Franchise, you’ll leapfrog over many of the research and planning hurdles that entrepreneurs get caught up in.
To learn more about how you can skip creating a STEM education business plan from scratch and take action to launch your business now, visit our website here.
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