Validate Your Idea
Pursue your idea with confidence
Growth Planning walks you through a process for testing and improving your ideas. So you can launch a business knowing there’s demand for it.
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You have a great idea, but you’re not sure how it will work...
What is your best target market?
Growth planning helps you discover who is most likely to be excited by your product or service
What is the demand for your business?
Growth planning helps you figure out if you’ll have enough customers to sustain your business
Will your idea generate a profit?
Growth planning helps you get an idea of what your expenses and revenue would look like
Growth planning helps you validate your idea — before you waste time & money on it
Outline your idea
Write a one-page plan: 30 minutes
Before you can figure out if your idea is any good, you need to get it down on paper. Start by creating a one-page plan that outlines your best-guesses about your idea. Think about things like:
- What problem are you solving?
- Who is your target market?
- What is your real competition?
- How will your business model work?
- How much should you charge?
Why this step is important:
The process of answering these questions helps you picture how your business will actually work.
Collect feedback
Customer interviews: 2+ hours
The most important step is getting out and talking to potential customers about your assumptions. Record every conversation and cover all the questions in step one.
Interviewing people can feel intimidating. Try supplementing your research with:
- Industry benchmark data
- Running online ads
- Examining your competition
Why this step is important:
A Fortune survey found that 42% of startup failures were due to a “lack of a market need for their product.” Customer research is essential.
Examine your feedback
Analyze your research: 1-2 hours
The hard part is over! Next, review the feedback you collected about your idea and answer questions like:
- Does your feedback mesh with your assumptions?
- Did anything surprise you?
- What (if any) new questions do you have about your idea?
Why this step is important:
You’ll start to spot patterns in your feedback that hint at whether or not there’s demand for your business.
Improve your idea
Make adjustments: 2-4 hours
Update your one-page plan based on what you’ve learned. If your assumptions are correct, you’re ready to move forward. In most cases, you’ll likely need to tweak your idea before launching.
For example, you might need to update:
- Your target audience
- Your business model
- How you’ll sell your products or service
At this stage you should also consider building an initial forecast and an expense budget as well.
Why this step is important:
You’ll know if your idea has potential or not. If it doesn’t seem like a winner today, iterate based on what you’ve learned and try the growth planning process again.
Validate your idea with growth planning
Start Your Business
Take the right steps with confidence
Avoid pitfalls that could hurt your business by setting goals and tracking your performance against them.
Task Management
The process of managing a task through its life cycle. It involves planning, testing and the task tracking.
Automation
The technology by which a process or procedure is performed with minimal human assistance.
A world of criminals who operate above the law and man is born he's a man.
A world of criminals who operate above the law.
You’re confident in your business idea, but unsure how to get started...
Do you need funding? How much?
Growth planning helps you figure out exactly how much funding you’ll need — and the best way to get it.
How should you use your funds?
Growth planning helps you make important spending decisions with confidence.
What’s the right go-to-market strategy?
Growth planning helps you understand what it’ll take for your startup to gain traction.
Growth Planning guides you through the essential steps of launching a startup
Create a simple strategy
Write a one-page plan: 30 minutes
Early-stage startups win when they stay agile. That’s why creating a flexible one-page strategy — rather than a rigid 40+ page business plan — is an unskippable first step.
Start by outlining the most important aspects of your business:
- Problems worth solving
- Solutions you provide
- Estimated target market
- How you’re different than competitors
- Sales and marketing activities
- Revenue and expenses
Why this step is important:
Entrepreneurs with a plan are 129% more likely to push forward with their business beyond the initial startup phase and grow it, according to a study in the journal Small Business Economics.
Set your financial goals
Explore your potential: 1-2 hours
Estimate your startup’s performance based on everything you thought about in step 1. Don’t worry about trying to get things ‘right’ — just try your best to come up with some realistic goals.Take the following into consideration:
- Expenses like: software, payroll and marketing.
- Revenue metrics like: sales, profit and cash flow.
Then once you start generating sales, you’ll have some actual numbers to help you figure out where your startup is headed.
The question of funding: Can your startup sustain itself or do you need outside funding to bridge the gap between expenses and revenue? Creating multiple ‘what if’ financial forecasts can help you answer these questions.
Why this step is important:
Research shows that startups with specific financial goals are more likely to attract funding and achieve higher levels of performance.Keep tabs on the numbers
Reflect on your performance: 1-2 hours
Your startup has launched! Sales are trickling in, expenses are going out, and your team is anxiously watching the numbers.
Now you can compare your actual sales and expenses to what you forecasted every month. Take note of any significant gaps between what you expected to happen and what the numbers actually did.
- Did your revenue perform better or worse than expected?
- Did you spend more or less than you thought?
- How is your cash flow being impacted by this?
Your team should review your forecast at least once per month.
Why this step is important:
Documenting and reviewing your goals makes you 40% more likely to achieve them, according to a study by the Dominican University of California.
Make quick adjustments
Strategic updates: time investment varies
Time to move fast. Update both your plan and forecast based on what you learned during your review. This might include:
- Tweaking your business model
- Adjusting your financial goals
- Increasing or decreasing prices
Best of all, you’re developing baseline data that you can compare your future performance against. This allows you to make quick strategic course corrections, so you can give your startup the best chance for success.
Why this step is important:
Following an iterative planning process helps you spot and quickly fix problems that could sink your startup. These include running out of cash, not achieving product-market fit or creating a flawed business model.
Start your business with growth planning
Build Your Business Budget
Spend smarter with a guided budgeting tool
Follow a step-by-step process to create an accurate business budget — even if you have no financial background.
Standardization
After learning about your customer service needs, we will get you up and running, and then partner with you.
Communication
Our customer service team is here to help solve your problems and keep your customer service organization.
Creating an accurate budget is tricky without any guidance
- What are all the financial details that should be included?
- How do you know all your calculations are correct?
- Are you budgeting in the right format? And using the right terminology?
Get detailed guidance every step of the way
Not sure how to get started? Or what details to include? LivePlan gives you a step-by-step process for completing every aspect of your budget.
- Build profit & loss statements, cash flow forecasts and more
- Read definitions of key terms and metrics
- Get AI-generated suggestions if you're not sure what to include
Build multiple budgets to test different scenarios
What if you hired more staff? Or spent more on inventory? Try out different spending scenarios to see how they impact your finances. You'll get five-year projections for profit and loss, cash at the end of the year and other metrics.
Budget smarter using industry benchmarks
Better understand how much you should be spending on marketing, rent and more with built-in industry benchmark data. It's a quick way to compare your budget to similarly sized businesses in your region.
- Get benchmark data for 13 data points, including spending and profit metrics
- Compare your forecast and results to industry benchmarks at a glance
- Get data for specific regions and timeframes
Plenty of support to help you succeed
Guidance from business experts
Stay on track with video walk-throughs, webinars, and more from business planning experts.
Inspiration powered by AI
Instantly generate ideas at each step of your plan. You can also access 550+ sample plans to find one that matches your industry.
If you ever get stuck, our team will help
If you ever have a question, you can instantly chat with a The-Source expert.
Create a budget for your business today
Present Your Financials
Tell the story behind the numbers
Confidently present your financials to lenders, investors, partners, or board members.
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Growth Chart
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It's tough to create financial reports that everyone can understand
- Not everyone on your team has the same business or financial background
- Spreadsheets don't work well in presentations
- Turning data into professional-looking charts or graphs can take hours
The-Source instantly turns your data into clear, wow-worthy visuals
Provide clarity with easy-to-read dashboards
Show exactly where your business is today and where it's going tomorrow. Charts and graphs update in real-time when synced with Xero or QuickBooks. This gives you an easy way to see how your actual results compare to your forecast. Create dashboards that show:
- Breakdown of your revenue sources
- Forecasted expenses and costs versus actuals
- Cash on hand, net cash flow and more
Build custom PDF reports to keep your team updated
Turn your financial dashboard into a tidy financial report. Just select what metrics you'd like to include, add an optional summary for context, and LivePlan gives you a PDF file you can email or print. Include these reports in a presentation or provide them to stakeholders before or during your next meeting.
Work together on the numbers with unlimited users
Team members can view your financials at any time in LivePlan. This makes it easy for them to follow along during your budget presentations or leave comments on your financial plan.
- Control how much access you give each user
- Up to 5 users can edit the dashboard and create new companies
- All invited users can add Forecast Notes on your budget and comments on your business plan
Present your financials with confidence
Grow Your Business
Grow your business with confidence
Understand what decisions will actually boost your bottom line and shield your business from rising costs.
Should you increase prices? If so, by how much?
Growth planning helps you decide when to raise prices and how to do it without losing customers.
What’s the right way to reduce expenses?
Growth planning helps you know how to reduce costs and stay cash healthy.
Growth planning guides you through a process for making profitable decisions
Examine your business
The problems your business solves Solutions you provide Your target market How you’re different than competitors Sales and marketing activities
Build a financial compass
A good financial forecast works like a compass: it shows you which direction to head, no matter what type of challenges you run up against. Create your forecast based on the starting balances from your accounting data. Then build out your projections line by line:
- Revenue (unit sales, billable hours etc)
- Direct costs (labor, materials etc)
- Assets, dividends and taxes
- Financing
Forecasting helps you spot opportunities and potential problems before they happen. For example, you’ll be able to predict if you need more capital to cover upcoming expenses and payroll. Or figure out when to raise prices for certain products or services.
Spot growth opportunities
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Did any product lines perform better or worse than others? -
Were any expenses higher or lower than forecasted? -
Did you collect money as planned? -
What does your future cash flow look like?
Make strategic decisions
You’ve tracked your numbers. You’ve spotted opportunities. Now, use everything you learned to make intelligent business decisions. This might include:
Raising or decreasing prices for certain products - Cutting expenses to improve profit
- Focusing on a different target market
Make confident decisions with growth planning
Collaboration with The Entrepreneur Studio (TES) has enabled us to unlock tremendous potential in multiple areas of our operations. Their ethos in supporting the Entrepreneur and SME communities by making complex problems simple and their ability to execute solutions is impressive and exciting. For FDI Solutions they are connecting all the right dots and are…
- Andrew Evans
The Entrepreneur Studio (TES) provides the perfect platform that allows us to grow our partnership and provide valuable support to Entrepreneurs and SMEs for future projects when growing their businesses globally. TES’ work is crucial for developing international opportunities that better manage and serve our clients.
- Tracey Westel
Our role is to provide our clients with the best possible options for expanding their businesses internationally. We provide financial services for companies and have found the Entrepreneur Studio (TES) to be a valuable source of knowledge and expertise for our clients. Their Team has been invaluable in supporting us and helping make our client…
- Fionnan Ryan
The Entrepreneur Studio (TES) are a great company to deal with. They provide support in a quiet and unassuming way which enables us to focus on our clients’ requirements more effectively. Thanks to TES our projects have been completed with clients able to promote their brands with greater confidence. We will continue to work closely…