The 10 AI Prompts for Writing a Business Plan

We’ve all experienced it before – the struggle to turn our ideas into a presentable business plan. But with the help of AI, that struggle can become a thing of the past.

AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Bard can transform your rough ideas into cohesive business plans that investors will want to read. Instead of wasting time figuring out how to present your ideas, you can focus on refining your strategy and ensuring that your business solves a real problem for potential customers.

In this article, I’ll share my favorite AI prompts for writing a business plan, along with some tips and pitfalls to be aware of. Let’s dive in!

Executive Summary

Your executive summary is a concise summary of your entire business plan, but it’s important to save this section for last. AI can help you summarize your plan effectively.

Core Prompt:

Help me write a powerful Executive Summary for my business plan. My company is [company name], offering [products/services] in the [industry]. The executive summary should cover:

• The Problem & Solution: Concisely describe the pain point your business addresses and your unique solution.
• Market Opportunity: Summarize the target market size, growth potential, and key customer segments.
• Business Model: Explain your revenue generation strategy (pricing, sales channels).
• Competitive Advantage: Highlight what sets you apart from competitors.
• Team: Briefly mention the key experience and skills of your management team.
• Financial Highlights: Provide a snapshot of your revenue projections.

Additional Prompt Elements:

• The Ask: Include your fundraising ask and explain how you plan to use the funds.
• Target Audience: Describe your intended audience and adjust the tone accordingly.

Opportunity

The opportunity section of your business plan outlines the problem your business solves and the unique solution it offers. It’s crucial to be specific and focused on your target customers’ needs.

Core Prompt:

I am starting a [business description]. Help me craft a strong “Opportunity” section for my business plan. Clearly articulate the problem I’m solving, my unique solution, and any traction achieved. Explain why now is the right time for my business, [business name]. Describe the significant pain point or unmet need experienced by my target customers, [target customer description]. Explain how my product/service directly solves the problem, detailing its key features and benefits.

Additional Prompt Elements:

• Describe your initial traction with customers, including any early successes or partnerships.
• Explain why this is the ideal time to launch your business.

Market Analysis

Your market analysis should provide an overview of your target market and its potential for growth. It’s essential to do your own research and verify any data provided by AI.

Core Prompt:

Help me write a comprehensive market analysis for my business plan. My business is [business name], and we offer [products/services] within the [industry] sector. Cover the following key areas:

• Market Size & Growth: Quantify the current market size and discuss trends influencing market growth.
• Target Customers: Create detailed customer profiles of your ideal segments.

Additional Prompt Elements:

• Market Segmentation: Break down the market into smaller segments.
• Data Sources: Suggest reliable sources for industry reports and competitor insights.

Competitive Analysis

When conducting a competitive analysis, it’s important to consider both direct and indirect competitors. While AI can provide a framework, it’s crucial to conduct your own research for accurate information.

Core Prompt:

Help me craft a strong “Competition” section for my business plan. My business is [business name], offering [product/service] in the [industry] sector. Cover the following key areas:

• Competitor Analysis: Identify your top direct competitors and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, pricing, marketing strategies, and target customer overlap.
• Indirect Competition: List companies offering alternative solutions or partially addressing the same customer need.
• Competitive Advantage: Clearly articulate how your product/service is unique or better than the competition.
• Barriers to Entry: Outline potential challenges new competitors would face.
• Opportunities & Threats: Identify any weaknesses in competitor offerings that you can capitalize on and predict any potential shifts in the competitive landscape.

Additional Prompt Elements:

• SWOT Focus: Summarize your competitive analysis in a SWOT framework tailored to your business.
• Future Outlook: Analyze how the competitive landscape might evolve and how your business is positioned to adapt.
• Customer Perspective: Assess the competition through the eyes of your target customer.

Marketing and Sales

In the marketing and sales section, outline your marketing tactics and sales process. While AI can help generate ideas, it’s essential to customize the strategies for your specific business.

Core Prompt:

Help me develop a detailed “Marketing and Sales” plan for my business, [business name]. My target customers are [describe ideal customer profile] within the [industry]. Outline the following aspects:

• Market Positioning: Define how you will position your brand and offerings within the marketplace.
• Marketing Channels: List potential online and offline channels to reach your target audience.
• Sales Process: Outline the steps from lead generation to closing a sale and describe the customer’s sales journey.
• Pricing Strategy: Explain your pricing model and the rationale behind it.

Additional Prompt Elements:

• Budget: Specify your marketing budget and suggest marketing tactics that align with it.
• Metrics: Identify key metrics to track the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts.

Operations

The operations section covers your business logistics, including location, facilities, technology, suppliers, and regulatory/legal requirements. AI can provide a structure, but you need to customize the content.

Core Prompt:

Help me write an “Operations” section for my business plan. My business is [business name], offering [products/services] in the [industry] sector. Cover the following key areas:

• Location & Facilities: Describe your business location and any specific facility needs.
• Technology & Equipment: Outline essential software, hardware, and tools required.
• Production/Workflow: Map out the process for creating your product or delivering your service.
• Suppliers & Inventory: Describe your sourcing strategy and inventory management systems, if applicable.
• Regulatory/Legal: List any critical permits, licenses, or regulations that impact your operations.

Milestones & Metrics

Milestones represent important goals for your business, while metrics measure your progress towards those goals. While AI can provide ideas, customize this section to match your business.

Core Prompt:

Help me craft a strong “Milestones and Metrics” section for my business plan. My business is [business name], offering [product/service] in the [industry]. Break it down as follows:

Key Milestones: Outline your most significant goals over the next 1-3 years, including target dates for completion. Ensure your goals are specific, relevant, and time-bound.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): List the metrics that will measure your progress and overall business health. Consider financial, customer-related, and operational metrics. Explain the importance of each KPI and how you plan to track them.

Company Overview

The company overview provides essential details about your business, such as its legal structure and ownership. While AI can assist with writing ideas, you’ll need to provide specific information.

Core Prompt:

Help me write a “Company Overview” for my business plan. My company, [company name], operates within the [industry] sector. Cover the following essential details:

• Legal Structure: Explain your company’s legal structure and the reason behind this choice.

Remember to be concise and factual in this section.

By following these AI prompts, you can efficiently write a comprehensive and impactful business plan. Just remember to customize the content to match your specific business, and you’ll be well on your way to success.

Let’s say you’re a freelance web designer starting an agency:

“Help me write a “Company Overview” for my business plan. My company, ‘Creative Web Solutions’, operates within the web design and development industry. Cover the following essential details:

Legal Structure: Creative Web Solutions is registered as an LLC for liability protection and potential tax benefits.

Ownership: I, [Your Name], am the sole owner and founder.”

Tips:

– Keep it Brief: This section is just about communicating the facts; other areas of the plan will provide more depth.

– OK to Skip: If you aren’t seeking investment, you likely don’t need this section.

Management Team

Once again, without your input, an AI chatbot won’t have much to go on. That said, AI can take your rough notes about your team and turn them into polished writing. Just be sure to double-check everything to make sure your team’s skills haven’t been represented incorrectly.

Help me write a “Management Team” section for my business plan. My company is [company name] operating in the [industry]. Include the following:

Key Leadership:

– List titles and roles of the core management team (founder(s), CEO, CMO, etc.).

– Provide a brief bio for each member, focusing on relevant experience, skills, and accomplishments that demonstrate their suitability for their role.

Summarize the collective strengths of the management team and how they complement each other.

– Highlight any specific industry knowledge or expertise.

List any formal advisors or board members.

– Outline their backgrounds and how they add strategic value to the business.

Acknowledge any current gaps in expertise within the team and your plans to fill them (future hires, consultants, etc.).

Example:

Imagine you’re starting a tech startup with a co-founder:

“Help me write a “Management Team” section for my business plan. My company is ‘Innovatech’ operating in the software development industry. Include the following.”

Tips:

– Showcase Passion: Briefly mention what drives each team member and their commitment to the company’s vision.

– External Validation: Awards, past successes, or notable affiliations of team members add credibility.

Pitfalls:

– Be Honest: Investors appreciate transparency about potential shortcomings and your plan to address them. Make sure you edit what AI writes, that it accurately reflects the gaps in your team, and that it sounds like you.

Looking for an AI business plan builder? Try LivePlan

Financial Plan

Unfortunately, AI help can only take you so far with your business plan, which is the biggest pitfall in using AI to generate your plan. While it’s great at brainstorming and turning notes and ideas into polished text, AI is just not capable of pulling together the complete financial forecasts that businesses need and investors expect.

To create a financial plan, a spreadsheet or a business planning tool are the right choices for the job. Here’s why:

Flexibility: Creating a financial plan takes some experimentation. As you adjust your expected revenue and expenses, you’ll want to see in real time what the impact is on your profitability. AI Chatbots don’t provide that kind of interface and require slow regeneration that often introduces unwanted changes and surprises.

Cash Flow: Forecasting cash flow can be challenging, especially if you’re dealing with inventory or customers that don’t pay you right away. Business planning tools have these calculations baked in so you can adjust your assumptions about when you think you’ll purchase inventory and when customers will pay and immediately see how your cash is impacted.

Accuracy: As it is, chatbots like ChatGPT aren’t known for their honesty. You don’t want to apply for a loan or present to investors with a forecast built by AI because you can’t be sure all the math is 100% accurate. You’ll want to be confident in your numbers to run a successful business.

Know your business: When you build your own forecast, you develop a deep understanding of how your business works. AI can’t give you this knowledge. And without a solid understanding of how your business works from a financial perspective, it will be challenging to be successful.

It’s what investors want: Lenders and investors expect financial forecasts in a specific, standardized format. While AI can help you with the basics, it can’t develop an accurate balance sheet or cash flow forecast for you.

Better Business Management: The key to running a successful business is paying attention to the numbers: are you getting the revenue you expect and are your expenses on track? A good planning tool, or at the very least a spreadsheet, will help you keep track of your numbers so you can know exactly how your business is doing and what changes need to be made.

All of that said, AI can help you understand how you might want to start your forecast.

It can suggest common revenue streams and expenses for your business so you can make sure that you’re not overlooking anything. AI might even give you some new ideas for how your business might make money. Here’s how you can get AI to help:

Help me generate a comprehensive list of potential revenue streams, cost of goods, and expenses to include in my financial forecast for my business, [business name]. My business operates in the [industry] sector and offers [products/services].

Example:

Let’s say you’re a freelance graphic designer:

“Help me generate a comprehensive list of potential revenue streams and expenses to include in my financial forecast for my business, “Visual Designs.” My business operates in the creative services industry and offers logo design, branding packages, and website design services.

Tips:

– Don’t Get Too Specific: Think about broad categories for revenue streams and expenses – things that you’d want to track and pay attention to over time. Don’t list every minor thing.

– Pay Attention to Profits and Cash: For most businesses, profit and actual cash in the bank are different things. Your forecast will help you spot future cash problems that might happen even when you’re profitable.

– Revisit Regularly: Successful businesses track their performance compared to their revenue goals and expense budget, just like you track things with a personal budget.

Pitfalls:

– Don’t try to use AI to generate your numbers: You will need to use a financial model and take the time to put together a full financial forecast. This is where a tool like LivePlan can be vital.

Important Advice and a Warning for Using AI for Business Planning

There are two points I want to stress as you think about using AI to help write your business plan.

1. You need to know your business

The first is that good, healthy businesses grow because owners and entrepreneurs deeply understand their business.

Yes, you can use AI to help you write a business plan, but that plan needs to be yours — the ideas, how the business works, your competitive advantage. If you’re not 100% behind the ideas in the plan, you’re much less likely to be successful.

The most valuable benefit of business planning is not the document that you end up with, but the ideas that you generate through the process.

The planning process helps you focus on a winning business strategy, a marketing plan that will bring customers in the door, and a detailed understanding of your customers. The document is just a byproduct of the process.

The knowledge that you gain is what’s truly valuable.

2. AI isn’t perfect

Second, as impressive as AI is, it makes mistakes. It invents things. So make sure to double check any “facts” that AI presents. AI is better at ideation and brainstorming than doing detailed market research and creating financial models.

To use AI successfully, it’s important to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

It’s a tireless business partner that you can bounce ideas off of. It’s always ready to brainstorm and help you generate 100 new ideas. But it’s not a great research assistant or number cruncher — at least not yet.

For those parts of your plan, use the tools that are best for those jobs.

If you’re looking for an AI-powered tool to improve your writing, suggest revenue streams and more, check out the LivePlan Assistant. It’s the only AI business planning tool backed by over 30 years of business planning and forecasting expertise. Learn more about LivePlan.

Andrew Brooks

Hello!

I’m Andrew Brooks, a seasoned finance consultant from the USA and the mind behind phonenumber247.com.

My career is built on a foundation of helping individuals and businesses thrive financially in an ever-changing economic landscape. At phonenumber247.com, my aim is to demystify the complex world of finance, providing clear, actionable advice that can help you navigate your financial journey with confidence. Whether it’s personal finance management, investment strategies, or understanding the nuances of market dynamics, I’m here to share insights and tools that can propel you towards your financial goals.

Welcome to my digital space, where every piece of advice is a step closer to financial clarity and success!