How Do I Write a Business Plan?

You write a business plan (in German: Businessplan or Geschäftsplan) in seven steps: clarify your goal and idea; define the outline; analyze the market and plan your marketing; calculate revenue and the financial plan; write a rough draft; write the executive summary and get feedback on the plan; finalize and submit. The executive summary is written last. In our experience, a well-founded version takes 4 to 8 weeks.

How to Write a Business Plan: The 7 Steps

The order in which you work differs from the order in which the reader will later see the plan. Steps 3 to 6 go hand in hand: whatever you claim in the text must appear in exactly the same way in the financial plan.

Working order and structure of the finished plan

The finished plan begins with the summary; your work ends with it.

The purpose determines the length. The IHK Köln (Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry) recommends 10 to 40 pages; the IHK Hannover (Hanover Chamber of Commerce and Industry) considers 10 to 25 pages sufficient for most business concepts. In our experience, 15 to 25 pages of text work well, plus the numbers section and appendix. That fits within the IHK Köln’s range. The IHK Hannover already counts the numbers section in its 10 to 25 pages, so a leaner plan is not a shortcoming. Length says nothing about quality.

What belongs in the individual chapters and what the cover page looks like is shown in our guide What belongs in a business plan? You can find industry specifics under Business plan for your industry.

Preparation: Readers, Documents, and Deadlines

Before you write the first sentence, clarify three things: who will read the plan, what they require, and by when. No law requires a business plan. It is the people who decide on the money who ask for it.

Who you are writing for and what is required

What the Employment Agency, bank, and investor each look for in detail is set out in our business plan tips. How each route works is explained in our guides Applying for the start-up grant, Viability certificate, Entry allowance from the Jobcenter, KfW start-up loan, and Preparing for the bank meeting.

What to gather in advance

• CV, no more than two pages
• Certificates and proof of qualifications
• Quotes for planned purchases
• Draft rental or lease agreement
• List of your private living expenses
• Self-disclosure form and statement of assets for the bank
• Required permits and licenses
• For existing businesses: annual financial statements and current BWA

Request quotes and draft contracts right at the start, because here you depend on other people.

Timeline and deadlines

In our experience, preparing it on your own usually takes 4 to 8 weeks or around 40 to 80 hours, and 2 to 6 weeks with coaching. There is no official rule on how long it should take.

The hard deadlines are set by the funding bodies:

• Start-up grant: Apply before starting self-employment, and also before any outward-facing preparatory activities. When you start, you still need at least 150 days of remaining entitlement to unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld). Our guide Applying for the start-up grant shows the process.
• Entry allowance: Apply to the Jobcenter before you become self-employed as your main occupation. There is no legal entitlement to it.
• Development loans: KfW loans via the house bank, the NRW.Mikrodarlehen after counseling at the STARTERCENTER, in each case before the project begins. Projects already started are not financed retroactively. More on this under KfW start-up loan.
• BAFA consulting (existing businesses): Start only after the information letter from the lead office (Leitstelle). Even the consulting contract counts as the start.

Tip: First enter the date by which the body must have the plan, and plan backward from there.

Market Analysis and Marketing Plan: How to Proceed

In this part, you clarify whether there are enough customers, why they would buy from you, and how you reach them. Your answers ultimately become your revenue plan. We show each step using an entirely fictitious example: Radservice Muster, a mobile bicycle repair shop in Essen that repairs bikes for private customers and at companies’ premises. What reviewers expect in the finished chapter is set out under What belongs in a business plan?

Market analysis in four steps

1. Define your target group: Describe it by characteristics such as industry, region, company size, needs, and buying behavior; for private customers, for example, place of residence, life situation, and reason for buying. Decide which group you will approach first and why. In the example: commuters in the south of Essen and companies with their own company bikes.
2. Narrow down the market: Stick to your actual market, local or online, not global figures or general industry figures. Define your catchment area and location and check, for example, purchasing power and accessibility.
3. Obtain figures: first existing data (secondary data), then your own (primary data) from surveys, observation, or test purchases.
4. Derive your share: Actual buyers in the catchment area × purchase frequency × price gives the market volume. You justify your reachable share with your capacity and your sales activities. The terms in brief: market potential is the most that all possible customers could buy; market volume is what is actually bought; market share is your part of it.

For your industry, also work through the guiding questions from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE): How are prices, revenues, and profits developing? Which sales channels are common, and is the market growing? How do customers behave? What regulations and substitute products exist, and what role do AI applications play?

Where to get market figures

• Official statistics: GENESIS-Online from the Federal Statistical Office and the Regionaldatenbank Deutschland (regional database), both free of charge. The trade notification statistics (Gewerbeanzeigenstatistik, 52311) show business registrations and deregistrations, some broken down by industry.
• Chambers: market studies by the IHK, benchmarking studies by the Chambers of Crafts, economic reports by the ZDH (German Confederation of Skilled Crafts). The IHK Köln does research for founders free of charge, for example on purchasing power indices or revenue figures. Ask your IHK whether it offers something similar.
• Banks and associations: industry reports from the Savings Banks Association (Sparkassenverband) on more than 70 industries, industry briefs from the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken (cooperative banks), and trade associations.
• Other sources: “Branche Kompakt” from Germany Trade & Invest (industry reports on foreign markets, if you export), DATEV industry benchmarks via your tax advisor, GfK, Institut für Handelsforschung (Institute for Retail Research).
• Competitors: Since August 1, 2022, you can retrieve commercial register data free of charge via handelsregister.de.
• Your own research: surveys, observation, or test purchases.

Note the source and year next to every figure.

Tip: You can find the specifics of individual industries on our pages on the business plan for a restaurant, a café, a medical practice, a hotel, a gym, a nail studio, an auto repair shop, and for dropshipping. You can find an overview of all industries under Business plan for your industry.

Competitor analysis: finding and comparing competitors

List at least three competitors by name, plus one substitute solution: what do your customers do today instead of using your offer? Compare by service, price, and target group, and use this to define how you stand out. You can find competitors through your own searches, map services, business directories, and test purchases, and company data via the commercial register.

In your plan, the real names go here. Anyone who writes that there is no competition raises questions for the reviewer.

Creating a marketing plan and sales plan

The marketing plan shows how your target group turns into paying customers. Reviewers want to see specifically what you will do, how often, through which channel, and with what goal. It must also be clear how this turns into revenue through acquisition, quotes, and closed deals. Many also call this part the sales and distribution plan or simply the sales plan. It should cover five building blocks:

• Positioning: one sentence on whom you work for and why people choose you.
• Price: your price calculation and how it compares with the competitor table.
• Channels: where your target group finds you, online, on site, or through personal contact.
• Activities and budget: what you do in the first six months and what it costs.
• Path to closing: how an inquiry becomes a quote and a quote becomes an order.

The budget appears as the advertising budget in the numbers section. Divide it by the customers gained: €400 per month for around 40 new customers comes to about €10 per new customer. In the example, it stays at €400 per month until all 400 private customers have been won after ten months. The number of new customers must match your revenue planning. If you already run a business, use the actual figures from previous campaigns. If you are starting from scratch, justify the number differently, for example with the results of your survey, letters of intent from companies, or inquiries from your network.

From market to revenue: example calculation

Here is how the chain works in our example. All figures are invented; in your plan, they come from your sources and your survey.

In the first year, customers are added gradually: with around 40 new private customers per month and about one new company every seven weeks, the repair shop reaches full capacity after ten months. For simplicity, each customer contributes a pro rata share of their annual orders from the table starting in their first month, so 1.5 per year for a private customer. This is a conservative calculation, because anyone who books an appointment is already placing the first order. In the first quarter, the shop thus reaches on average about one fifth of the full monthly revenue of €6,450, in the second quarter half of it, in the third four fifths, and in the fourth the full amount. That comes to around €48,400 in the first year instead of €77,400. That is why you never simply divide an annual revenue by twelve. You also spread the seasonal pattern, with more orders in spring and fewer in winter, month by month across the liquidity plan.

Tip: For the stress test, you calculate the same chain with fewer new customers. If only 30 instead of 40 come per month, revenue in the first year falls to around €37,700. Your liquidity plan shows whether your reserve can absorb that.

Then you check the calculation from four angles:

1. Capacity: 600 jobs for private customers and 240 for companies come to around 18 per week over 46 working weeks (after vacation, public holidays, and sick days), so just over three and a half per day. Does that work with travel time, administration, and customer acquisition, even during the spring peak?
2. Market: 400 customers must be a small, justified share of the households in the catchment area. You get the number of households or inhabitants from official statistics, for example the Regionaldatenbank. In the example, we assume 30,000 households in the catchment area; 400 customers are around 1.3% of them. Also calculate the market volume: if we assume that every other household has a bicycle serviced once a year for around €90, that is 30,000 × 0.5 × €90 = €1.35 million per year. The €57,000 in private revenue would be just over 4% of that.
3. Price: €95 is the average per order across inspections and repairs. In the revenue plan, all prices are net, i.e., excluding VAT; private customers, on the other hand, compare final prices including VAT. Check the individual prices, for example for the inspection, against your competitor table and justify a premium for the on-site service.
4. Marketing: The number of new customers must be achievable with your budget.

How this turns into capital requirements, profitability, and liquidity is shown in our guide Creating a financial plan.

SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

The SWOT analysis contrasts your strengths and weaknesses (internal) with the opportunities and threats in your environment (external). In the plan, it appears, for example, in the outlook or in the chapter on opportunities and risks.

Every risk needs a countermeasure, ideally with a figure. Against illness, two things help: an agreed stand-in from a fellow repair shop and daily sickness benefit insurance (Krankentagegeld) to cover living expenses. Winter is bridged by inspection contracts with companies, billed as a monthly flat fee: 240 bikes at €85 each per year bring in around €1,700 per month, regardless of the season. To counter the chains’ price pressure, Radservice Muster sells on-site service, not the lowest price. Our business plan outline shows which points reviewers want to see in the opportunities and risks chapter.

Writing the Executive Summary

The executive summary is a summary of your entire business plan on one page, two at most. It comes first in the document but is written last of all. Investors often read it first and decide on that basis whether to read on. The bank and the qualified body also check the figures in detail; for them, the summary must match the financial plan exactly.

In condensed form, it covers: business idea and customer benefit, target market, unique selling proposition, the founding team, capital requirements, and the key financial figures (planned revenue, break-even). Write it so that it makes sense on its own, without the rest of the document.

What reviewers expect from the summary is set out in our description of the eight chapters.

Structure sentence by sentence: six questions

In it, answer six questions in order:

1. What is your project: offer, location, start?
2. What problem do you solve for your customers?
3. Who is your target group, how big is your market, and what sets you apart from the competition?
4. Who is behind it, with what qualifications?
5. How do you make money: business model and sales channels?
6. What do you need and what do you expect: capital requirements and financing, revenue for the first three years, break-even point, purpose of the plan?

The break-even point is reached as soon as revenue covers all costs. For you, it also matters when the profit covers your imputed entrepreneur’s salary (Unternehmerlohn), i.e., your private living expenses. Every figure matches the numbers section exactly, and you leave out unsupported superlatives.

Length, timing, and tone

One page is enough; it should not exceed two A4 pages. Because every figure must match the financial plan, you only write it once the financial plan is in place. Stay matter-of-fact. For the first contact with investors, a one-pager is often enough; business angels usually want to see a pitch deck first.

Tip: Give the summary to someone who does not know your project. If they can then say in two sentences what you are planning and what you need, it works.

Sample executive summary

This is what the summary for the example in this guide could look like, shortened to the essentials:

Creating a Business Plan with AI: What Works and What Doesn’t

AI helps you structure and word your plan. But it will not write a review-ready business plan with reliable figures for you, because reviewers want to see your own local analysis and figures you have derived yourself. The IHK Köln advises using AI as support, not as a replacement.

AI tools and business plan software deliver an outline and ready-made text blocks in minutes, but they do not check whether your assumptions fit your market. Who can take that on for you is explained under Have a business plan created.

What reviewers look for in AI-generated texts

• Your own idea: A general industry description does not replace an individual idea.
• Substantiated differentiation: You cannot simply claim a unique selling point in general terms.
• Local market: General analyses do not replace a local market analysis and competitor analysis.
• Concrete actions: General research does not replace concrete planning of marketing and sales.

This is what the IHK Bonn/Rhein-Sieg (Bonn/Rhein-Sieg Chamber of Commerce and Industry) says in its start-up grant checklist, in part with an explicit note on AI. Also check yourself whether every figure in the text matches the financial plan and whether you can find every cited source in the original. Delete anything that cannot be verified.

Four prompts for your business plan

Use AI as a questioner, wording aid, and reviewer:

1. “You are a start-up consultant. I am planning [offer] for [target group] in [location]. Before you write any text, ask me ten questions about my target group, the way a bank or a qualified body (fachkundige Stelle) would ask them.”
2. “Turn these bullet points into a factual paragraph for the business idea chapter. No marketing language, no superlatives, no new facts or figures.”
3. “Read this section the way a qualified body (fachkundige Stelle) assessing viability for the start-up grant (Gründungszuschuss) would. Name up to three statements that I still need to substantiate, and which evidence would be sufficient for each.”
4. “Compare this text with these key figures from my financial plan (revenue and costs per year, capital requirements and financing). Do not recalculate anything; instead, list every contradiction together with the relevant passage in the text.”

Replace the information in square brackets with your project, without names or addresses. For prompts 2 to 4, paste your text or your key figures directly below. Remove names, CV, bank details, and other private information beforehand. The results are drafts. Put them into your own words and check them against the rules above.

Data protection and responsibility

Sensitive personal data such as your social security number, address, or private financial information, for example bank details and statements of assets, do not belong in the prompt, nor do real trade secrets. The data protection supervisory authorities favor applications that do not use inputs for training. Deleting names and addresses is often not enough to remove all personal references.

Tip: You are personally responsible for every statement in the plan. For development loans, intentionally or recklessly false statements about facts relevant to the subsidy are a criminal offense (§ 264 StGB, German Criminal Code). This fits with the Gründerplattform’s recommendation to write the plan yourself.

Existing Business: A Business Plan for Growth and Succession

Even if you are already on the market, you need a business plan: for an investment loan, for growth or a new location, for a takeover, or for a guarantee. The difference from a start-up: you begin with actual figures instead of assumptions.

• Investment or growth: For existing SMEs, including young ones, there is the ERP development loan for SMEs (365/366) of up to €25 million, applied for via the house bank before the project begins. For variant 366, KfW requires two annual financial statements. In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), NRW.BANK.Gründung und Wachstum (start-up and growth loan) is an option (up to €10 million, via the house bank).
• Succession or takeover: If the financing runs through a guarantee bank, for example under the ERP development loan for founding and succession (077), its checklist names the following as initial guidance: your plan, the annual financial statements of the company being taken over for the last two years, a current BWA (no more than 90 days old), and how the purchase price was derived. In addition to program 077, the ERP Start-up Loan – StartGeld (067) also funds takeovers.
• Young company with a guarantee: two annual financial statements, a current BWA, and an overview of existing bank liabilities.

Here is how to work with actual figures: start from the annual financial statements and the BWA. You justify each change individually, for example like this: the new machine creates more capacity, and the additional capacity brings a certain amount of additional revenue if you can prove the demand, for example with orders you currently have to turn down or with inquiries from existing customers. Whatever worked for your predecessor, you have to prove again for yourself. After the investment or takeover, compare your plan with the actual results regularly.

Which financing suits your project is shown on our page Financing for growth and investments. KfW’s development loans are explained in our guide KfW start-up loan. How to prepare for the meeting with your house bank is shown in Preparing for the bank meeting.

Tip: The Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) can only subsidize consulting on such projects for SMEs that are already active on the market; there is no legal entitlement to it. The grant amounts to 50% to 80% depending on location, in NRW 50% and at most €1,750 for eligible consulting costs of up to €3,500. The current guideline applies to applications submitted by December 31, 2026. You only start the consulting after the lead office’s information letter; even the consulting contract counts as the start. Consulting that mainly concerns funding is excluded; more on this under BAFA-funded consulting.

The 5 Most Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Having supported more than 750 business plans, we know the mistakes that lead to follow-up questions or rejection. These five concern the content:

• Overly optimistic revenue planning without justification. Derive every revenue figure transparently (customers × frequency × price), month by month with a ramp-up phase instead of annual revenue divided by twelve (example calculation).
• Forgotten or underestimated fixed costs. Create a complete cost list including insurance, software, and business taxes. Plan income tax as part of your private living expenses.
• Weak, superficial competitor analysis. Name real competitors and your concrete differentiation. “No competition” is a warning sign (competitor analysis).
• Missing risk assessment. Name two to three risks openly and one countermeasure for each (SWOT analysis).
• Writing style too promotional instead of factual. Reviewers want facts, not advertising.

Also: four mistakes in the process

• Starting too late. You apply for the development loan before the project begins and for the start-up grant before starting self-employment. Without a finished plan, the bank cannot submit your loan application, and the Employment Agency only decides once the plan and the opinion are available.
• Starting with the executive summary. As long as the market and figures are missing, it cannot summarize anything reliable, and you end up rewriting it anyway.
• Working on text and figures separately. What is in the text must appear in exactly the same way in the financial plan.
• Just rewriting a template. According to the IHK Hannover, that usually does not help; the plan must fit your project.

More mistakes are covered in our guide on content, in the section Typical mistakes in the content. Ten practical tips can be found in our business plan tips.

Feedback and Help: Before You Submit

First, check it yourself. Then get a second opinion, either free of charge or funded.

Order of checks before submission

Proceed in this order, from content to form:

1. Reconcile the figures: the text, financial plan, and executive summary state the same values.
2. Check the derivations: revenue from quantity × price, living expenses complete, reserve justified.
3. Check the evidence: every market figure has a source and year.
4. Check the language: full sentences, matter-of-fact tone, no unsupported superlatives.
5. Check the form: cover page, table of contents, page numbers, consistent layout.
6. Check the appendix: CV, supporting documents, quotes, and draft contracts are enclosed.

You can find all checkpoints to tick off in our business plan checklist.

Who can help you: free of charge or funded

• Free tools: the Gründerplattform, an initiative of the BMWE and KfW. It calculates the financial section, exports a PDF, and checks the plan with a traffic-light check. There is also the IHK’s Unternehmenswerkstatt Deutschland (an online business plan tool) with a text framework and financial tables, the checklists of the Existenzgründungsportal (the federal start-up portal), and our template for Word and Excel.
• Feedback from experts: In the Unternehmenswerkstatt Deutschland, experts from your local IHK answer your questions. The IHK Köln, for example, gives feedback if you share your plan with it there. In NRW, the STARTERCENTER NRW checks your documents for plausibility and prospects of success before a microloan.
• Funded start-up coaching: If you are unemployed, at risk of unemployment, or receive basic income support (Grundsicherungsgeld, formerly Bürgergeld), the Employment Agency or the Jobcenter can fund AVGS start-up coaching. The funding is a discretionary benefit with no legal entitlement. With prior written approval, you pay no personal contribution. The provider is the AZAV-certified UW Unternehmensweg GmbH. Before you apply, our check Check your funding eligibility in 2 minutes gives you an initial assessment of whether you qualify.
• Existing businesses: BAFA-funded consulting, see Existing business.
• Getting viability checked: For the start-up grant, a qualified body of your choice issues an opinion; you bear the costs (viability certificate).
• Creating it with support: If we create the plan together with you, it is usually ready around 14 days after we receive all documents. The process and funding are explained in Have a business plan created, and the business plan cost calculator works out the costs after funding.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to write a business plan?

In our experience, you should plan 2 to 4 weeks for a rough draft. With a well-founded market analysis and financial planning, it is more like 4 to 8 weeks or around 40 to 80 hours. With professional support it goes faster, because the structure and financial section are already in place. Factor in the deadlines: you apply for the start-up grant and development loans before you start.

Can I write a business plan myself?

Yes. Nobody knows your idea, market, and concept better than you do. The Gründerplattform, run by KfW and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, also recommends writing the plan yourself as a rule. A second, experienced perspective is especially worthwhile for the financial plan and the competitor analysis. This applies in particular if the plan has to convince a bank or the Employment Agency.

What is the executive summary and when do I write it?

The executive summary is the summary of the entire business plan on one, at most two, pages. It comes first but is written last of all because it condenses all the chapters. Investors often decide on the basis of the summary alone whether to read on; the bank and the qualified body still check every figure in the financial plan afterward. A fully written-out sample can be found under Writing the executive summary.

What should I use to write my business plan?

Use a word processor for the text section and a spreadsheet or a free business plan tool for the financial section, for example from the Gründerplattform or the IHK’s Unternehmenswerkstatt Deutschland. Our free template for Word and Excel gives you a framework. What matters more than the tool is that your numbers add up.

Can ChatGPT write a business plan?

A draft, yes; a business plan that stands up to review, no. AI helps you structure and word your plan, but the Gründerplattform advises against using it for complex calculations. According to the IHK Bonn/Rhein-Sieg’s checklist, general AI texts replace neither your own idea nor a local market analysis. Check every figure and every source yourself and do not enter any sensitive data. More on this under Creating a business plan with AI.

How can I create a business plan for free?

With free tools: the Gründerplattform’s business plan tool, the IHK’s Unternehmenswerkstatt Deutschland, the checklists of the Existenzgründungsportal, and our template. The IHK Köln, for example, gives feedback once you share your plan in the Unternehmenswerkstatt. If you are unemployed, at risk of unemployment, or receive basic income support, the Employment Agency or the Jobcenter can fund start-up coaching with an AVGS voucher. With prior written approval, you pay no personal contribution; there is no legal entitlement to it. You pay for the expert opinion (fachkundige Stellungnahme) for the start-up grant yourself.

How do I calculate the financial section of my business plan?

First derive revenue, as quantity times price and month by month. Then come costs and your private living expenses. You enter a start-up grant as income in your private living expenses, not as revenue. Check with the Employment Agency in advance whether you should already include it. From this you derive capital requirements and financing, the profitability forecast for three years, and the liquidity plan for at least twelve months on a monthly basis. Some reviewing bodies expect more: the IHK Bonn/Rhein-Sieg’s checklist names 36 months as a regional guideline for the start-up grant. How to set up each sub-plan is shown in our guide Creating a financial plan.

When does my business plan have to be finished?

Before you start: you apply for the start-up grant before taking up self-employment, and for a development loan via the house bank before the project begins. You apply for the entry allowance before you become self-employed as your main occupation. BAFA-funded consulting may only begin after the lead office’s information letter. So plan backward from the submission date and factor in the appointments with the qualified body and the bank. The deadlines at a glance can be found under Timeline and deadlines.

How do I write a business plan for an existing business?

As for a start-up, but with actual figures instead of assumptions. For successions and young companies, the guarantee banks’ checklist names, for example, the annual financial statements for the last two years and a current BWA, and for a succession also how the purchase price was derived. The focus is on what the investment or takeover changes. BAFA can only subsidize consulting on this for SMEs that are already active on the market; there is no legal entitlement to it. The grant amounts to 50% to 80% depending on location, in NRW 50% and at most €1,750. Consulting that mainly concerns funding, for example only the application for a development loan, is excluded (BAFA-funded business consulting).

We check external links to official bodies each time this page is updated (see the date above). Content and terms may change; the source itself is always authoritative.