Write a one-page plan for a tiny service business

Use the page to make decisions

A first plan should help you decide what to try next. Keep it short enough to revisit after a customer conversation. The SBA describes lean plans as a concise format for the main parts of a business; lenders or investors may still ask for more detail. This worksheet is an original working plan, not a funding application.

Start a document with the prompts below. Write plain sentences and mark guesses clearly. If you do not know an answer, add the question you need to investigate instead of inventing a confident projection.

Fill in these seven prompts

Aim for one or two sentences per prompt. Use numbers where they help, but separate observed facts from assumptions. You should be able to explain the whole page to someone unfamiliar with your idea.

• Customer: Who has the problem, and how will you reach them?
• Problem: What specific task is difficult, slow, or neglected?
• Offer: What will you deliver, and what is outside the scope?
• Price: What will the customer pay, and which costs must that cover?
• Delivery: What tools, skills, time, and permissions will you need?
• First test: What small experiment will check your riskiest assumption?
• Review: When will you assess the evidence and decide whether to continue?

Try a concrete example

Imagine a fictional service that organizes project spreadsheets for solo consultants. The deliverable is one cleaned tracker, a short handover call, and one agreed revision. The owner will test the offer through five conversations and one sample built from invented data. No demand or customer result has been established yet.

The riskiest assumption might be that consultants want outside help rather than a free template. The next experiment should test that question. Choosing colors or buying a logo will not answer it. Set a review date and a spending cap before running the experiment.

Add a tiny budget and an exit rule

List the cash needed before your first job, the recurring costs, and the costs that increase with each job. Include required setup costs even if they are inconvenient. Check relevant local rules before accepting business. Estimate what happens if the first month brings no sales.

Write a practical rule for what happens next: 'After the test, I will continue only if the problem is clear and I can deliver at an acceptable cost.' Define acceptable for your own time and finances. If the evidence is weak, narrow the offer, test a different customer, or stop. Revising a plan early can prevent a much more expensive lesson later.