Pop quiz: What’s longer than your college thesis, duller than your roommate’s PowerPoint decks, and more stressful than accidentally sending your bank info to a phishing email? Correct! It’s the business plan for US startup funding. Welcome, brave founder, to the part of entrepreneurship nobody put in the Instagram highlights: the grueling, soul-roasting, Excel-cursed process of writing something convincing enough for investors to throw money at you (or at least not run away screaming).
Maybe you’ve brewed your fifth cold brew, DM’d every angel investor this side of TikTok, and burned through more templates than you have followers. Still not funded? Look no further—here’s your 2025 guide to a defiant, unkillable, America-grade business plan. No one likes paperwork, but hey—at least yours will be fabulous.
The Executive Summary: Make Them Swipe Right in 30 Seconds or Less
This is it. The Hinge bio of your business plan. Investors, VCs, and your ex who now writes Medium articles about “Thought Leadership” will read this part before anything else (and probably nothing after).
Key Ingredients:
- The ‘what’ and ‘why’ in one paragraph or bust.
- How your business will explode like the world’s biggest trend (and not a TikTok challenge gone wrong).
- The numbers—yes, actual numbers. Projected millions, hockey-stick graphs, or at least believable Excel lies.
- The ask: How much money do you want, on what planet do you think you’ll pay it back, and what bizarre food truck idea will you pivot to if you don’t?
If your summary reads like a LinkedIn post written during a coffee crash, you’re absolutely nailing it.
Problem, Solution, and That Magical ‘Market Opportunity’ Slide (a.k.a. Please Like Me)
Investors love drama, so milk it. Your startup is nothing without a problem so grand, even Mark Cuban weeps.
- “Americans waste 24 million hours weekly browsing streaming menus.” Ah, the pain!
- “Nobody delivers sushi on skateboards in Austin after midnight.” Crisis!
Next: your solution, which should be TikTok-level extra. If it doesn’t involve AI, blockchain, or a cute mascot, rethink your approach.
Then, claim that the “market opportunity” is “$100 billion and growing”—extra points for referencing a Statista chart and never citing the source.
Checklist for “believability”:
- One problem that would win a Twitter poll
- One solution nobody’s tried (except, you know, your stealth-mode competitors)
- Market size stats (inflate responsibly: VCs know when you’re lying, they just want a good story)
- The one-liner you’ll repeat at every pitch: “We’re like Uber, but for [insert trending noun].”
If you toss in “total addressable market” and “pain point,” your business plan just leveled up.
Team, Traction, and Other Fancy Words for “Maybe We Can Actually Do This”
By now, investors are thinking, “But can these kids really deliver between all that Starbucks?” Here’s where you introduce the founding team—even if it’s just your roommate, your dog, and that one guy on Upwork.
- Team bios: Polished, humble-brag-filled, and just ambiguous enough to sound impressive (“Led an international remote team”—read: managed a Discord server).
- Advisors: Your mom’s friend who owns a bakery counts—just give them an advisory title and pray no one checks LinkedIn.
- Traction: Any evidence you’re more than a Canva fever dream. 50 beta users? 10,000 TikTok followers? A friend who promised to try your app “soon-ish”? Use ‘em all.
Pro tips:
- Only list metrics that look up and to the right.
- Cite any PR—no matter how sketchy the outlet (“As featured on my-own-blog.net!”)
- Don’t underestimate how much a photo of your team in plaid shirts can move a VC to tears (or at least a polite email).
Reminder: If your org chart doesn’t look like a web of confusion, you’re not dreaming big enough.
The Business Model: How Not to Lose Investors Before Lunch
This is where you convert startup dreams into “actual” revenue. Your business plan needs numbers, pricing, projections, and a cash flow story even your grandma could understand.
- Revenue model: Subscriptions, one-time purchases, in-app ads, or “something, something enterprise.”
- Pricing: If you need to explain it, it’s too complicated.
- Funnel: “Users come in, money falls out. Simple.” (It isn’t, but they’ll nod anyway.)
- Scalability: If you use the word “freemium” or “viral growth,” please add at least one chart from Excel, even if it was made yesterday.
- Projected growth: Make every bar higher than the last, regardless of reality.
Throw in:
- Competitive advantage (“Our app uses AI, and also makes toast!”)
- The ultimate VC favorite: “monetization pathways” (aka “maybe we’ll figure it out before Q3”).
If you can’t explain how you’ll make money by the end of the elevator ride, you’re getting off at the wrong floor.
The “Financials and The Ask” Section: Hope, Delusion, and Excel-induced Nightmares
We’re here. The slide where you beg for cash, claim humility, and predict a profit bigger than your student loan debt.
- Startup costs: List every expense, including “emergency DoorDash budget.”
- Funding requested: Be specific—down to the nickel, because VCs respect a founder who knows how much a printer costs these days.
- Use of Funds: Pie chart time! (“40% on tech, 40% on marketing, 20% on therapy and coffee refills.”)
- Projections: Revenue up, costs down, break-even “by next summer—unless Mercury’s in retrograde.”
- Exit strategy: IPO-by-2028, “acquired by Amazon,” or shrugs in millennial.
If you can work in an “ROI” that doesn’t look like a lottery ticket, you’re already ahead of the curve.
Appendix: The Graveyard of Ambition (a.k.a. Stuff No One Reads)
Never forget your appendix:
- Licenses (real or aspirational)
- Resumes (“Chief Meme Officer” included)
- Charts, press clippings, screenshots of rave Discord messages
No investor will actually read it, but they’ll definitely notice if you skip it. The universe is cruel that way.
You did it! You’re now one brutally honest, marginally ridiculous Business Plan away from possibly, maybe, hypothetically landing startup funding in the US. Whether you got this far in hopes of angel cash, VC glory, or just to procrastinate actual adulting, be proud: you now know more about startup plans than most self-declared “pitch experts” on LinkedIn.
Go forth and get funded—or at least, score some free coffee at your next friendly “networking” meetup. If anyone actually reads your appendix, buy a lottery ticket. And if you make it to the big time? DM me—I like my coffee black, my business plans short, and my sarcasm leveraged.