The One-Page Business Plan

Jen Adrion and Omar Noory graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 2008. They both started freelancing as designers. Just one year after graduation, the feeling of burnout from commercial design was inescapable. "Should I have gone to med school?" Jen wondered. "What if accounting would have been a better fit?"

On a drive back from Chicago, they talked about other things—an upcoming trip to New York, places they hoped to visit. When they got home, Omar looked around for a nice map to help chart their adventures. They couldn't find one they loved, so they decided to make their own. They stayed up late at night, working on their ideal map while talking about all the places they hoped to go.

One problem: the printer had a minimum order of 50 units for $500. A lot to spend when you only need one map. But the project had come to mean more than just a print. Jen and Omar each put down $250. They loved the result, hung one on the wall, gave a few to friends... and still had forty-four maps with no obvious purpose.

Omar had a crazy idea. Would anyone want to buy the remaining prints?

They made a one-page website, added a PayPal button, and went to bed. The next morning, they woke up to their first sale. Then another. A popular design forum picked up their work, and they sold out the entire first print run in ten minutes.

Why one page (and not zero, and not thirty)

In the battle between planning and action, action wins. Many of the case studies in The $100 Startup reported a similar pattern to Jen and Omar's—get started quickly and see what happens.

But "no plan" doesn't mean "no thinking." It means you don't need 80 pages that nobody will ever read. Other guides will tell you how to write those 80-page business plans, complete with projections and competitive analyses that are really just procrastination in a nicer outfit. You need enough clarity to take the first step. One page forces that clarity without letting you hide.

Every business, at its core, has three requirements: a product or service, people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid. That's it. A one-page plan just makes sure you've thought through each piece—and a couple of others—before you start. It won't take you a month. It should take you an hour.

And consider the startup costs from the study: Jen and Omar started for $500. Amy Turn Sharp in Columbus started a handcrafted toy company for $300. Nicolas Luff in Vancouver started with $56.33—the cost of a business license. Michael Trainer in New York launched a documentary business for $2,500 (the cost of a camera he later sold for a profit). When the investment is that low, you don't need a financial model. You need a page.

The template (all 5 sections)

This is the one-page business plan from The $100 Startup. Five sections. One or two sentences per question. That's the whole thing. If you're writing paragraphs, you're overthinking it.

Section 1: Overview

This is your foundation. If you can't describe what you sell in a sentence, you don't have enough clarity yet—and that's fine, but it means you need to think more before you build more.

"Who will buy it" should be a specific person, not a demographic. Not "health-conscious millennials." Think: who's the first actual human being who'll hand you money? What's their situation? What are they struggling with?

"How will it help people" is where folks go vague. Don't. Remember the lesson from Chapter 2: give them the fish. What changes in their life? What problem goes away? Be concrete.

Section 2: Ka-Ching

A real number. Not "I'll figure out pricing later." Later never comes, and when it does, you'll underprice out of fear.

"How will you get paid" is more practical than it sounds. PayPal? Stripe? Cash at a farmer's market? Don't leave this blank. Jen and Omar used a PayPal button on a one-page website. That was enough.

The third question—how else will you make money—is where you think about upsells, related products, or services that branch off your main offer. You don't need an answer right now. But it's worth having on your radar from day one.

Section 3: Hustling

This is the section that matters most and the one people fill in worst. "Social media" isn't an answer. "Word of mouth" isn't a strategy. How, specifically, will the first 10 people discover that you exist?

Jen and Omar got lucky with a design forum mention. You might not. Will you post in specific online communities? Reach out directly to people who fit your customer profile? Partner with someone who already has the audience you want? Get specific here. This is the section to spend the most time on.

And referrals: what would make a customer tell a friend? A product so good they can't help talking about it? A discount for sending someone your way? Build this in from the start, not as an afterthought.

Section 4: Success

Pick a number. Not a fantasy number. A "this would make the effort worth it" number. Maybe it's 50 customers. Maybe it's $2,000 a month in net income. Maybe it's replacing your freelance income so you can quit. Whatever it is, write it down. A business without a success metric is a hobby with expenses.

Section 5: Obstacles / challenges / open questions

What could go wrong? What don't you know yet? What's the thing that keeps nagging at you when you think about actually launching?

Write it down. Then write a proposed solution. You don't need all the answers—you just need to acknowledge the questions and have a rough idea of how you'd handle them. The act of writing it down takes a vague anxiety and turns it into a solvable problem.

And notice the last line: a deadline. Not "someday." A date. That line is there because the biggest obstacle for most people isn't money or skills or the market. It's the decision to actually begin.

The 140-character mission statement

Before you fill in the template, try this exercise. Write your mission statement in 140 characters or fewer. (Yes, the old Twitter limit. The constraint still works.)

We help [customers] do/achieve [primary benefit].

That's it. If you can fill in those two blanks clearly, you understand your business. If you can't, you're not ready for the template yet—and that's useful information too.

Some examples from the book. If you have a dog-walking service, the feature is "I walk dogs." The benefit is "I help busy owners feel at ease about their dogs when they're not able to be with them." If you make custom wedding stationery, you might say: "I help couples feel special about their big day by providing them with amazing invitations."

This isn't a marketing exercise. It's a clarity exercise. Your mission statement won't appear on your website or your business cards. It's for you. It tells you, in one line, why your business exists and who it's for.

Market before manufacturing

Here's a story that changed how I think about launching.

A friend of mine created an information product aimed at the high-end car industry. He offered a specialty guide that sold for $900—except he didn't actually create it before he advertised it in a magazine. He knew it would be a lot of work to put the guide together, so why do the work if no one wanted it?

Partly to his surprise, he received two orders. The cost of the ad was just $300, so that represented $1,500 in profit—if he could actually create the guide. He wrote to the two buyers and said he was developing a "new-and-improved, 2.0 version," and he'd love to send it to them at no additional charge as long as they could wait thirty days. Both buyers chose to wait. He spent the next month frantically writing the guide, then sent it to the eagerly-waiting customers. Since he knew he had a success on his hands (and it helped that he actually had a product now), he placed another ad and sold ten more.

The lesson: prove demand before you build. Don't spend months creating something nobody wants. Find out if people will pay first. Then do the work. If you want to go deeper on this, read the full guide on testing your business idea.

The first sale changes everything

In Louisville, Kentucky, I talked with Nick Gatens about a small photography project he'd been working on. "I'm not sure I've got the right site design, or the right message for visitors," he told me.

I was curious, so I flipped open my laptop and asked for the URL. "Well," said Nick. "I don't actually have the site up yet."

I didn't have to say anything. Nick stared down at his coffee cup, in realization of the obvious. The other people we were hanging out with encouraged him too, and he left determined to make progress.

A few weeks later, I saw Nick again. This time he had an excited look on his face: "I got the site up, and I made a sale!" A stranger had followed a link from somewhere on the internet and paid $50 for a print.

"That conversation made me think about why the site wasn't up yet," Nick said. "In my head, it was all technical: I had to tweak the design and fix some errors in the code. But being honest with myself, I realized my fear was still holding me back; the technical stuff was just an excuse."

$50. One sale. From a stranger. That's all it took to turn a side project into something real. Once the first sale came in, Nick knew he'd succeed. It may not have been completely rational, but that single sale motivated him to take the business much more seriously.

If you've filled in this template but haven't made a single sale yet, here's how to launch.

Frequently asked questions

Can I really run a business with just a one-page plan?

For a micro-business, it's all you need. Jen and Omar started their map business with zero plan and $500. Nick Gatens launched a photography print business over a weekend. A one-page plan is more than most of them had. If you're raising venture capital or hiring 50 people, sure, you'll need more. But that's a different game entirely.

What's the most important section?

Hustling—how customers will find out you exist. You can have a great product and fair pricing, but if nobody knows about it, nothing happens. Most people fill in the other sections easily and leave Hustling blank or vague. That's the section to spend the most time on. Figure out how your first 10 customers will discover you.

How often should I update it?

Whenever something meaningful changes—you shift your audience, change your pricing, discover a better way to reach people. There's no set schedule. The whole point of keeping it to one page is that it stays alive. It's a working document, not a filing cabinet artifact.

Is this the same template from the book?

Yes. The five sections—Overview, Ka-Ching, Hustling, Success, and Obstacles—come directly from The $100 Startup and the companion PDF. The framework is the one from the book.