01
Overview
What will you sell, who will buy it, and how will it help them?
Three sentences. Plain language. A person, not a demographic.
Free Small Business Plan Template
A one-page, fillable PDF from The $100 Startup. Five sections — built for solo founders, side hustlers, and micro-business owners. Enter your email and the download arrives instantly.
Instant download. No credit card. Used by 50,000+ readers.
What's in the template
Most small business plan templates online are 30-page Word documents built for bank loans — executive summary, company description, market analysis, organizational chart, financial projections, appendix. For a micro-business, most of that is theater. This template covers the same ground in five sections, each answering one question. The whole plan fits on a single page.
02
Ka-Ching
What will you charge and how will you get paid?
A real number. A real payment method. Not "I'll figure it out later."
03
Hustling
How will customers learn you exist?
Specific channels — not "social media." This is where most plans go vague.
04
Success
What does success look like by when?
One number. One date. A business without a metric is a hobby with expenses.
05
Obstacles
What could go wrong, and when will you launch anyway?
Name the concern, name the fix, write a launch deadline. The deadline is the most important line.
A worked sample
Here's the template filled in for a real business — Jen Adrion and Omar Noory's hand-drawn maps company, These Are Things, in its first six months. $500 startup, sold out the first print run in ten minutes.
Sample one-page business plan
These Are Things — Jen Adrion & Omar Noory
- Overview
We design and sell hand-drawn art prints of cities and regions for design-minded travelers. Filling the gap between mass-market posters and custom-commissioned art.
- Ka-Ching
Prints sell for $25–$60. Customers pay through a PayPal button on a one-page website.
- Hustling
Outreach to two design forums (Design*Sponge and Apartment Therapy). Email signup on the homepage. Word-of-mouth referrals after first run sells out.
- Success
Sell through the first print run of 50. Reach 1,000 email subscribers in six months. Replace one freelance design income in 12 months.
- Obstacles
Concern: nobody outside our friends buys. Fix: print the minimum order first; use forum posts to gauge interest. Deadline: launch by end of month.
Five more worked examples (food tours, info products, software, photography, freelance design) live on the business plan examples page.
Why one page (and not thirty)
"No plan" isn't the answer. "Too much plan" isn't either. The traditional small business plan template is built for someone borrowing $250,000 from a bank. For a micro-business, those projections are fiction with formatting — a model that has no real information in it.
One page forces clarity without letting you hide. Every section maps onto one of the components in the longer template — executive summary, company description, market analysis, marketing and sales, financial plan — but in a fraction of the words. Same components. A tenth of the page count. None of the procrastination.
If a banker or grant officer ever asks for the long version, you have enough thinking on one page to expand it in an afternoon. If they don't, you've saved an afternoon.
Get the template
Enter your email and the download arrives in your inbox. The free $100 Startup resource library includes this business plan template plus five other free downloads — the one-page marketing plan, the 39-step launch checklist, the seven-step market testing framework, and more.
Frequently asked questions
Is this business plan template really free?
Yes. Enter your email and a download link arrives in your inbox. No credit card, no trial, no upgrade wall. The template lives inside the free $100 Startup resource library along with five other downloads.
Is one page really enough for a business plan?
For a micro-business, yes. The 30-page templates were built for someone applying for a $250,000 bank loan. If you're starting with $300 and a domain name, you don't need a three-year financial projection — you need clarity on five questions. The template covers all five. The case studies in The $100 Startup are full of founders who launched on much less than a single page.
What format is the template in?
A printable PDF designed to fit on one page when filled in. Print it, fill in the blanks by hand, or type into the fields in any PDF tool. Five sections, one or two sentences per question.
What's the difference between this template and the longer guide?
The free template is the one-page output. The full walkthrough on /one-page-business-plan explains why each section is there, the common traps in each one, and how to fill it in well. The companion page on /business-plan-examples shows six real worked plans from founders in the study.
Want the full walkthrough?
The free template is the one-page output. The complete one-page business plan guide explains each section in depth — the questions to answer, the common traps to avoid, and the executive summary and financial plan pieces. Six worked examples show what the template looks like when real founders fill it in.