by Dave McClure

JIAN is a template-based planning system built on Microsoft Excel workbooks for the financials, Word template documents for the text portion of the plan and a PowerPoint template for plan presentation. The result is a well-designed, customizable planning system that outpaces most of its competitors.

BizPlanBuilder is built around five types of business plans – Concept, Service, Retail, Product and Internet. Each of the five plan types is divided into relevant sections for that type of business. Within each segment, the writer is challenged by a series of questions that cover the essentials, then provided with samples of text based on the responses. This approach – using a smaller number of flexible plans rather than hundreds of sample plans -- reduces clutter and makes the program easier to navigate.

The financial statements are built in one of three levels – basic, intermediate and comprehensive. The basic level provides a quick snapshot of the financial health of the company. The Intermediate level provides linked financial statements favored by investors. The comprehensive level presents management information, including the cash flow forecasting system and bottom-up or top-down scenario building. The Intermediate and comprehensive levels offer a quick-fill section for assumptions in order to set up financial statements and “what-if” scenarios.

New to the financial section are several crucial worksheets. A revised Ratio Analysis shows success indicators & trends. The Valuation model includes formulas using the Harvard Method, First Chicago (a common VC formula), Discounted Future Cashflow, and Weighted Average of all four. The “Investor Deal Development & Analysis” sheet enables planning for several rounds of financing plus an IPO. Finally, the “Equity/Ownership Give-Up” previews the deal and shows the owner's value with investment.

Version 10 has been extensively overhauled, with the inclusion of multi-user capabilities, online tools for collaboration and the ability to add documents from other sources into the finished plan. There are also a new Use of Funds Summary and a unique “investor scratch pad” that allows potential investors to play their own “what-if” scenarios with the financial data.

With 18 years of experience and over a billion dollars raised, Biz Plan Builder remains a very popular planning tool that serves a diverse range of industries with a simple but effective system for plan preparation, collaboration and presentation.