BizPlanBuilder 2008 is here.

We've done a lot of development work since you've last seen BizPlanBuilder. Not only have we updated all of the text, we have dramatically improved the financial model spreadsheets. Our experts have been regularly attending investor meetings and listening to what these people want from entrepreneurs today. We read a tremendous number of journals, receive a wide variety of e-zines, and constantly access many web sites and blogs looking for better ways to help you. Also, customers are always contacting us with their ideas and success stories.

Technology has come a long way too. The Windows application program that drives the BizPlanBuilder system has been completely overhauled as a result. (We're working on the Mac!) One of the single biggest improvements is the ability to access your business planning files from multiple computers — whether you want to work from your office, home or laptop, and/or engage others to work with you — Now you can! Also, we've learned a lot ourselves from running a successful and profitable business over the past 18 years. So, here's the latest revision of BizPlanBuilder:

New in BizPlanBuilder 2008 (Version 10)

(Since v9)(Windows only for now...)

• New! Automatic Updates from v8 & v9
  
  • Easily paste in sections from previous plan templates
    
• New! Multi-User Access to Files Enables Collaboration
  
• Work from your office PC, home PC or laptop to easily access your files from a server or shared storage device. Designate an unlimited number of additional users to collaborate with you using password-protected access. (They need to have their own licensed copy of BizPlanBuilder.)
  
  • This is true multi-user file-sharing for collaboration — much more than email transferring of files. Add an unlimited number of users!
  • Management Teams – Share the work and get your plan done.
  • Consultants – Create plans and keep connected with your clients.
    
  • Educators – Oversee and participate with your student teams.
    
  • Investment Bankers – Quickly make changes and update plans
    
• New! Collaborate Over the Internet
  
  • If you have storage online, you can share files securely over the web. When you want it, you can sign up with our online storage partner for anytime/anywhere access to your documents.
  • Control other users' access: None/Read-Only/Edit.
    
    • Section by section Check-Out & Check-In.
      
• New! Live updates from the JIAN web site keep you up-to-date.
  
• New! Powerful document assembly system lets you add your own documents and easily incorporate them into your business plan.
  
  • Include your previous business plan documents.
    
  • Click browse to add any document in your system.
    
  • Drag & drop sorting lets you organize your plan your way.
    
  • Build your own custom documents using this powerful document assembly system.
    
• We’ve updated every document in the system.
  
  • Edited from the inside out to appeal to current investors & lenders
    
  • Expert Comments throughout add insights and explanations
    
• New! Now includes:
  
  • LLC Operating Agreement
    
  • Environmental Sustainability Section
    
  • Operations Section with Technology Discussion
    
• Updated! PowerPoint® Slideshow Template
  
  • Give the pitch that wins the deal. Present a compelling story to investors and lenders.
    
• Updated! Financial Model Worksheets
  
  • New! Financial Summary - a 4-page consolidation of income, balance-sheet, cash-flow, headcount and financing requirements - automatically generated, including graphs and charts
    
  • New! Start-Up & Capital Requirements sections
    
  • New! Use of Funds Summary: Takes the detail from the Start-Up' & 'Capital Requirements’ pages and shows investors how their investment will be used — includes bar & pie charts.
    
  • Expanded market and profit center categories: enable more flexibility & easier presentation of growth & profit expectations.
    
  • Updated Cash-flow Assumptions: Actual cash balance appears in cash-flow model provides immediate feedback of cash planning decisions.
    
  • Income Statement automatically calculates NOL carry-forward
    
• Valuation Model: Uses several proven methods for valuation including weighted average — how much is your business worth?
  • Calculates various scenarios: pre-money, post-money, stock give-up, etc.
    
  • New! Investor Scratch Pad: Let investors play with your assumptions and theirs on the Sensitivity (What-if…) Analysis page to see their ROI on your deal.
    
  • New! Capitalization Table: Shows the value of all shares as you bring in investors through several rounds of financing and ultimately 'exit' via merger or IPO.
    
• Numerous user-requested tweaks throughout.
  
• New! Automatic Back-Up & Restore
  
• New! Save your Business Plan as a .PDF — Makes sending to investors and lenders easy!
• New! Print directly to Kinko's!

Features Overview: Easy. Fast. Professional.

If you haven't used BizPlanBuilder for a while, we've made a laot of improvements since the template versions!

• Updated user interface makes it easy to find plan documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentation and sample plans.
  
• Microsoft Office integration allows you to work in a familiar environment – you already know how to use it!
  
• Customizable, comprehensive Word® templates form the basis for the entire business plan – Add/Edit/Format text any way you like!
  
• Menus show every tool – it’s easy to jump around and work where you want. The system keeps you organized.
  
• Progressive plan enables you to start small and build. Click the sections you want to include – add more later.
  
• Drag & Drop customization lets you change the order of the sections and organize your plan any way you like.
  
• Grab sections from any template set and build a custom plan to suit your business.
  
• Proven plan content & format has raised hundreds of millions through angels, banks, VCs, SBA and others.
  
• Tab from variable to variable – quickly fill in the blanks & complete the sentences.
  
• Written/edited by a former Sharper Image Catalog® copywriter – an effective, persuasive style structure you can follow and complete.
  
• Expert Comments throughout help you along the way – Turn them Off/On with just one click.
  
• Excel worksheets calculate figures & create impressive tables to support your plan.
  
• Quick-fill assumptions pages enable easy top-down or bottom-up forecasting.
  
• Project sales by product/line/marketing channel – including seasonal & mix adjustment.
  
• Customizable HR planning pages help you plan staffing, payroll and space requirements.
  
• One-click access to answers, experts, investors, market statistics & resources.
  
• 18,000+ business segment benchmarks back-up your marketing analysis & financial assumptions
  
• 34 ratios defined & measured with free access to BizStats to compare (we even offer ideas…).
  
• One-page “What-if...” shows best & worst case scenarios without replicating everything.
  
• Business valuation & investor analysis calculates ROI & stock give-up.
  
• Works equally well for external funding or bootstrapping approach.
  
• Publish your business plans to HTML format – Ideal for distributing your plan electronically.
  
• Build new plans from previous plans – create your own customizable templates.
  
• Free Video — "The Thinking Behind Your Business Plan"
  
• 350-page ebook — "The Handbook of Business Planning" full of expertise and time-tested wisdom on business and planning!
  
• Become fully literate in investor & lender requirements & terminology.
  
• 54 supporting documents to assure your success:
  
• Free PowerPoint template helps you produce a professional presentation quickly and easily.
  
• Cover letter templates to: Investors, Lenders, Friends…
  
• Investor tracking spreadsheet.
  
• Invite letters to Board members & advisors
  
• + $600 worth of extras!

Update Enables True Collaboration

This new version of BizPlanBuilder business planning software is a true multi-user program enabling you to share files with others — management team, consultants, investors — with complete access control and security. (Unlike the old-school business plans that make you email files, then cut and paste back into your plan.) Now you can share your files over a network, server or the Internet. (We suggest www.ibackup.com as a possible web-based file system.)

Updated: Friendly + Flexible Financial Models

Whether you're writing a formal business plan for investors or developing a meaningful forecast for your business, BizPlanBuilder's financial models will make the process faster, easier, and yes—even fun! Click here for more details.

All BizPlanBuilder financial models are now developed in linked Excel workbooks enabling you complete flexibility to customize them to your requirements. You don't have to be a spreadsheet or financial expert. (If you are, you can customize everything in Excel.) Just enter your sales, expense, growth and other assumptions and variables and let the program run the calculations.

Updated: Excel workbook links statements

Click across the tabs at the bottom of your screen to open any statement or assumption page that you want. Simply fill-in / update the assumptions pages and BizPlanBuilder automatically generates all of your statements. (We designed the "Assumptions" pages to be part of your plan presentation—making it easy for investors and lenders to understand your business and the logic behind it.) When you click to assemble your entire plan, the BizPlanBuilder system will ask you which pages you want to include, then save a copy with just the pages you want to show. Investors and lenders have different requirements and you can easily select what you need so you'll be prepared with statement options:

• Year 1 by Months
• Years 2-3 by Quarters
• Years 1-5 by Year
• (All of the above)

Shows the math — makes explaining easy

Show how believable numbers can add up—unlike other financial models (input-> [black-box] -> output), here you will see the math, and be able to explain "how you got there" in a clear and logical manner. See "what-if" when you change scenarios. It automatically calculates totals, percentages and ratios to show at a glance how much money you'll need, when you'll need it, and how soon you'll make a profit. It's easy to update—If you change a number, the spreadsheets automatically recalculate for you.

Financial Worksheets included:

• Set-up by products, product lines, or profit centers
• Incorporate up to 3-years of historical financial data to show past, present & future continuum
• Start-up Costs / Summary Use of Proceeds
• Headcount & Space Planning (out to 5 years)
• Demand/Revenue Model (list potential customers x share x prices)
• Assumptions - Sales (easily adjust mix & seasonality from tables)
• Assumptions - Marketing (use % of sales or actual)
• Assumptions - COGS (use % of sales or actual)
• Assumptions - R&D (use % of sales or actual)
• Assumptions - G&A (use % of sales or actual)
• Assumptions - Cash-flow (enter debt, equity, etc. — shows cash balance from cash-flow statement to make it easy to see the effects of changes)
• Assumptions - Balance Sheet (use historical numbers if available)
• Assumptions - Financing. Five integrated financial calculators help plan future loan financing and automatically calculate all interest expense, loan repayment cash-flow, and balance sheet entries.
• Capitalization Table
• Personal Financial Statement (perfect for attaching to loan applications, etc.)

Financial Statements Included

• Financial Summary - consolidation of financial projections, plus headcount and capital requirements - automatically generated, including graphs and charts
• Gross Profit Analysis (by product/service)
• Income Statement (+ NOL carry-forward)
• Balance Sheet (with out-of-balance flag)
• Cash-flow Projection
• Sensitivity Analysis (What-if... all on ONE page!)
• Comprehensive Ratio Analysis (Shows 31 success indicators & trends—with ideas for corrections! Also includes direct links to BizStats.com enabling you to quickly compare with your industry. Free.)
• Valuation (see below)
• Investor Deal Development & Analysis (enables planning for several rounds of financing + IPO)
• Equity/Ownership Give-Up (see section below)

Charts Included

• Revenue / COGS / Profit
• Use of Funds
• Head-count

Updated: Demand model shows potential

It's important to demonstrate clearly the magnitude of your opportunity. Input the entire universe of potential customers, then project your market share. Building upon that, estimate the % of customers who will buy at a given price... See how believable numbers add-up—by using BizPlanBuilder you'll be able to easily explain and justify your projections.

How much is your deal worth?

Great question. Investors will inevitably ask... and you need to have a good answer—especially one that has some good analysis behind it. This is a big part of any financial model and we use several methods to triangulate a respectable valuation for your business as well as to provide a credible explanation that you can use:

• Harvard Model
  
• 1st Chicago Method
  
• Discounted Future Cash-flow
  
• Common VC Formula
  
• Weighted Average (all of the above)

Return on Investment... Stock Give-up?

We tell people that the better job you do on your business plan, the better deal you'll get... and this is the moment of truth. Given a certain amount of investment, how many shares would your investor(s) get? What % of the company would they own? (We included a calculation to help you see that you will still become wildly wealthy even when your investor(s) get rich too!) What might two rounds or three rounds of investment look like? If you went public, what might that look like? At each stage, we calculate the ROI for each investor. You must thoroughly understand your deal! BizPlanBuilder helps here too. We also include a separate spreadsheet that helps you calculate your net return/profit if you were to sell your business.

Updated: Pre-Planning Tools

• Business Assessment Questions
• Executive Team Bio Template
• Personal Assessment Questions
• Personal Mission Statement
• Vision Statement
• Writing About Your Business

Updated: Plan Presentation Tools

• Cover Letters to Your:
• Banker (for Loan/Line of Credit)
• Leasing Agent
• Angel Investor
• Venture Capitalist
• Non-Disclosure Agreements for:
• Banker
• Leasing Agent
• Investment Banker
• Business Plan Distribution
• Deal Summary
• Elevator Pitch
• Email Introduction
• Service Business Start-Up Cash Requirements

Updated: Resource Materials

• Believable Projections
• Business Topics of Interest w/Internet Links
• Developing Your Management Team
• Things to Think About
• What Investors Look For

Updated: Supporting Documents

• Articles of Incorporation
• Core Values & Core Practices
• Executive Summary Template
• Executive Team Responsibilities
• General Partnership Agreement
• Investor Tracking
• Personal Financial Statement
• Press Release--Announcement
• Stock Options Tracking

Updated: Tools to Manage Your Business

• Application for Business Credit
• Business Start-Up Checklist
• Commercial Lease
• Due Diligence Checklist
• Independent Contractor Agreement
• Investor Game Plan
• Invitation to Board of Advisors
• Invitation to Board of Directors
• Management Notebook
• Lehman Formula Calculator
• Lehman Formula (Finder's Fee) Agreement
• Private Offering Disclaimer
• Proceeds of Sale of Business
• Service Feedback Survey
• Service Invoice Log
• Services List
• Space Requirements Planning
• Trademark Instructions
• Trademark Overview

Is it worth upgrading to BizPlanBuilder v10?

Probably not if you have just written your business plan—just edit that and keep going. However, to take advantage of the new content as well as the multi-user, collaborative features and share files, purchasing this update is well worth it. (Your collaborators will also require licensed copies BizPlanBuilder as well.) Or, if you have any older version of BizPlanBuilder (or any other business plan software), and you want to write the best plan possible for today's market, then, yes, it would be worth it to upgrade to BizPlanBuilder v10.