Links To Help You With Preparing Your Business Plan

Links to Business Plan Resources

• United States Small Business Administration (SBA) (http://www.sba.gov/) A government-run site, the SBA specializes in assisting current business owners as well as fledging entrepreneurs. It has over a dozen programs to help people get their businesses up and running. There are also plenty of business-related news items and an interesting section dedicated to exploring business opportunities.

• Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) (http://www.score.org/) SCORE is a non-profit organization of successful retired entrepreneurs who advise up-and-coming business people about the keys to success. The organization is partnered with the SBA and has an extensive list of alliances among companies, both large and small.

• Association of Small Business Development Centers (http://www.asbdc-us.org/) The Association of Small Business Development Centers acts as a hub to localized state development centers, accessed through the ‘Lead Centers’ link. There is little information on the home page, but once the state centers are accessed, a bounty of information is available regarding business in a specific state.
  

• Center for Business Planning (http://www.businessplans.org/) This site contains various resources for starting a business. It has guidelines for business planning, sample business plans, software, Internet resources, and strategy insight.

• MoreBusiness (http://www.morebusiness.com/) More Business’s tagline is “by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.” It contains articles written by business experts, along with templates for business plans, contracts, press releases, and checklists. It also contains a sizeable ‘How To’ section outlining other facets of entrepreneurship and business planning.

• BPlans (http://www.bplans.com/) This Web site has many articles, ranging from ‘Starting a Business’ to ‘Buying a Business.’ It also has information on starting an e-Business. One of the highlights of the site is the various calculators on the home page. There are calculators to compute starting costs, break-even points, and cash flows.

• Inc.com (http://www.inc.com/home/) The Web site of Inc. Magazine, Inc.com has hundreds of articles on topics such as starting up, recruiting, travel, finance, and sales. This site also features the ‘Inc 500,’ the top 500 fastest-growing, privately owned companies with links to information on each company. There are ‘How-To’ features on topics like setting up a new office or raising start-up capital.

• Business Plan Archive (http://www.businessplanarchive.org/)
  The vision of the Business Plan Archive is to help future entrepreneurs. By allowing public access to an archive of contributed business plans, the site creators hope to enrich those who seek help when building their businesses.