Can’t Write? Prompts To Write A Business Plan With ChatGPT

ChatGPT can certainly help you create a business plan, but most people get it wrong.

Most people still use ChatGPT like they would a search engine, which works if you’re generating something generic. 

But business plans are specific to your business idea, your location and your target customers.

Let’s walk through the steps required to create an accurate, useful, and convincing business plan that you can take to investors.

Typical issues with AI-generated business plans

AI is funny because even if you provide ChatGPT with minimal instructions, it will still generate content. I used this prompt…

Generate a business plan for me.

…and ChatGPT immediately came up with a business plan discussing EcoWear, a sustainable clothing line. It even produced plausible copy with these sections:

• Market analysis
• Product line
• Marketing and sales strategy
• Operations plan
• Financial plan
• Sustainability and impact

Convincing? Maybe. 

Useful? Not at all.

The problems with this business plan are:

Too generic

EcoWear isn’t your business, and this goes back to how you shouldn’t use ChatGPT as a search engine. The problem lies in the prompt, which provided no information for ChatGPT to build its answer. We’ll walk through how you can write effective prompts for business plans in the following section.

Lack of strategic thinking

Your business plan should focus on amplifying your competitive advantage. That’s not something ChatGPT knows about, so it will not show up in the response unless you prompt ChatGPT with more information on what to highlight in the business plan.

Unoptimized format

While having a text document is necessary, you might also want to create a deck instead of just a text document. We’ve all watched Shark Tank and know that investors often want to flip through a presentation rather than read a document.

I’ve got a follow-up article on how you can copy-and-paste your business plan and get a presentation.

Pick a framework for your business plan

To better guide the AI when writing a business plan, find a framework that can help you build a strong business plan.

A framework can help you break your ChatGPT conversation into parts, which is important because ChatGPT has a limited context window. This means that it will forget parts of its previous conversation with you and start creating fiction (known as “hallucinating”) if you ask for too much at once.

Let’s use the U.S. Small Business Administration’s business plan format, which has these sections:

Executive Summary

• Product
• Customers
• Future of the Company

Company Description

• Mission Statement
• Principal Members
• Legal Structure

Market Research

• Industry
• Detailed Description of Customers
• Company Advantages
• Regulations

Service Line

• Product/Service
• Pricing Structure
• Product Lifecycle
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Research and Development

Marketing & Sales

• Growth Strategy
• Communicate with the Customer
• How to Sell

You can see a sample of a pre-filled business template from the USSBA here. Or you can try other frameworks like Sequoia’s business plan guide and check out other business plan examples to find the right fit for your business.

Now, all we have to do is to feed ChatGPT specifics of our business and it will help us fill in all of these sections

A step-by-step guide to creating a business plan using AI

Let’s tackle the business plan. As is best practice, we’ll do the executive summary last because writing the other parts will help us gather all the information about our company and help us write a fuller, more complete executive summary.

Generating the company description

The first section that you can tackle is:

Company Description

• Mission Statement
• Principal Members
• Legal Structure

Here’s a prompt that you can use. Make sure to fill in the details about your business in brackets:

You are a professional business plan writer. I want to create a business plan with the following sections:

Executive summary

Company description

Market analysis

Service or product line

Marketing and sales

Funding request

Financial projections

Currently, I want to focus on the company description. The company description has these sections:

Company Description

Mission Statement

Principal Members

Legal Structure

Here is some important information about the business. Use the important information to create the sections. Ask me more questions if you need any clarifications.

Mission statement: [Enter your mission statement here]

Principal members: [Who works at your company and what are their roles?]

Legal Structure: [What is the legal structure, e.g. S Corp]

Here are the guidelines for the output I want:

1. Output a heading for each answer I have provided. 

2. Ensure text is free of fluff, and get directly to the point. Avoid long paragraphs because that will bore readers.

Here’s the output that we get:

Generating the market research section

We’ll move ahead to the next section which talks about your industry outlook and target market, your competitors and how you can compete with them. Make sure to talk about what successful companies do and how you can do it better.

Copy and paste the base prompt, but replace this section with your inputs:

Next, I want to focus on market research. The market research has these sections:

Market Research

Industry

Detailed Description of Customers

Company Advantages

Regulations

Here is some important information about the business. Use the important information to create the sections. Ask me more questions if you need any clarifications.

Industry: [Provide key facts about your industry and share your opinion on the outlook for your market over the next 3-5 years]

Detailed Description of Customers: [Describe the clients you want, and how you will help]

Company Advantages: [What strategies do you use to maintain your competitive edge and quality of work?]

Regulations: [Is your industry regulated or under special laws?]

Generating the service line section

In this section, you will describe what you’re selling or what you offer. Again, copy and paste the base prompt, but replace this section:

Next, I want to focus on the service line portion. The service line portion has these sections:

Service Line

Product/Service

Pricing Structure

Product Lifecycle

Intellectual Property Rights

Research and Development

Here is some important information about the business. Use the important information to create the sections. Ask me more questions if you need any clarifications.

Product/Service: [List out your products or services]

Pricing Structure: [List out your prices of products, services or wages]

Product Lifecycle: [Describe where your products or services are in their product lifecycle]

Intellectual Property Rights: [Describe the steps you have taken to protect your brand or proprietary products. Parking domains, trademarks, patents, etc. go here]

Research and Development: [Describe any past, present or future R&D that you will do]

Generating the marketing & sales section

This section aims to allow you to describe how you’ll attract and retain customers. Describe how sales happen. Again, copy and paste the base prompt, but replace this section:

Currently, I want to focus on marketing & sales. Marketing & sales has these sections:

Marketing & Sales

Growth Strategy

Communicate with the Customer

How to Sell

Here is some important information about the business. Use the important information to create the sections. Ask me more questions if you need any clarifications.

Growth Strategy: [Describe what strategies you will use to expand your business]

Communicate with the Customer: [How do you plan to engage and communicate with potential clients?]

How to Sell: [Who does the sales? Do you have plans to expand sales and marketing efforts?]

Writing the executive summary

Now that ChatGPT has written the individual sections of the business plan, it’s time to pull it all together with an executive summary. 

Here’s what we’ll need to answer:

Executive Summary

• Product
• Customers
• Future of the Company

Copy and paste the individual sections of the document together and then ask ChatGPT to use the information to create an executive summary of the business plan. Add in the base prompt, but change this section:

Currently, I want to focus on the executive summary. The executive summary has these sections:

Product: [Describe your product or service]

Customers: [Describe your typical customer including company size, location, etc.]

Future of the Company: [Describe your industry and your future plans]

Here is the business plan that I have written. Use the points below to create the executive summary, and answer the points about product, customers and future of the company.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT create a business plan?

Yes, but you do have to feed it significant information to ensure that it complies with your situation. Simply asking ChatGPT to generate a business plan without any context results in generic content that, while plausible, may not be relevant or useful for your specific business needs. 

What happens if I do not give ChatGPT contextual information about my business?

AI-generated business plans often suffer from being too generic and not tailored to the specific business due to lack of detailed input. Additionally, they might be presented in an unoptimized format, such as a text document instead of a more engaging presentation deck

What is the best way to convert my text document into a presentation deck?

The fastest way is to throw it into ChatGPT again and get the outlines done for you.

Conclusion

Once you have all the output from the prompts above, you can pull them all together into a document, and you’ll have a basic business plan that you can share with partners and investors. 

Before sending it out, make sure to give it a read-through and delete any incorrect or unnecessarily verbose sections.

Of course, if you’re pitching investors or seeking a loan, you will probably need more information like your financial status and projections. While ChatGPT can help, the fact-based nature of these sections doesn’t lend itself to ChatGPT, so you should probably find a different business plan tool for help. 

Otherwise, ChatGPT remains a viable way to create better business plans, especially if you are not a writer. By providing ChatGPT with the right framework and information about your business, it can put together something convincing and thorough, which is perfect for introducing your business to new partners.