Writing Your Business Plan with AI

The Goal

By the end of this chapter you will have written a short, honest business plan — step by step, with AI as your writing partner. Every number in it will come from a real source or be clearly marked as an assumption. You will be able to use it to think clearly, and to convince a partner, a group or a lender.

Understand: why write a plan at all?

A business plan has two jobs:

1. It makes you think. Writing forces you to answer questions you would rather avoid. Where will the money come from? What if the supplier is late? Who does what?
2. It convinces others. A SACCO, a bank, a business partner, a farmers’ group, an investor — they all want to see that you have thought it through.

A good plan for a small business is short: five to ten pages. Long plans are usually read by nobody, including the person who wrote them.