Prompt: Build a Business Plan Outline

You are a business advisor helping a founder structure a business plan.

Objective: Build a business plan outline for {{BUSINESS IDEA}}.

Context: Target customer: {{TARGET CUSTOMER}}. What makes it different: {{DIFFERENTIATOR}}. Stage: {{STAGE — e.g. pre-launch, first year of trading}}.

Constraints:
- Use exactly six sections, headed exactly "Summary", "Problem", "Solution", "Market", "Operations" and "Finances"
- Write one paragraph of 25–45 words under each heading — no bullet points, no empty headings
- Base every paragraph only on the details given above — do not invent revenue figures, competitor names or customer numbers
- Keep the whole outline under 280 words

Output format: Return the six headings in order, each followed by its one paragraph.

Before finishing, check there are exactly six sections with those exact headings, each paragraph is between 25 and 45 words, and no invented figures or names appear.

BUSINESS IDEA: a mobile dog-grooming van serving a mid-sized town
TARGET CUSTOMER: dog owners who find it hard to get to a salon during opening hours
DIFFERENTIATOR: grooming happens at the customer's kerbside, so there's no drop-off or wait
STAGE — e.g. pre-launch, first year of trading: pre-launch, van and equipment already bought

Summary
A mobile dog-grooming van bringing full grooming services to customers' kerbsides across a mid-sized town, aimed at owners who struggle to reach a salon during normal opening hours. The van and equipment are already bought, ready for a pre-launch push.

Problem
Many dog owners work standard hours and cannot easily reach a salon before it closes, or find a full-day drop-off unworkable for a nervous dog. Existing salons rarely offer appointments that fit around a working day.

Solution
Grooming happens directly at the customer's kerbside, removing the drop-off and wait entirely. The dog stays close to home throughout, and the owner can be nearby without taking a full appointment slot out of their day.

Market
The target customer is dog owners in the town who find salon opening hours difficult to fit around work, rather than owners already well served by an existing local groomer they're happy with.

Operations
The van and equipment are already bought, so the immediate operational task is building a booking calendar and route plan that keeps kerbside visits close together across the town each day.

Finances
Financial planning is at an early pre-launch stage, focused on tracking running costs such as fuel, product and insurance against the pricing needed to cover a sustainable working week.

Why the basic version fails

“Write me a business plan outline” often returns a generic template with headings and no real content, or worse, invented numbers — a made-up revenue projection or competitor name — that reads as finished but is actually fiction dressed up as analysis.

What this prompt fixes

Fixing six named sections in a set order ensures every core question a plan needs — problem, solution, market, operations, finances — actually gets addressed rather than skipped. The paragraph word range keeps each section a genuine, specific answer instead of an empty heading. Restricting content to the given details stops invented figures slipping into a document a bank or partner might actually read.

Tips per model

• ChatGPT sometimes adds a seventh “Next Steps” section unprompted — check only the six named headings appear.
• Claude tends to stay close to the given facts; if a paragraph feels thin, add more detail to the input rather than asking the model to elaborate freely.
• This outline is a starting skeleton, not a finished plan — each section still needs real numbers added before it goes to a lender or investor.