We have all heard the saying that you should not judge a book by its cover. The truth is, however, that people judge books by their covers - especially investors who are preoccupied with piles of unsolicited business plans on their desks. ​
These investors will have an easy way to decide which business to watch out for and which to ignore. often it is just a matter of taking a quick look at the cover to decide. Here are the things to consider when creating your business plan cover page (and you can see an example at the bottom of this article).
Information to include on the front page of your business plan
We recommend that you include only the most important, so that your reader can quickly scan and digest the information. Here are the things we usually include on the front page of a business plan: ​
Company logo.
A short and memorable slogan that reveals the type of business described in the plan.
The words "Business Plan" to make it clear what type of document it is.
Current month and year.
The name and title of the company's primary contact for investors (usually the founder / CEO).
Company name and postal address.
Contact information that allows an investor to reach you quickly and easily, such as phone number, email address, website, Twitter account, etc.
One or two sentences about copyright and privacy statement.
Considerations for designing the front page of your business plan
Your design should be clean and professional:
In general, we recommend the "less is more" approach, so you should avoid messing with the cover with a lot of images or other graphics.
Be consistent with the adjustment. Unless you have a good reason to change the adjustment, do not. For example, if you choose to left-align something, you can left-align everything on the front of your business plan.
Do not use more than two fonts. I like a sans serif font (think Arial) for the larger text and a serif font (think Times New Roman) for everything else, but it's a matter of personal taste.
Keep the color scheme very simple. If you use more than one color (in addition to black), you can use a color scheme generator to select colors that match well. You can also consider keeping only your logo colors if you already have one designed.
If you choose to use an image, try placing it in the top 40% of the page so that there is enough space for other information not to appear cluttered. In addition, the image should "bleed" around the edges of the page (this looks good in PDF format, but will leave a white border if you print a hard copy).
You will most likely distribute your plan in several formats, probably as a PDF file and in hard copy. Make sure your graphics look good in any format you use. If your logo looks pixelated, you should get a higher resolution image from your designer. The latest versions of Microsoft Office products - Word, Excel and PowerPoint - have the "Save as Adobe PDF" option.
