How to write a coffee shop business plan

A business plan serves as the blueprint that streamlines your ideas to help identify and eliminate risks. Whether you plan to open a small scale or a medium sized coffee shop, the first and most important thing to do is to prepare a clear and detailed business plan. This process is very crucial to secure external financing. A well written business plan gives you a higher chance to get funding either through investors or bank loans.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a well written business plan for a coffee shop and introduce Wise Business, a modern financial tool that will help with your operational and financial planning.

Basic parts of a coffee shop business plan

Title Page

This part will show your own identity as a coffee shop, in this section you can include your legal trade name, business logo, business address, and some important details about your business. You can also add the table of contents on this part to inform the recipient of what’s inside your business plan. Below is a sample cover page for a simple coffee shop business plan.¹

BUSINESS PLAN

(Business Logo)
Always Book a Coffee
Adams Boulevard
(321) 647 – 7168
Email: abc@coffeebookconcepts.com

Presented to:
(Name)
Company or Financial Institution<

1. Introduction

1.1 Executive Summary
1.2 Background of the Business
1.3 Significance

A good introduction is very important in a business plan, it narrows all the details of your proposed project, so see to it that your introduction is interesting and can easily catch the attention of the recipients. This part also introduces the executive summary and description of the business including its mission and vision, how you come up with the idea and your goals for the business. In this part you can also include your own opinion and background about the business venture and the significance of this project that makes it unique from other coffee shop concepts. In short, this part is the general overview of all the other parts of the business plan.¹

Example:
Over the years, the coffee industry had transformed from a simple caffeinated drink to a huge business network. Wherever you look around, you can always find a restaurant that serves coffee, from fast-food to specialty stores that offer a variety of coffee and drinks. Needless to say that drinking coffee has been part of every American’s life each day. Opening a coffee shop can be profitable if you do it right, given the demands in coffee, there are a lot of entrepreneurs that jump into this kind of business but you can rarely find a cafeteria that will give you a unique experience by combining coffee, music and Craft-making.

2. Industry Overview

This part shows the overall analysis of an industry’s economic, legal, and market status and also the local market where your business is located. You can also highlight the good points on why starting a coffee shop is essential at this point in time; establish the demand for coffee, and its position in the industry. It is better if you can show statistics about the coffee trend of the particular region where your business is located. You can also mention the main competitor of your business and highlight what makes your coffee shop unique from other coffee businesses in town.¹

Example:
According to a survey conducted by National Coffee Association (NCA), coffee related economic activity comprises approximately 1.6% of the total U.S. gross domestic product. Consumers spent $74.2 billion on coffee in 2015.²

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis must cover your outlook of the coffee industry, the market segmentation and target market. In this part you can find the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of the business. It covers your assessment of your potential market, its environment, the barriers and buying patterns of the people to show if your business is profitable.¹

4. Product and Services

Describe the products and services that will be offered, your specialty products and how can it add value to the community. Avoid using complicated jargon that may confuse your customers who aren't familiar with your business. Add details of every product and service, promotional offers, pricing, sales literature, intellectual property and accreditations, lifecycle, fulfilment, product competition, and future products to be offered.¹

5. Marketing Plan

This is the must-have part of the business plan; define clearly your marketing strategy and tactics that fit your business. There is no definite plan for a diverse business format, so establish your marketing goals that evolve as your business grows. Some businesses have a separate document for marketing plan, but for a small business like a coffee shop, you just have to keep your marketing plan updated. Having a marketing plan is crucial to the success of your business. It provides direction towards reaching your business objectives gives clarity about your market and helps you craft marketing messages that will generate results. This section also provides insights to your financial projections needed for the business.¹

6. Operational Plan

This section describes how your business works. It may include the logistics, trade secrets of the business, the technology you’ll be using and distribution. Operational plan is the transformation of your business ideas into how it will work into reality, so keep focused on the bottom line because you need an outline of the capital and expense requirements of the day-to-day operations of the business.¹

7. Technical Plan

If your business involves technologies or technical processes you must explain clearly the details of each term since most of the readers are non-specialists who are unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the business but have the investment funds or the legal understanding to get your business up and running.¹

8. Financial Plan

For most start-ups this is often the most intimidating yet challenging part of the plan, but you can always find help and look for resources that will help you build a solid financial plan. A simple business plan like a coffee shop needs to prepare a statement of financial position, profit and loss, and cash flow statements. This part is crucial especially if you need funding from outside investors or a loan from a bank.¹

9. Organizational Plan

Part of any business is a solid organizational structure, it details all members of the organization and its function, tasks and goals an organization has to undertake. It is commonly known as the organizational chart of the business; include everything you want the organization to do and the people who will handle the job, take time to explain any changes and what they mean to individuals and the company as a whole.¹

10. Appendices and Exhibits

It is a useful part of the business plan where you include all the details needed to support other sections of the plan. You can also include supporting legal notes, or illustrations of your product if you have a patent or pending patent. Your business plan is the roadmap and foundation of your business. It will be the first step to attract investors if you need additional funding to start your project. There is no specific format to follow in writing a business plan, what's important is that your business plan will meet the needs for the specific industry. Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect, what matters most is you’re able to turn your dream business into reality.¹

Operational and Financial planning

As part of the operational and financial planning, you need to assess your options on which tools and equipment to use and estimate the total cost to show how much funding you need for the initial investment and daily cash-flow.

Some of the tools you need are POS machine, security system, employee management software, payroll/accounting software and a reliable financial service to manage your day-to-day operation and payments to suppliers.

You can use services like Wise to pay overseas suppliers to avoid poor exchange rates and international transfer fees traditional banks charge especially if you’re importing coffee beans. If your initial investment is coming from an outside source that is in a different currency, you can use Wise to receive them for free instead of using your bank which will incur intermediary and receiving bank fees on top of a poor exchange rate. You can easily integrate Wise with your favorite accounting software like Xero to ease payment reconciliation and tax filing. With this financial solution, you can keep all your transactions in one place and reduce admin work, thus more time to focus on scaling up your business.

Some sources would say that creating a business plan shouldn't take more than an hour, however, most of the crucial parts like market analysis and financial planning requires a thorough research. Some start-ups would hire a professional to do this job to make sure that all risks are identified and solutions are provided. If you're up for the task yourself, you can use our business plan template and customize it according to your needs. This makes it easier to execute and realize your plan.