kid business plan pdf

7 Business Plan Templates for Kids (Free Printables!)

By: Author Amanda L. Grossman

Posted on Last updated: January 5, 2023

Download one of these (mostly) free business plan templates for kids to help your child focus on a business idea.

What do super soakers, Apple computers, and Nike shoes all have in common?

They all started as a business plan.

A business plan template for kids is great for two reasons:

• Your child can play around with it and get familiar with what's required (even if they never start the business)
• It helps kids focus on just one business idea at time, and to see if they should move forward with it

No matter which category your own child falls into – just playing with business plans, or they have an actual business idea – I’ve got just the free business plan template for you.

Honestly? I wish my own parents would’ve given me one of these when, as a kid, my childhood friend and I had come up with our first kid business idea: selling bean bags. So, good on you for getting your kids involved with business plans so early in life!

Best Business Plan Templates for Kids

Use one of the business plan templates for kids below with one of these 16 kid business ideas .

OR, help them to use one of their original ideas sending sparks in their brain. You can use these 3 kid business plan examples for help with filling it out.

1. Solid Gold Biz Plan

I’ve been in business for 7 years and I’ve made about every mistake in the book.

Probably one of the biggest? Was that I didn't sit down to write a proper business plan (or, ANY business plan) until I was several years into blogging. 

Because of this, I created a free business plan template for kids and teens (on Page 6 of this free printable), so that they practice how to do it right, from the beginning! 

What makes my free Solid Gold Biz Plan different is that it starts your child thinking about the problem that they want to solve – because ultimately, that is the purpose of creating a product or a service. To solve a specific problem for people.

It then goes on to ask them simple questions that will focus them in on what it takes to plan out a business idea.

For example, I raise the question of how much it will cost to not only create the product/service, but to also deliver it and maintain it. These are sometimes costs forgotten costs when creating a business plan.

2. BizKids’ Guide to Writing a Business Plan

This free business plan guide for kids includes sections for your idea, your marketing (and what makes your product unique), your startup costs, and an area for pricing so that you can make sure you’ll make a profit.

At the end is a one-page summary where your child can write up their answers from the previous pages all in the same place. Great for tacking up on the wall!

3. Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox

Anthony ONeal partnered up with Dave Ramsey to create the  Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox , a kid’s entrepreneur kit and small business guide for teens.

In other words, it’s so much more than just a business template for kids!

The entrepreneur kit includes the following:

• Access to Free Entrepreneur Toolbox app
• Teen Portfolio Book
• DVD of Anthony’s Training Video
• Parent’s Guide Book
• Pack of Thank You Cards
• Deck of Conversation Starter Cards about Starting a Business
• Goal Tracker Poster

Here's my full review of the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox .

4. Home Sweet Road’s My Business Plan

Check out this business plan for kids, which asks kids questions like what makes their idea unique, whether or not their idea is a product or service, and who their customers will be.

5. Proverbial Home Maker’s Family Business Plan Guide

This is such a fun guide that you can fill out with your child, teen, tween, or even the whole family. It includes family business ideas, a sales ledger, inventory worksheet, and much more.

Business Plan Examples

You may be wondering where you can find business plan examples to show your kids or teens.

For starters, you should look right at home. Are you a small business owner?

Then you’ll definitely want my free Take Your Child to Work Day printables – it’s got a section for you to fill in about your own business, which is a perfect business plan example to discuss with your child.

You can also find two business plan examples on the Small Business Administration’s site (scroll down until you see red buttons to Rebecca’s example business plan, and Andrew’s plan).

They’re not entirely kid-friendly, but can give lots of ideas for the kind of information and research to put into a business plan.

Business Plan Activity Worksheets

Check out these free PDF Shark Tank worksheets for students . Students or kids can work through coming up with their own business idea, create an advertisement for it, and a scoring card to judge the business ideas.

You’ll find a free 30-minute Small Business Administration course for young entrepreneurs meant for teens that you can use with your students (or have your child go through).

Hint: In Objective 3, it goes over how to create a business plan.

Are you an educator? Great – you can get free entrepreneur curriculum for Grades 1 – 12, with lots of worksheets, from the Venture Lab .

Further resources include:

• Teen Business Video Lessons
• EverFI’s Entrepreneurial Expedition
• FEE’s Course on the Entrepreneur’s Role in Creating Value
• Business Plan Note Taker (lots of great prompts to create a business plan with)

Grab 23 more entrepreneur lesson plans here.

I hope you've found some business template for kid resources that interest you? Below, you'll find other related kid entrepreneurship articles that will help your kids, teens, and students learn about the entrepreneur career path. 

Related Kid Entrepreneurship Resources

• 27 Youth Entrepreneur Awards and Scholarships
• 5 Kid Entrepreneur Kits
• 14 Kid Entrepreneur Books
• 11 Best Business Simulation Games for Kids
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Free Printable Business Planning Kit for Kids

My second grader has an entrepreneurial streak. I want to encourage her to develop her ideas, and to think like a business owner. Even if her idea doesn’t come into fruition, who’s to say the next (or thousand) ideas later won’t be a success? Everyone has to start somewhere, right? And so, The Business Planning Kit for Kids was born!

I found limited resources aimed at kids to help guide and organize their thoughts when it comes to starting their own business. I get it, there’s probably not a huge market for it. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and developed my own materials. Now, you may be thinking, what business do I have, making a business planning kit for kids? I don’t have a business degree. I do have a small business (not this blog, but maybe someday!) But this isn’t meant to be a serious endeavor, although it could be a good start to one. Mostly, I thought it would be a fun exercise for her to fill out the worksheets and really consider what it would take to make her idea real. 

The Business Planning Kit for Kids has an introduction, a page for brainstorming ideas, expense list, and glossary. But the meat of the document is the 4-page business plan itself. It asks all the basic who/what/where/when/why and how questions using terms kids can understand, with generous space to write their response. 

Knowing I struggled to find a good document to help my child think through her idea, I want to help other parents and share my Business Planning Kit for Kids with you all! Download it free today for personal use; all you have to do is subscribe to my email list on the sidebar of your screen. (I’m only planning on sending emails periodically for big announcements. No spam!) Once you sign up, you’ll receive an email with instructions and the password that will give you immediate access. Be sure to check your spam and other email tabs, and if you still don’t receive it within a few minutes, send me a comment and I’ll take care of it!

All I ask is that you please not post this document to other blogs and websites, nor may you sell it. Instead, please link back to this site. (Many thanks to you all in advance!) And just to be clear, teachers , you are welcome to use my document if you think it will be useful and educational for your class!

I’d love to hear how you’ve used it! Leave a comment and let me know how your child responded, and if you have any suggestions to improve it. I’ll post an update on this business venture when (if?) there’s progress to report!

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Free Printable Kits – Business Plan Template for Kids

Business Plan Template for Kids

To Setup A Business, A lot Of Planning Is Required. Fill This Business Plan Template And Put Your Best Foot Forward.

Components of a

Business plan.

Product Strategy

Business Strategy

Sales & Marketing

Financial Strategy

Operations Strategy

Answer all the questions asked below and you will have a business plan ready!

Register NOW to get a copy of business plan template for kids worth $7

Share a filled up business plan template with us and win FREE worksheets worth $21

A business plan is a formal document written by a business owner describing their business goals, how to achieve the goals, the timeframe within which the goals will be achieved, the capital and much more. A full business plan includes an executive overview, budget, competitor analysis, and marketing plan.

A template is a guide that is followed to create a roadmap for a business. Therefore, in writing a business plan, it is important you follow a good business plan template. For experiencing entrepreneurship at an early age, kids are often advised to download free business plan samples to use as a guide in writing their own business plan because kid entrepreneurs should also know how to write business plans after deciding on the business ideas they want to work on.

Why Business Plan Template for Kids

• As a kid entrepreneur planning to start a business, you are new to the concept of business and the best way to understand it and write your business plan is to download a free business plan template, go through it and understand the right way to write a business plan.
• A business plan template will help organize your thoughts and direct you in the right way to put your thoughts and passion for the business into writing.
• A business plan template is a complete guide on how to write a plan for your own business. A template gives complete instructions on how to go about it, you do not have to be so unsure of your business plan when there is a template to follow.

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• Kidspreneurship has been awarded "Leaders in Early Entrepreneurship Education" at the fifth annual Singapore Awards by APAC Insider.

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Michelle Hon

CEO and founder of Momboss Academy

Michelle Hon is the CEO and founder of Momboss Academy, a platform to help moms start and scale their own businesses. She is also an author, investor and leader for 4 businesses, from F&B, publishing, digital marketing to education. Her story has been featured on Channel News Asia, Lifetime Asia, Money Asia, Parenting World and more. In 2019, Zine named her one of the Top 10 Mom Influencers in the world.

Swati Gauba Kochar

Lead Coach, Founder & CEO – Kidspreneurship

Swati holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and a Masters in Communication Management and Entrepreneurship. She has over 10 years of experience and has spent the better part of her career helping corporates, startups, small and medium enterprises with digital marketing strategies. She is an entrepreneur at heart and has raised investments to scale her business. In 2018, while consulting an edtech startup she realized the gap between industry and school curriculum and created a new age curriculum & blueprint that focuses onn entrepreneurial mind-set for pre-teens. Swati is a regular trainer with many enrichment centers and schools in Singapore. GIIS recognized her valuable support as a mentor and judge for Star Young Achievers Program. Swati has trained thousands of students till date. She is now seeing an increased number of training request for Early Entrepreneurship Education from schools across Asia (including International Schools in India). Most parents observed increased emotional intelligence and an enhanced problem solving ability in their kids after few sessions with Kidspreneurship. Some students came up with extraordinary ideas during the class and are now pursuing those ideas. Kidspreneurship program developed by Swati has also been awarded “Leaders in Early Entrepreneurship Education” at the fifth annual Singapore Awards by APAC Insider. Swati has trained several professional trainers in Singapore including some veteran trainers from Adam Khoo Learning Centre , a leading education brands in South East Asia. All of them unanimously found the program to be extremely beneficial for their students. Enrichment centers have incorporated the trainings for their students. She is on a mission to create an edu-system that promotes entrepreneurial mindset through workshops & regular programs for kids and teacher training programs for educators.

Prantik Mazumdar

Entrepreneur & Venture Investor

Prantik is an entrepreneur & venture investor and acts as a Digital Transformation Catalyst in organizations to drive change, growth & impact. After graduating from NUS, he kick-started his career with the Singapore government to drive international trade promotion for the country. He started his entrepreneurial journey with Happy Marketer in 2011 where he spent a decade scaling up one of the most awarded independent digital marketing services firm, before a successful exit to dentsu International. He is a regular columnist and in 2015, he was recognized as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Marketers in the World.

Rahul Narvekar

Serial Entrepreneur

Rahul Narvekar, CEO & Founder, India Network and India Angel Fund, the man behind several successful entrepreneurial ventures, is on a mission to create a million entrepreneurs in the next three years. Everyone calls Rahul the North Star of Entrepreneurship. One would imagine why? Well, the North Star is the anchor of the northern sky and helps those who follow it to determine direction while navigating them towards a purposeful destination.

Saurabh Kale

An HR thought leader in my professional life and an Explorer in my personal life. I love to understand the ‘WHY’ behind almost everything. I am seasoned talent management, learning, leadership and organization development leader with 15+ years of experience working with the CXOs, setting up the L&OD function and scaling learning programs globally. I have worked with some of the world’s best-known companies; across the US, Middle East, India and the Asia Pacific. I have a reputation as an outcome-focused enabler, who challenges and reframes thinking.

Dr. Elaine Kim

Co-founder and CEO, CRIB

Dr Elaine Kim is a medical doctor and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of Trehaus, an integrated co-lifestyle space for families with a preschool, office space/ business club with creche, and family club.  Trehaus School is a Silicon Valley-inspired preschool and childcare that is changing early education, focuses on building character and future skills, and lets parents be present for their children’s learning journey. Prior to taking the helm at Trehaus, she was the CEO of CRIB, a social enterprise she co-founded to empower women to become successful entrepreneurs through networking, co-founder and investor/start-up matching and training and equipping of female founders.  Her experiences inspired her to start Trehaus and provide a solution for other working parents to find work-life integration, pursuing successful careers and businesses while prioritizing family and not missing out on their children’s’ precious, formative first years. After a decade as a doctor caring for terminally ill patients, she continues her involvement in palliative care through her work with the Singapore Ministry of Health Ageing Planning Office and remains involved in various charitable causes, especially through the philanthropic arm CRIB Gives Back that she launched at the helm of CRIB. She is married to venture capitalist John Kim of Amasia VC and they have 3 young children.

Kshama Alur

Founder and Chief Of All Things, indigrow

Kshama Alur is the Founder + Chief of All Things at indigrow, an early culture learning platform to raise confident and empathetic kids of tomorrow. She is also founder of The Better Alternative a sustainable consulting agency. Formerly in senior positions with Unilever and ABInbev, she has more than 17 years of brand marketing strategy, innovation and sustainability planning experience. She left the standard corporate life to be an entrepreneur and diligently juggles between her two companies. On one hand, she specialises in designing and facilitating customised learning workshops on branding, digital marketing and sustainability through her company The Better Alternative. On the other hand, she heads up indigrow, which makes delightful books and games that create cultural connections for little kids growing up to be global citizens of the world. While not wearing her entrepreneur hat, you can find her sipping on her favourite craft brew or spending time in her garden with two lovely dogs and her two-year-old son.

Ujjwal Sarao

Ujjwal Sarao has been successfully working in the upper echelons of talent management across Asia Pacific and has been on the forefront of innovation in the HR industry for over two decades. During her career she has managed talent at all levels at international organization’s and has helped future proof organizations using her unique talent management & learning approaches. In her years working at the highest level she has become a strategic business partner for the CEO and the executive leadership team. Not only did she become a strategic business partner for C-level executives at organizations like Dentsu, Aegis Media, ESPN, CNBC and ESPN Star Sports, but she also has been pivotal in developing young, promising processionals in these organizations and help them reach their full potential.

VS Hariharan

Hariharan has been leading Singapore start-up Third Wave Power for the past several years. Third Wave Power develops affordable and innovative portable renewable power solutions that serve portable energy needs for consumers living in off grid rural areas. The solutions range from solar lighting, solar education, entertainment, and livelihood solutions. Hari brings more than 25 years’ experience from the information technology industry. In Hewlett-Packard Company and Wipro Infotech, he was in general management roles as well as senior positions in sales and marketing. Among the various roles at HP, he held the position of Vice President/General Manager for the worldwide Monochrome LaserJet Division and also served as Vice President of Sales & Field Operations for the Imaging/Printing Business for Asia-Pacific. Hari is also on the Board of several companies. Hari has extensive experience in Product Marketing as well as building go-to-market for consumer and business products. Throughout his career, he has been involved in scaling many New and Emerging businesses. Hari holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Chennai and a Master degree in Business Administration from IIM Bangalore.

Ajit Kaikini

He is the Director of Corporate Training at Buoyancee. He has a knack of making people to perform better, by helping them to discover themselves, enable and monitor to develop the right tools, enhance skills & productive habits, and mentor them to reach their goals. He trains all over India in 6 languages and has been a part of large change initiatives of Adidas, Ajax Fiori, Bisleri, Brigade group, Canara Bank, ITC group, Lupin Pharma, SBI, and many more blue-chip companies. With his 15 yrs experience in the industry spanning sales/ marketing, production/ planning & admin/ training at top positions in blue chip companies, he is able to connect employees who work in cross-functions, and make them gel as performing teams. He has conducted schooling for the Rotary & the Lions executives in 4 states, and through their projects, empowered over 200,000 teens and youth, all over India. Apart from training over 50,000 parents and another 25,000 teachers all over India, he had the privilege to conduct training for over 2500 engineering college lecturers, through the world bank aided TEQIP – Technical Education Quality Improvement Project in Karnataka and Goa.

MOE Certified Instructor Location – Singapore

Swati is a certified happiness coach specializing in kids’ well-being (Certified by Happiitude & Berkeley Institute of Well-being, California). In 2018, while consulting an ed-tech start-up she realized the gap between industry and school curriculum and created a new age curriculum & blueprint that focuses on an entrepreneurial mindset for young students. She started Kidspreneurship , an edtech venture focused on inculcating an entrepreneurial mindset in kids. Swati is a regular trainer with many enrichment centres and schools in Singapore. GIIS recognized her valuable support as a mentor and judge for Star Young Achievers Program. Kidspreneurship program developed by Swati has also been awarded “Leaders in Early Entrepreneurship Education” for two consecutive years at Singapore Awards by APAC Insider. Swati has trained several professional trainers in Singapore including some veteran trainers from Adam Khoo Learning Centre, a leading education brand in Southeast Asia.

Location – India

Sidra is a dynamic trainer with experience in conducting offline and online training sessions for  pre-schoolers, and primary and secondary schools. At a young age, Sidra has already trained for 300+ hours and helped students develop problem-solving abilities. She is immensely passionate about teaching students about skills, mindset, and knowledge required to think like an entrepreneur. Sidra believes e ducation should prepare students for their lives and it needs to evolve . Sidra loves reading books and writing. She has around 2 years of experience in teaching.

Somya Rajat

Location – Hong Kong

With 7 years experience in digital space, Somya started her own entrepreneurial journey by establishing a digital agency in Singapore. She has been associated with Kidspreneurship since 2019. She has conducted sessions on building self-esteem & confidence, problem-solving, growth mindset, design thinking and entrepreneurship for primary school students. She has experience in conducting offline and online training sessions.

Silas Koh is a dynamic trainer with experience in developing training materials and conducting training for Junior College students in public speaking for Model United Nations (MUN) conferences. Silas also conducted workshops on leadership skills. This was done in his capacity as president of the MUN club in Victoria Junior College; he also won several personal accolades at various MUNs during his time at the club. Silas believes in igniting passion in students towards learning. 

Min Htaw Yama

Yama Min is a visionary entrepreneur with extensive experience focused on technical training and innovative education. He is a founder and managing director of in3labs learning, a technological and engineering education company that aims to empower the young generation to be creators of technology, inspiring individuals, and the next generation of entrepreneurs. He was also featured in all the leading media publishing outlets for robotics and coding education. He has been actively involved in business development, collaborative partnership, and management of the business operation, and plays an important role in organizing the annual Asia Pacific Youth Robotics Competition (APYRC), an annual event that attracts 800+ students from more than 5 countries. Yama believes that an entrepreneurial mindset can help students develop a positive attitude towards life and learning. It changes students’ outlook. Hence, the associated himself with Kidspreneurship and created a program “Technopreneurship”.

Ong Kok Siang Ivan

Ivan has more than 6 years of experience in conducting training sessions for corporate organisations, MOE schools, private enrichment centres and even pre-schools. Ivan doesn’t transfer subject knowledge. More importantly, he seeks to develop the participants’ thinking skills, character strengths and moral values through the subjects that he teaches. Learning is most effective when the learners are actively engaged and having fun – so that is something Ivan tries to do for every lesson. Ivan has a knack to engage his learners. He is also a certified financial planner. He has worked with close to 60 MOE schools in Singapore and trained on subjects related to Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, Financial Literacy, Public Speaking and more.

Sharon Wan is a dynamic trainer with experience in conducting offline and online training sessions for primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Sharon Wan believes mindset training is very critical for young students as it sets them up for success. Sharon Wan has over 10 years of experience. She has served as a French Teacher at Global Indian International School from 2009 to 2014. She has also been serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic from 2012 to the present.

Chua Suan Eng Maggie Theresa

Maggie Theresa Chua Suan Eng is a dynamic trainer with experience in conducting offline and online training sessions for pre-schoolers and primary & secondary schools in Singapore. Maggie Theresa Chua Suan Eng has trained on topics like developing problem-solving ability. Maggie Theresa Chua Suan Eng believes in nurturing children to be self-directed and independent lifelong learners Maggie Theresa Chua Suan Eng loves reading, exercising, cooking, and taking up courses to upgrade herself.  Maggie Theresa Chua Suan Eng has over 23 years of experience in teaching. She has trained primary school students on various topics including design thinking and environmental sustainability.

Chua Boon Seng Ronald

For more than 27 years, Ronald is highly experienced and dedicated in his interest and passion to engage and enrich every learning moment for learners, both online and face-to-face, for pre-schoolers, and primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Ronald exercises great care and, coupled with his vast experience, infuses strong values whilst developing the mental, social and emotional competencies of learners to effectively problem-solve. Over the last 2 years, he has served 30+ public schools (primary & secondary) on social skills.

Yeo Eng Pheow, Johnny

Yeo Eng Pheow, Johnny has 12 years of experience as an adjunct Lecturer in Supply Chain Management diploma modules at Republic Polytechnic including 8 years of lecturing on Cognitive Processes (including design thinking) and Problem-Solving modules for all first-year students. He has also served 4 years as Adjunct Lecturer and Tutor at the Business School in Temasek Polytechnic. Yeo Eng Pheow, Johnny has 2 years of life skill training for Business School undergraduates at SIM which included subjects like Personal Mastery, Leadership, Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Thinking. He also has 8 years of experience in conducting Tony Buzan Mind Mapping and Habits of the Mind to Secondary Schools assigned by the Nurture Craft and Brain Capital Group. He has taught learners in all age groups.

When students are exposed to entrepreneurial thinking, a profound change takes place. They become aware of the opportunities around them. They think more critically and creatively. The result: they become more confident and experimental in their ability to problem-solve and tackle challenges.

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A Simple Guide for Kids’ Business Plans

Who said kids can’t run successful businesses ? Kids can start and run a successful business as early as the 4th grade.

Of course, you still need to get good grades in school, but it’s also great to nurture your entrepreneurial skills.

If you have a great business idea and would like to nurture it to join the likes of Mikaila Ulmer and Jack Bonneau, you should write a plan for it.

If you’re a parent, you want the best for your child . What better way to secure their future than to help them convert their business idea into a small business?

You can help your kid put down their ideas and plans by writing a business plan with one of the many free business plan templates available online.

Before perfecting your plan, you can write a sample business plan to orient you to the dynamics of a business plan for kids.

The Components of a Sample Business Plan for Kids

Starting a business requires commitment to a plan, much like studying for your tests.

State Your Business Ideas

The first part of a good business plan will be laying out your big idea(s).

What’s the Big Idea?

Before helping to start your kid’s business, you should clearly understand your child’s idea and how you can convert it into a money generating venture.

Talk about the equipment you need to run the business, any relevant training you have (or will get), and how you intend to actualize the business plans.

Conduct Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is a breakdown of what your competitors offer, their prices, and their marketing strategies.

When you plan a business, you must know what your competitors offer to gain a competitive edge.

Some of the items you should include in  your competitor analysis are:

• A product list for each competitor
• A price list for each product, for each competitor
• The needs that each competitor fulfils in the target market
• A list of the gaps in the market
• A proposal of how you intend to fill the gaps

Here’s a template of what your analysis should look like:

Record Your Research Findings

As a parent helping your child develop a business plan, guide them through the research process and help them identify the gaps. You could even be helping your child improve their grades in school as they learn how to conduct research.

Support their idea with facts, statistics, and visual elements to make it as accurate as possible.

You and your kid can even create a template like the one below to help you record your research findings.

Market Your Business

You already have your product and business laid out, but how do you get your target consumers to know about it?

A business is as good as its marketing strategy because it is the only way to make sales. When you, or your kid, write a business plan, map out a marketing path.

In the marketing section of  your business plan, have the following segments:

What’s Your Product ?

Although you introduced your product or service in the first part of your business plan, you need to talk about it in detail here.

Explain what your product is, what it is made of, and how it’s different from other products in the market. If you’re selling a service, explain why and how it’s different from other similar services in the market.

If your product or service is the first in the industry, explain what it is, what gaps it fills, and why the consumer should buy it.

Name Your Price

What is the price tag for your product/service?

You can easily influence your customer base by offering them unbeatable prices for your product.

This is where your math lessons come in handy; striking a balance between your sales volume and your prices to make a decent profit.

Are You Investing in Product Promotion?

How do you intend to introduce and maintain your product in the market? Discuss the forms of advertising you intend to use for your merchandise and how effective the strategies will be.

For instance, do you intend to use social media campaigns, or will you be marketing on other forms of media such as television adverts and printables?

Discuss how your product will be packaged to entice prospective consumers. The name, packaging, and contents of your product speak volumes about your business.

Explain the brand name and how it speaks to your target market. You can also include a pictorial sample of your logo or packaging to help explain how your product connects with the intended consumer.

What’s Your Location?

When you finally start supplying your goods or services, how will your consumers access them?

Are you a purely online seller, or will you have a brick-and-mortar store? If you have several stores, be sure to provide detailed information about them.

If you sell online, give accurate and working links to your online store. You can also provide a guide on how consumers can access your shop and make purchases.

Organize Your Finances

According to Alfred Marshall, an economics mogul of his time, “Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.”

Your business needs both human and financial capital to produce, distribute and sell your product or service.

You can list down a management team and have a worksheet to show their responsibilities and how much you intend to pay them.

In your business plan , explain how much capital you need to get your business up and running. Provide a working figure with a breakdown of how you will use it.

Sourcing Capital

Explain how you intend to raise the startup costs for your business. Do you have savings, or do your parents/guardians intend to finance your project?

What about angel investors? Do you have any?

If you are a parent intending to finance your child’s business, will you be investing from your savings, or do you intend to get a loan?

Breakdown Capital Usage

At this level, you will explain how your capital will be used. How much do you need for manufacturing and distribution?

Are there any other overheads between manufacturing and selling your products/service? If there are, explain how much they will cost.

Return on Investment (RoI)

Here, you explain how you will get back your capital and realize profits from your business. Indicate how you will price your product/service and show the projected profit margin.

Also, provide a timeline for how soon you should have regained your capital. Give a projection of how much profit your business should be reeling in a specific time frame.

Successful kids’ businesses are not run by geniuses; they are owned and run by kids who were passionate enough to capitalize on their dreams.

Awaken Your Entrepreneurial Self

Building your successful business starts with creating a well-detailed business plan.

If you aspire to become one of those kid entrepreneurs or would like to grow your child’s business dream into a successful business , write down an actionable plan.

Actualize your great business idea by creating and following a great business plan.

Katrina McKinnon

I'm Katrina McKinnon, the author behind Small Revolution . With two decades of hands-on experience in online work, running eCommerce stores, web agency and job boards, I'm now on a mission to empower you to work from home and achieve work-life balance. My passion lies in crafting insightful, education content. I have taught thousands of students and employees how to write, do SEO, manage eCommerce stores and work as Virtual Assistants. Join our most popular course: SEO Article Masterclass

Kids Business Plan Template & Guidebook

Starting a business can be an exciting adventure for kids looking to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Having a plan and the resources available to create this plan are just as important. With “The #1 Kids Business Plan Template & Guidebook”, kids will have access to an interactive template and advice from industry professionals that will help them bring a business idea to life. Kids will gain insight into the steps needed in creating their own business, starting with writing a viable business plan.

Get worry-free services and support to launch your business starting at $0 plus state fees.

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• 10+ Best & Profitable Kids Business Ideas [2023]

How to Write a Kids Business Plan in 7 Steps:

1. describe the purpose of your kids business..

The first step to writing your business plan is to describe the purpose of your kids business. This includes describing why you are starting this type of business, and what problems it will solve for customers. This is a quick way to get your mind thinking about the customers’ problems. It also helps you identify what makes your business different from others in its industry.

It also helps to include a vision statement so that readers can understand what type of company you want to build.

Here is an example of a purpose mission statement for a kids business:

Our mission is to inspire and educate children to reach their full potential through creative, interactive learning experiences. We strive to create an environment that encourages collaboration, creativity, and exploration while helping kids develop valuable life skills.

2. Products & Services Offered by Your Kids Business.

The next step is to outline your products and services for your kids business. 

When you think about the products and services that you offer, it's helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my business?
• What are the products and/or services that I offer?
• Why am I offering these particular products and/or services?
• How do I differentiate myself from competitors with similar offerings?
• How will I market my products and services?

You may want to do a comparison of your business plan against those of other competitors in the area, or even with online reviews. This way, you can find out what people like about them and what they don’t like, so that you can either improve upon their offerings or avoid doing so altogether.

3. Build a Creative Marketing Stratgey.

If you don't have a marketing plan for your kids business, it's time to write one. Your marketing plan should be part of your business plan and be a roadmap to your goals. 

A good marketing plan for your kids business includes the following elements:

Target market

• Who is your target market?
• What do these customers have in common?
• How many of them are there?
• How can you best reach them with your message or product?

Customer base 

• Who are your current customers? 
• Where did they come from (i.e., referrals)?
• How can their experience with your kids business help make them repeat customers, consumers, visitors, subscribers, or advocates for other people in their network or industry who might also benefit from using this service, product, or brand?

Product or service description

• How does it work, what features does it have, and what are its benefits?
• Can anyone use this product or service regardless of age or gender?
• Can anyone visually see themselves using this product or service?
• How will they feel when they do so? If so, how long will the feeling last after purchasing (or trying) the product/service for the first time?

Competitive analysis

• Which companies are competing with yours today (and why)? 
• Which ones may enter into competition with yours tomorrow if they find out about it now through word-of-mouth advertising; social media networks; friends' recommendations; etc.)
• What specific advantages does each competitor offer over yours currently?

Marketing channels

• Which marketing channel do you intend to leverage to attract new customers?
• What is your estimated marketing budget needed?
• What is the projected cost to acquire a new customer?
• How many of your customers do you instead will return?

Form an LLC in your state!

4. Write Your Operational Plan.

Next, you'll need to build your operational plan. This section describes the type of business you'll be running, and includes the steps involved in your operations. 

In it, you should list:

• The equipment and facilities needed
• Who will be involved in the business (employees, contractors)
• Financial requirements for each step
• Milestones & KPIs
• Location of your business
• Zoning & permits required for the business

What equipment, supplies, or permits are needed to run a kids business?

To run a Kids business, you will need the following equipment, supplies, and permits:

• Safety equipment such as first aid kits and fire extinguishers
• Cleaning supplies and janitorial supplies
• Educational materials such as books, toys, and games
• Child care licensing from your state or local government
• Insurance to cover any potential liabilities
• Business license from your city or county government

5. Management & Organization of Your Kids Business.

The second part of your kids business plan is to develop a management and organization section.

This section will cover all of the following:

• How many employees you need in order to run your kids business. This should include the roles they will play (for example, one person may be responsible for managing administrative duties while another might be in charge of customer service).
• The structure of your management team. The higher-ups like yourself should be able to delegate tasks through lower-level managers who are directly responsible for their given department (inventory and sales, etc.).
• How you’re going to make sure that everyone on board is doing their job well. You’ll want check-ins with employees regularly so they have time to ask questions or voice concerns if needed; this also gives you time to offer support where necessary while staying informed on how things are going within individual departments too!

6. Kids Business Startup Expenses & Captial Needed.

This section should be broken down by month and year. If you are still in the planning stage of your business, it may be helpful to estimate how much money will be needed each month until you reach profitability.

Typically, expenses for your business can be broken into a few basic categories:

Startup Costs

Startup costs are typically the first expenses you will incur when beginning an enterprise. These include legal fees, accounting expenses, and other costs associated with getting your business off the ground. The amount of money needed to start a kids business varies based on many different variables, but below are a few different types of startup costs for a kids business.

Running & Operating Costs

Running costs refer to ongoing expenses related directly with operating your business over time like electricity bills or salaries paid out each month. These types of expenses will vary greatly depending on multiple variables such as location, team size, utility costs, etc.

Marketing & Sales Expenses

You should include any costs associated with marketing and sales, such as advertising and promotions, website design or maintenance. Also, consider any additional expenses that may be incurred if you decide to launch a new product or service line. For example, if your kids business has an existing website that needs an upgrade in order to sell more products or services, then this should be listed here.

7. Financial Plan & Projections

A financial plan is an important part of any business plan, as it outlines how the business will generate revenue and profit, and how it will use that profit to grow and sustain itself. To devise a financial plan for your kids business, you will need to consider a number of factors, including your start-up costs, operating costs, projected revenue, and expenses. 

Here are some steps you can follow to devise a financial plan for your kids business plan:

• Determine your start-up costs: This will include the cost of purchasing or leasing the space where you will operate your business, as well as the cost of buying or leasing any equipment or supplies that you need to start the business.
• Estimate your operating costs: Operating costs will include utilities, such as electricity, gas, and water, as well as labor costs for employees, if any, and the cost of purchasing any materials or supplies that you will need to run your business.
• Project your revenue: To project your revenue, you will need to consider the number of customers you expect to have and the average amount they will spend on each visit. You can use this information to estimate how much money you will make from selling your products or services.
• Estimate your expenses: In addition to your operating costs, you will need to consider other expenses, such as insurance, marketing, and maintenance. You will also need to set aside money for taxes and other fees.
• Create a budget: Once you have estimated your start-up costs, operating costs, revenue, and expenses, you can use this information to create a budget for your business. This will help you to see how much money you will need to start the business, and how much profit you can expect to make.
• Develop a plan for using your profit: Finally, you will need to decide how you will use your profit to grow and sustain your business. This might include investing in new equipment, expanding the business, or saving for a rainy day.

Frequently Asked Questions About Kids Business Plans:

Why do you need a business plan for a kids business.

A business plan is an important tool for any business, including a kids business. It helps to define the mission, goals and strategies of a business, and allows entrepreneurs to assess their progress over time. A well-crafted business plan will help identify potential opportunities and risks associated with the business, provide a blueprint for launching and growing the venture, and ultimately increase the chances of success.

Who should you ask for help with your kids business plan?

Parents, mentors, teachers, counselors, and small business advisors are all helpful resources for creating a business plan. Additionally, there are numerous online resources available to help guide young entrepreneurs in crafting their business plans.

Can you write a kids business plan yourself?

Writing a business plan can be a complex task, so it is generally recommended that you seek the help of an experienced professional. If you do decide to write the business plan yourself, it is important to have a clear understanding of what elements should be included and be aware of the resources available to help ensure your plan is successful.

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I'm Nick, co-founder of newfoundr.com, dedicated to helping aspiring entrepreneurs succeed. As a small business owner with over five years of experience, I have garnered valuable knowledge and insights across a diverse range of industries. My passion for entrepreneurship drives me to share my expertise with aspiring entrepreneurs, empowering them to turn their business dreams into reality.

Through meticulous research and firsthand experience, I uncover the essential steps, software, tools, and costs associated with launching and maintaining a successful business. By demystifying the complexities of entrepreneurship, I provide the guidance and support needed for others to embark on their journey with confidence.

From assessing market viability and formulating business plans to selecting the right technology and navigating the financial landscape, I am dedicated to helping fellow entrepreneurs overcome challenges and unlock their full potential. As a steadfast advocate for small business success, my mission is to pave the way for a new generation of innovative and driven entrepreneurs who are ready to make their mark on the world.

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How to Make a Business Plan (for Kids)

Last Updated: March 21, 2023 Approved

This article was co-authored by Michael R. Lewis and by wikiHow staff writer, Amber Crain . Michael R. Lewis is a retired corporate executive, entrepreneur, and investment advisor in Texas. He has over 40 years of experience in business and finance, including as a Vice President for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas. He has a BBA in Industrial Management from the University of Texas at Austin. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 21 testimonials and 81% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 152,576 times.

There are plenty of kids out there running their own successful businesses.To get started, you’ll need a great idea for a business and a solid business plan. Business plans can get pretty complicated, but they don’t have to be. As long as your business plan includes a few crucial things, you’ll have all that you need to get started!

Developing Your Business Idea

• Are you currently busy with school or is it summertime? Think about when the work for your business will be done. [2] X Research source
• Consider business ideas that are seasonal. For example, if it’s near Christmas, consider ideas that cater to that, like a gift wrapping service or making gift baskets.
• Are you in the middle of a very hot summer? This might be a perfect time to launch a neighborhood lemonade stand.

• Examples of product-driven businesses: baking cookies, building birdhouses, making gift baskets, creating greeting cards, selling candy, making doggie treats.
• Examples of service-driven businesses: lawn care, car washing, computer repair, pet sitting, babysitting, cleaning houses, dog walking, and teaching computer skills to older people. [4] X Research source

• Are you an animal lover? Consider offering pet sitting services.
• Maybe you’re crafty and enjoy making handmade jewelry or gift baskets. These are great products to sell. [5] X Research source

• Make sure your business name is easy to pronounce, as well.
• Clever and unique business names work well, just remember that the name needs to relate to what your business entails.

• List any specific objectives and goals for your business, as well.
• Write out what you think makes your product/service unique. [7] X Research source

Planning Your Business

• If you have a sibling that wants to help out, that would be a good place to start.
• You will be splitting your profits, so you will need to decide how much and when your employees will be paid.

• You could also ask your parents if they’d consider donating some of your future allowance as seed money for your business.
• If you bring them a solid business plan, they will be more likely to help you.

• By adding up your ongoing expenses, you will have a pretty good idea of what it will cost to keep your business running. [9] X Research source
• Another example – if you’re making cookies to sell, you will need to total up how much the ingredients cost and how often you’ll need to buy them.

• Let’s say that when you add up the cost of the ingredients, it costs you $3.50 to make a dozen chocolate chip cookies. You will want to charge more than that for each dozen in order to make a profit.
• You should also factor in how much time it takes you to make your product/perform your service. [10] X Research source You can then work out prices based upon how much you want to make. You should also factor in time that you aren't being paid (such as advertising your business or walking to a customer's home).
• For example, if it takes you a half hour to make the chocolate chip cookies mentioned above and another half hour to sell them, you will need to charge an amount that represents the amount of time you spent preparing them. This additional time is your "wage" for preparing them.
• You can work out your hourly wage by dividing your pay for a project or product (minus your expenses) by the amount of time spent working.
• In this case, if you charged $9.50 for the dozen cookies, you would be making $6 for the hour that you spent making and selling them.
• Subtract your expenses from your revenue to get your profit amount. [11] X Research source

Marketing Your Business

• You should also consider your market area. Unless you have a car (or your parents' help), market area is relatively small. This may include only areas that you can safely walk or bike to.
• These customer types are called customer profiles. Once you have your customer profiles, you will have a better idea of how to market your business to them.
• Different customer profiles sometimes require entirely different marketing strategies.

• You can market most effectively once you know these specific details about your competitors.
• Offering lower prices or providing higher quality products/services are two ways you can compete with them.
• For example, if you start a lawn care business, you will be competing with established lawn care businesses. You can build a customer base by offering better service and encouraging customer recommendations.

• Remember to keep your customer profiles in mind when choosing your marketing strategies.
• For instance, if you’re starting a pet sitting business, you could post flyers at veterinary offices and pet stores, and also hand deliver flyers to people in your neighborhood with pets.

Putting Your Business Plan on Paper

• Write the business name in large letters, or use a large font, and make it bold. It’s the most important thing on the page.
• The description paragraph can be in a normal size or standard 12 point font.

• Owner/Management example: “Kelly’s Doggy Daycare is owned by Kelly Klein. She has several years of experience pet-sitting and truly loves working with and caring for dogs of all kinds.”
• Business History example: "Kelly noticed that most of her neighbors were dog owners who worked long hours every day. Occasionally, they took vacations and/or experienced family emergencies, which could take them away from their pets for days at a time."
• "With her love for dogs, Kelly knew she could provide a pet care service that her neighbors would benefit from, and that’s how Kelly’s Doggy Daycare was born."

• You don’t need to get incredibly detailed – summarize and highlight the most important information for each.
• Example for product/service: "Kelly’s Doggy Daycare will provide hands-on pet care for today’s busy pet owner. The business will offer day rates along with in-house extended stay pet sitting. Walking services are included at no charge with every appointment."

• "It’s her mission to put your mind at ease when you have to be away from your pets. Kelly will make sure your pets are loved and cared for in your absence."
• "An email summary of every pet sitting appointment will always be sent to you via email during your absence or upon your return."

• Example: “Kelly’s Doggy Daycare caters to today’s busy adults. These are business people who work long hours every day and/or travel regularly for work, family vacationers, and anyone who finds themselves in need of last minute pet care."
• "The business has one competitor, Sam’s Sitting Service, but Kelly offers lower pricing and in-house extended stay care."
• "She plans to post flyers about the new business in her neighborhood to promote it. She will also be going door-to-door to introduce herself and inform neighbors of her services.”

• Example: "Kelly will need very few supplies to launch the business – a bag of doggie treats, 1 dog leash for a small dog and 1 dog leash for a large dog."
• "Ongoing expenses will be the replenishment of doggie treats and occasionally dog toys and/or dog blankets. The rate is $5.00 for each hour of pet care provided. The rate for in-house extended care is $25 per day."
• "Customers will need to provide their own pet food or reimburse Kelly for any food she has to purchase during pet care. Profit for each hour is approximately $3.50 after expenses."
• "Profit for each day of extended care is approximately $18.50 after expenses."

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://bizkids.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Kids-Business-Plan.pdf
• ↑ http://www.wisebread.com/create-a-business-plan-by-answering-4-simple-questions
• ↑ http://www.mikemichalowicz.com/the-37-greatest-business-ideas-for-young-entrepreneurs/
• ↑ http://www.teachingkidsbusiness.com/business-plan-example.htm
• ↑ http://content.moneyinstructor.com/664/kids-starting-business.html

About This Article

To make a business plan for kids, create a cover sheet with the business name in large, bold font and a 5-6 sentence description of the business. Have a logo? Include that, too! Start writing up the company’s management and history on the second page, talking about yourself in 1-2 sentences and how and why you came up with your business in another 2-3 sentences. Then craft 3-4 sentences, each, to describe your product or service, business goals, marketing strategy, and funding needs. To learn more from our Entrepreneur co-author, like how much to charge for your product or service, keep reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Home » Teens

Business Plan Templates for Teens

If you want to launch a business, you have to have a plan! Here are some templates to help you get started.

The key to any successful business is to have a plan before getting started. Mapping out the business details is instrumental in determining if this idea is worth pursuing, which can save a lot of time and resources that could be used towards a different business that would be better suited for you and your business needs and wants. 

What To Include In a Business Plan

The point of a business plan is to outline your business strategy and plan your business out on paper. As your business grows and you are looking at expansion options, lenders will want a well-defined business plan to help them determine if lending to your business is the best option. When looking at business plan template packages for teens, you are looking for business plan templates that will help you transition your business ideas to full-fledged businesses that will help adults see the vision. 

The 7 parts of a business plan include:

• Executive Summary
• Business Description
• Products and Services
• Market Analysis
• Strategy and Implementation of Strategy
• Organizational Structure and Management Team
• Financial Plan and Future Projections

Best Business Plan Templates for Teenagers

Bizkids’ guide to writing a business plan.

This resource helps define the business idea and determine what to charge for the products and services that you want to offer. Learn how to evaluate your competition and what they are doing with their brand to bring value to their customers to figure out ways to make your brand unique so you can stand out in the marketplace. Determine what resources you need to build your business and how much those resources will cost you. Are there ways to bootstrap the company to make startup costs cheaper? Learn about breakeven costs and how many units you have to sell before you start making a profit with your business idea.

Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox: The Small-Business Guide for Teens

This toolbox provides 8 easy to follow, actionable steps to help teens evaluate whether or not their business idea is feasible for them to start and how to go about getting started. If you don’t currently have an idea for what business to start, this provides ideas and how to get started with them! Real teens share real business experiences and advice from their own journey, which can help you avoid making common business mistakes that will decrease your learning curve and get motivation and encouragement from teens that have faced similar challenges while building their businesses. Learn about marketing techniques that work, how to provide top-notch customer service, money management of profits, and goal setting for future growth. 

Home Sweet Road’s My Business Plan

This one-page business plan is free and easily downloadable. It can be printed out and hung on the wall for easy reference. The questions asked in this document are thought-provoking and help teens determine who the target audience is for their products and services. Defining the target audience will help establish a solid marketing plan that conveys the value of the product offering while making sure that the customer’s needs are being met. Customers want to buy from businesses that understand their needs and provide an ideal solution.

Proverbial Homemaker’s Family Business Plan Guide

Families can work together to build a business that kids and teens can run themselves and are passionate about running using this comprehensive business template and associated resources. Consider first why you want to start a business and why you are choosing THIS specific business. Understanding the reason for selecting that business idea builds confidence and helps maintain the passion for the company as time goes on. Create a monetary budget based on projected profits and figure out what price is best to charge for your products and services to secure sales from your target market. Set goals and manage your time, then figure out what laws are applicable for your business venture.

Learn how to conduct market research to see if there is a need for the services you want to provide before starting by conducting surveys or soft test launches. Find out where to source materials to make products and how much that will cost.  

Boss Club Kid Entrepreneur Kit

This kit is literally a business in a box, so kids and teens can get started right away as soon as they have it in their hands! Choose your kit and create the following businesses:

• Homemade dog treats
• Specialty cake pops
• Luxury bath bombs
• Delicious fudge
• Handmade soaps

If you are homeschooling, this kit counts as a homeschooling resource that you can receive credit for completing, which is a fantastic additional perk of using this tool. The intended audience is kids and teens ages 11-18, and provides over 100 videos with step-by-step instructions on how to set up and grow a business from the ground up. So far, over 100 schools across the United States are using this option for their students to learn how to set up a business that they are passionate about running. Getting teens started young on their entrepreneurial journey has been found to build self-esteem and teach decision-making early on that helps young adults make solid decisions in their lives as they mature. The benefit of this specific program is that it was created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs and not created by scholars that don’t have practical business knowledge. There is a quiz on their website that takes 30 seconds and helps you decide what business is best for your needs. 

Small Business Administration

This is a great government resource for teens who want to learn about business for free and about what resources are available from the government, such as loans and business coaching from experienced business owners in your community. There is no absolute right or wrong way to write a business plan in business, and you can choose how your business will run or how much money you need to start it. This resource allows you to walk through your business idea and plan with an experienced business owner that can talk through the pros and cons of what you feel is the next step for your business, from expansion to new investors to additional product offerings. This resource offers two different business plan templates that walk you through example business plans.

Solid Gold Biz Plan

This free business plan template from Money Prodigy discusses the author’s mistakes during her first 7 years in business and provides insights into how she would have conducted her business affairs differently if she had to start over again knowing what she knows now. The primary goal of this template is to find a problem that your business will solve. Many new entrepreneurs focus on the product or service but not on the problem it will solve in the marketplace. The goal should be to identify the problem and then develop the solution that will be offered as a product or service by your company. After determining the primary problem, she focuses on how to best deliver the solution and how much it will cost to maintain the delivery of the product or service. 

Shark Tank Lessons in Business and Entrepreneurship from Scholastic

A free lesson plan with a teacher’s guide that can be used in a group setting or as a family! Topics covered include entrepreneurship basics, writing an effective business plan, crafting persuasive pitches for investment presentations, and how to find a great business mentor. The target age group is grades 6 to 12.

Shark Tank Marketing Plan

A worksheet template that focuses on the target demographic for your business and the motivation that that demographic would have to buy a product or service that you are offering so you can establish the best way to market to them. Games are encouraged with this marketing package because this helps draw out ideas in fun ways that promote creativity and growth. Business is about finding creative solutions to problems and pivoting the company into new arenas when it becomes necessary for growth. Keeping an active marketing plan up to date as the business grows is key to expanding when necessary or finding innovative ways to keep customers engaged with your brand. 

Shark Tank Analysis Worksheet

Use this worksheet when evaluating businesses to learn what investors are looking for when assessing whether or not to invest in a business. Understanding what investors are looking for in a management team, mission, vision, product/service, research and development, and strategic implementation will help you create that within your own business to make your foundation strong.

A strong business plan that is well defined will take even the novice entrepreneur to the expert level of business in no time with the proper preparation. Using a business plan template in areas of planning, marketing, product development, and strategy will assist in building a business that can be bootstrapped and stood up quickly to test the business out in ways that require little startup capital.

Related Reading

• Entrepreneurship for teens
• How to earn money for teens

• MARKETPLACE
• DOWNLOAD BUSINESS KIT

How to Write a Lemonade Business Plan for Kids + Sample Templates

Thinking about opening a lemonade stand with your kids? Don’t miss this opportunity to provide an important life lesson about the basics of running a business with this common childhood experience. One smart way to teach the basics of operating a business with your kids is to write a short business plan while keeping things fun for the kiddos.

To get the most out of your lemonade stand and to teach kids what it’s like putting up a business, write down a lemonade business plan with them. To make this the most of this activity make sure to involve your kid in each step of the planning process. For each section of the business plan, ask them what they think. You can offer ideas to get the ball rolling if they don’t have any ideas right away.

To help get your child involved think about each component of the business plan as a question. Instead of asking your kids about what we should include in the marketing plan, instead ask how customers will find out about their stand? Instead of handing your kid a packet of lemonade to mix with water, ask them what type of lemonade they would like to sell. This approach will get your kids thinking critically, which is kind of the whole point of this project.

And with this guide, we’ll help you how to make one for kids so they can get started on that lemonade stand this summer! Read on to learn how you can get started.

A lemonade stand can be a teaching opportunity about the basics of running a small business.

Page Contents

Keep it fun for the kiddos!

Lemonade stand name ideas, business concept, marketing plan for lemonade stands, customer focus, menu and sign , lemonade stand finances, download templates .

Since a business plan is quite formal this one will be less so. Kids have shorter attention spans than adults and the last thing you want is to make this project feel like homework. As a result, we recommend writing a shorter business plan or a one-page business model canvas . Our templates and advice below keeps this in mind. With that being said, let’s get on with it!

Have your child think of a business name for their lemonade stand. Their names are usually used for this. For example, it can go as simple as Alex’s Lemonade Stand or a bit more creative like The Wonder Ade . Give your child a few initial ideas so they can begin formulating name ideas. For research purposes, you can check out our complete list of lemonade stand name ideas here.

This is best done with a piece of paper and a pen so you can write down anything that comes to mind. You can then help your child choose among the top five, then the top three, and ultimately, the official one. Write the business name at the top of the business plan.

Lemonade only .25 cents per glass.

A business, whether big or small, must have a concept. Explain to your kids that a business concept helps them decide the design of their lemonade stand and make their setup more inviting.

For example, you can go with a colorful lemonade brand concept. They could add pink, green, or blue lemonade. They could also go with a fruit lemonade concept wherein each cup of lemonade will have fruit slices inside so it’s more delicious.

In addition to color schemes, talk to your kids the product to help them understand the options. One great approach is to ask your kids what type of lemonade they would like to serve best? There are more options than you might think.

• Should the drink be fresh squeezed?
• Will you offer special flavors like raspberry lemonade?
• Will you purchase a mix?
• Will you sell a ready-made lemonade from the grocery store?

Whatever the concept may be, discuss it with your kids and have them document the approach in this section.

A highly visible lemonade trailer.

Marketing is very important in business. Sit your kids down and explain to them what a proper marketing plan can do. For instance, you can explain that the reason why they buy a certain chocolate bar at the grocery store is that they see it on the huge posters outside of the store before they enter.

Discuss with your kids how they’ll market their lemonade stand. You can introduce to them the concept of advertising by using flyers and handing them out to your nearest neighbors. You can also put up a huge poster by your mailbox so everyone that passes by can anticipate the opening of your lemonade stand. A big clear sign taped to a table is another example of good marketing.

Word of mouth is always a classic yet effective marketing plan so be sure to tell your kids to spread the word around at school, with your friends after church, and even to people passing by your house. Even something as simple as waving to commuters who pass by is an effective form of marketing.

When you have a proper marketing plan down, write them all in this section. Be sure to include the following details on your flyers:

• Business Name
• What you’re selling
• The retail price per cup
• Opening date
• Selling Hours

Teach your kids to find their target customers early on. Ask them who they’d like to come over to try their lemonade. Will it be just the local neighborhood community? Or would they like to expand their market to the next block as well in an effort to sell even more?

This gets your kids thinking about how many people they’d like their lemonade stand to reach. It also helps them prepare how many cups to buy and how much lemonade to prepare.

Related Reading:  101 Catchy Mango Drink Company Name Ideas

There are customer service skills that can also be taught through this process. Explain to your kids the importance of smiling and greeting customers as they approach the lemonade stand. A smile and a wave is enough to make your stand more approachable and create better guest experiences.

Another tip is to teach basic communication skills when interacting with customers. Encourage kids to ask how people’s day is going while pouring a glass. Encourage your kids to thank customers for coming too. This teaches kids to think about the customers perspective. A very important skill to learn early in life!

Now comes the fun part of the kid-friendly business plan. Writing down the menu for your lemonade stand. More often than not there’s one product to offer and that’s fine. But here are some other ideas you can present to your kids.

• How much will a glass of lemonade be?
• Will you be offering only one size or small, medium and large ones?
• Will there be add-ons such as sliced fruit or food items?
• Could you offer a volume discount for people that want to buy three or more cups of lemonade?

Have your kids write down the menu so they are involved in this important decision.

Explain the financial side of running a business with your kids.

They may be kids but that doesn’t mean they can’t understand the concept of how selling stuff works. To keep it simple, bring them to the grocery with you while you shop for lemonade ingredients. Make sure to point out to them the price of each ingredient so they know how much they all cost.

Keep the receipt with you and when you head back home and make lemonade for a taste test, break down all the items and their prices and sum it all up.

Show them how much lemonade costs and then give a fixed price to add how much you’ll charge for their service. Explain to them that the service fee will be their profit, which they’ll get to keep as earnings. The anticipation of finding out how much money leftover can be extremely exciting at the end of the day.

To keep things simple, write down the formula this way in front of your kids:

Selling price of lemonade – Cost of lemonade = Profit

Don’t forget to list down the materials you need for your lemonade stand and place them in this section of the document. Here are a few materials you and your kids will need to get started:

• Lemons or lemonade mix
• Syrup and or sugar
• Cups with lids
• Straw (or you can go without straws if you’re teaching them about saving the environment and cost savings)
• Table napkins
• Ice in a cooler
• Illustration board, crayons, and pens to decorate the menu

With a proper list of expenses and an equation to better visualize where their profit is coming from, your kids will better understand how a real business works.

Download our lemonade stand business plan templates below. If you would like to complete something shorter consider using our food business canvas here . This is essentially a one-page business plan that allows you to map the key ingredients of the business on a single page.

• Lemonade Stand Business Plan PDF
• Lemonade stand business plan Word Doc

A lemonade stand business model canvas from Pinterest. 

• Be there as a guide for your child but it would be best to have them choose most of the decisions such as the business name, menu, and design for the stand. That way you encourages creativity at a young age. Help them come up with their own solutions to problems instead of giving the answers right away.
• Work as a team. Let your kids split up the work associated with opening a lemonade stand. This instills the importance of team work and lets your kids focus on the aspects of running a lemonade stand that interests them most. If you have a child that’s gifted at drawing, let them be in charge of making the sign. If an older sibling wants to poor the glasses to avoid spills that works great. If you have a child born with the gift of gab, have them oversee customer service and greeting customers.
• Have fun! You’ve been in your kids’ position when you were selling the lemonade. It’s all about enjoying the moment. Don’t keep things too serious lest you take the way the fun of it all. This should be an enjoyable and educational activity.

And there you have it! A lemonade business plan for kids can be as simple as that. Keep it brief and use simple words so the young ones can understand and stay engaged in the startup process. Guide them along the way and use this time to bond with them as well.

Have fun selling those lemonades! With this short yet detailed business plan, you and your kids are ready to start a lemonade stand that develops skills that will be used for decades to come.

Want to start your own food business?

Hey! 👋I’m Brett Lindenberg, the founder of Food Truck Empire.

We interview successful founders and share the stories behind their food trucks, restaurants, food and beverage brands. By sharing these stories, I want to help others get started.

If you liked this story, sign up for our newsletter that includes our food business startup kit and most popular interviews sent straight to your inbox.

Know someone interesting that should be interviewed on the website? Tell us about them here. 

About the Author: Brett Lindenberg

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Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen

The story behind the pioneering aid group and how it mistakenly came under attack..

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

The Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers delivering food in Gaza has touched off outrage and condemnations from across the world. Today, Kim Severson on the pioneering relief crew at the center of the story, and Adam Rasgon on what we’re learning about the deadly attack on the group’s workers. It’s Thursday, April 4.

Kim, can you tell us about the World Central Kitchen?

World Central Kitchen started as a little idea in Chef José Andrés’ head. He was in Haiti with some other folks, trying to do earthquake relief in 2010. And his idea at that point was to teach Haitians to cook and to use solar stoves and ways for people to feed themselves, because the infrastructure was gone.

And he was cooking with some Haitians in one of the camps, and they were showing him how to cook beans the Haitian way. You sort of smash them and make them a little creamy. And it occurred to him that there was something so comforting for those folks to eat food that was from their culture that tasted good to them. You know, if you’re having a really hard time, what makes you feel good is comfort food, right? And warm comfort food.

So that moment in the camp really was the seed of this idea. It planted this notion in José Andrés’ mind, and that notion eventually became World Central Kitchen.

And for those who don’t know, Kim, who exactly is Chef José Andrés?

José Andrés is a Spanish chef who cooked under some of the Spanish molecular gastronomy greats, came to America, really made his bones in Washington, DC, with some avant-garde food, but also started to expand and cook tapas, cook Mexican food. He’s got about 40 restaurants now.

Yeah. And he’s got a great Spanish restaurant in New York. He’s got restaurants in DC, restaurants in Miami.

Come with me to the kitchen. Don’t be shy.

He’s also become a big TV personality.

Chef, are you going to put the lobster in the pot with the potatoes?

We’re going to leave the potatoes in.

Leave the potatoes in!

He’s one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever been around in the food world.

He’s very much the touchstone of what people want their celebrity chefs to be.

So how does he go from being all those things you just described, to being on the ground, making local comfort food for Haitians? And how does this all go from an idea that that would be a good idea, to this much bigger, full-fledged humanitarian organization?

So he started to realize that giving people food in disaster zones was a thing that was really powerful. He helped feed people after Hurricane Sandy, and he realized that he could get local chefs who all wanted to help and somehow harness that power. But the idea really became set when he went to Houston in 2017 to help after Hurricane Harvey.

And that’s when he saw that getting local chefs to tap into their resources, borrowing kitchens, using ingredients that chefs might have had on hand or are spoiling in the fridge because the power is out and all these restaurants needed something to do with all this food before it rotted — harnessing all that and putting it together and giving people well-cooked, delicious — at least as delicious as it can be in a disaster zone — that’s when World Central Kitchen as we know it today sort of emerged as a fully formed concept.

The first pictures now coming in from Puerto Rico after taking a direct hit — Hurricane Maria slamming into the island. And as you heard, one official saying the island is destroyed.

Shortly after that, he flew to Puerto Rico, where Hurricane Maria had pretty much left the entire island without water and in darkness.

He flew in on one of the first commercial jets that went back in. He got a couple of his chef buddies whose kitchens were closed, and they just decided to start cooking. They were basically just serving pots of stew, chicken stew, in front of the restaurants.

The lines got longer. And of course, chefs are a really specific kind of creature. They really like to help their community. They’re really about feeding people.

So all the people who were chefs or cooks on the ground in Puerto Rico who could wanted to help. And you had all these chefs in the States who wanted to fly down and help if they could, too. So you had this constant flow of chefs coming in and out. That’s when I went down and followed him around for about a week.

And what did you see?

Well, one of the most striking things was his ability to get food to remote places in ways the Salvation Army couldn’t and other government agencies that were on the ground couldn’t. You know, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, doesn’t deliver food. It contracts with people to deliver food.

So you have all these steps of bureaucracy you have to go through to get those contracts. And then, FEMA says you have to have a bottle of water and this and that in those boxes. There’s a lot of structure to be able to meet the rules and regulations of FEMA.

So José doesn’t really care about rules and regulations very much. So he just got his troops together and figured out where people needed food. He had this big paper map he’d carry around and lay out. And he had a Sharpie, and he’d circle villages where he’d heard people needed food or where a bridge was out.

And then he would dispatch people to get the food there. Now, how are you going to do that? He was staying in a hotel where some National Guard and military police were staying to go patrol areas to make sure they were safe. He would tuck his big aluminum pans of food into the back of those guys’ cars, and say, Could you stop and drop these off at this church?

During that time in Puerto Rico, he funded a lot of it off of his own credit cards or with cash. And then he’s on the phone with people like the president of Goya or his golf buddies who are well-connected, saying, hey, we need some money. Can you send some money for this? Can you send some money for that?

So he just developed this network, almost overnight. I mean, he is very much a general in the field. He wears this Orvis fishing vest, has cigars in one pocket, money in the other. And he just sets out to feed people.

And there were deliveries that were as simple as he and a couple of folks taking plastic bags with food and wading through a flooded parking lot to an apartment building where an older person had been stuck for a few days and couldn’t get out, to driving up to a community that had been cut off. There was a church that was trying to distribute food.

We drive through this little mountain road and get to this church. We start unloading the food, and the congregation is inside the church. José comes in, and the pastor thanks him so much. And the 20 people or so who are there gather around José, and they begin praying.

And he puts his head down. He’s a Catholic. He’s a man who prays. He puts his head down. He’s in the middle of these folks, and he starts to pray with them. And then, pulls out his map, circles another spot, and the group is off to the next place.

And when Russia invades Ukraine, he immediately decided it was time for World Central Kitchen to step into a war zone. You know, so many people needed to eat. So many Ukrainians were crossing the border into Poland.

There are refugees in several countries surrounding Ukraine. So a lot of the work that they did was feeding the refugees. They set up big operations around train stations, places where refugees were coming, and then they were able to get into cities.

One of their operations did get hit with some armaments early on. Nobody was hurt badly. But I think that was the first time that they realized this was an actually more dangerous situation than perhaps going in after there’s been an earthquake.

But the other thing that really made a difference here is, José Andrés and World Central Kitchen would broadcast on social media, live from the kitchens. In the beginning, he’d be holding up his phone and saying, we put out 3 million meals for the people of Puerto Rico, chefs for Puerto Rico. It was very infectious.

And now, one of the standard operating procedures for people who are in the World Central Kitchens is to hold up the phone like that — you can see the kitchen, busy in the back — and talk about how many meals they’ve served. They have these kind of wild meal counts, which one presumes are pretty accurate. But they’re like, we served 320,000 meals this morning to the people of Lviv.

I mean, that scale seems important to note. This is not the kind of work that feeds a few people and a few towns. When you’re talking about 300,000 meals in a morning, you’re talking about something that begins, it would seem, to rival the scope and the reach of the groups that we tend to think of as the most important in the disaster-relief world.

Absolutely. And the meals — there are lots and lots and lots of meals. But also, World Central Kitchen hires local cooks. They’ll hire food truck operators, who obviously have no work, and pay them to go out and deliver the meals. They’ll pay local cooks to come in and cook. That’s what they do with a lot of their donations, which is very different than other aid organizations. And this then helps the local economy. He’s trying to buy as much local food as he can. That keeps the economy going in the time of a disaster. So that’s a piece of his operation that is a little different than traditional aid operations.

So walk us up to October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. What does Chef José Andrés and the World Kitchen do?

Well, he had had such impact in Ukraine. And I think the organization itself thought that they had the infrastructure to now take food into another war zone. Gaza, of course, was nothing like Ukraine. But World Central Kitchen shows up. They’re nimble. They start to connect with local chefs.

Right now, they have about 60 kitchens in the areas around Gaza, and they’ve hired about 400 Palestinians to help do that. But getting the food into Gaza became the difficulty.

How do you actually get the food into the Gaza Strip? Large amounts of food that require trucks? You’ve got to realize, getting food into Gaza right now requires going through Israeli checkpoints.

And that slows the operation down. You might get eight trucks a day in, and that is such a small amount of food. And this has been incredibly difficult for any aid operations.

So World Central Kitchen, playing on the experience that they had in a war zone and working with government entities and trying to coordinate permissions — they took that experience from Ukraine and were trying to apply it in the Gaza Strip. Now, they had worked for a long time with Israeli officials. They wanted to make sure that they could get their food in.

And they decided that the best way to do it would be to take food off of ships, get it in a warehouse, and then get that food into Gaza. It took a long time to pull those permissions through, but they were able to get the permissions they needed and set this system up, so they could move the food fairly quickly into North Gaza.

And once they get those permissions, how big a player do they become in Gaza?

World Central Kitchen became a kind of a fulcrum point for getting food aid in to Gaza in a way that a larger and more established humanitarian aid operations couldn’t, in part because they were small and nimble in their way. So the amount of food they were moving maybe wasn’t as large as some of the more established humanitarian aid organizations, but they had so much goodwill. They had so much logistical knowledge.

They were working with local Palestinians who knew the food systems and who understood how to get things in and out. So they were able to find a way to use a humanitarian corridor to have permissions from the Israeli government, to be able to move this food back and forth. And that’s always been the secret to World Central Kitchen — is incredibly nimble. So —

Just like in Puerto Rico, they seemed to win over just about everybody and do the seemingly impossible.

Right. And World Central Kitchen says they delivered 43 million meals to Gazans since the start of the war. And I don’t think there was any other group that could have pulled this off.

Hey, this is Zomi and Chef Olivier. We’re at the Deir al-Balah kitchen. And we’ve got the mise en place. Tell us a little bit about it, Chef.

And then, this caravan, this fairly efficient caravan of armored vehicles, labeled with World Central Kitchen logo on the roof, on the sides — the idea was they head on — this humanitarian quarter, they head on this road. The seven people who went all in vests — three of whom are security people from Great Britain — you have another World Central Kitchen employee who has handled operations in Asia, in Central America. She’s quite a veteran of the World Central Kitchen operation.

And you have a young man who someone told me was like the Michael Jordan of humanitarian aid, who hooked up with World Central Kitchen in Poland. He was a hospitality student and had just become an indispensable make-it-happen guy. And you have a Palestinian guy who’s 25, a driver.

So this is the team. They have all the clearances. They have the well-marked vehicles. It seemed like a very simple, surgical kind of operation. And of course, now, as we know, it was anything but that.

After the break, my colleague Adam Rasgon on what happened to the World Central Kitchen workers in that caravan. We’ll be right back.

So Adam, what ends up happening to this convoy that our colleague Kim Severson just described from World Central Kitchen?

So what we know is that members of the World Central Kitchen had been at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in the Central Gaza Strip. They had just unloaded about 100 tons of food aid that had been brought via a maritime route to the coast of the Gaza Strip. When they departed the warehouse, they were in three cars.

Two of the cars were armored cars, and one was a soft-skinned car, according to the organization. When the cars reached the coastal road, known as Al Rashid Street, they started to make their way south.

And what do we know about how much the World Central Kitchen would have told the Israeli military about their plans to be on this road?

Yeah. So the World Central Kitchen said that its movements were coordinated. And in military speak or in technical speak, people often refer to this as deconfliction. So basically, this process is something that not only the World Central Kitchen but the UN, telecommunications companies going out to repair damaged telecommunications infrastructure, others would use, where they basically provide the Israeli military with information about the people who are traveling — their ID numbers, their names, the license plate numbers of the cars they’ll be traveling in.

They’ll sort of explain where their destination is. And the general process is that the Israelis will then come back to them and say, you’re approved to travel from this time, and you can take this specific route.

And do we know if that happened? If the IDF said, you’re approved, use this route on this night?

So we heard from the World Central Kitchen that they did receive this approval. And the military hasn’t come out and said that it wasn’t approved. So I think it’s fair to assume that their movements were coordinated and de-conflicted.

OK. So what happens as this seemingly pre-approved and coordinated convoy trip is making this leg of the journey?

They started to make their way south towards Rafah. And the three cars suddenly came under fire. The Israeli army unleashes powerful and devastating strikes on the three cars in the convoy, most likely from a drone. The strikes rip through the cars, killing everyone inside.

Shortly thereafter, ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent are dispatched to the location. They retrieve the dead bodies.

They bring those bodies to a hospital. And at the hospital, the bodies are laid out, and journalists start to report to the world that indeed, five members of the World Central Kitchen staff have been killed. And the Palestine Red Crescent teams were continuing to search for other bodies and eventually brought back two more bodies to the hospital for a total of seven people killed in these airstrikes.

And when the sun comes up, what does it end up looking like — the scene of these struck trucks from this convoy?

So early in the morning when the sun comes up, a number of Palestinian journalists headed out to the coastal road and started taking pictures and videos. And I received a series of videos from one of the reporters that I was in touch with, essentially showing three cars, all heavily damaged. One had a World Central Kitchen logo on top of it, with a gaping hole in the middle of the roof.

A second car was completely charred. You could barely recognize the structure of the car. The inside of it had been completely charred, and the front smashed.

And do we know if the strike on this convoy was the only strike happening in this area? In other words, is it possible that this convoy was caught in some kind of a crossfire or in the middle of a firefight, or does it appear that this was quite narrow, and was the Israeli army targeting these specific vehicles, whether or not they realized who was in it?

We don’t have any other indication that there was another strike on that road around that time.

What that suggests, of course, is that this convoy was targeted. Now, whether Israeli officials knew who was in it, whether they were aid workers, seems like a yet-unresolved question. But it does feel very clear that the trucks in this convoy were deliberately struck.

Yes. I do think the trucks in this convoy were deliberately struck.

What is the reaction to these airstrikes on this convoy and to the death of these aid workers?

Well, one of the first reactions is from the World Central kitchen’s founder, José Andrés.

Chef José Andrés, who founded World Central Kitchen, calling them angels.

He said he was heartbroken and grieving.

And adding the Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing.

And then, he accused Israel of using food as a weapon.

What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy.

And he just seemed devastated and quite angry.

And so what is the reaction from not just World Central Kitchen, but from the rest of the world to this airstrike?

There’s, frankly, fury and outrage.

The White House says it is outraged by an Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza, including one American.

President Biden, who has been becoming increasingly critical of Israel’s approach to this war — he came out and said that he was outraged and heartbroken.

Certainly sharper in tone than we have heard in the past. He says Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel also has not —

And we’re seeing similar outrage from foreign governments. The British Foreign Secretary David Cameron —

The dreadful events of the last two days are a moment when we should mourn the loss of these brave humanitarian workers.

— said that the airstrikes were completely unacceptable. And he called on Israel to explain how this happened and to make changes to ensure that aid workers could be safe.

So amid all this, what does Israel have to say about the attack — about how it happened, about why it happened?

The response from Israel this time was much different, compared to other controversial airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Often, when we’re reporting on these issues, we’ll hear from the army that they’re investigating a given incident. It will take days, if not weeks, to receive updates on where that investigation stands.

There are instances where Israel does take responsibility for harming civilians, but it’s often rare. This time, the Prime Minister —

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

— Benjamin Netanyahu comes out with a video message —

— saying that Israel had unintentionally harmed innocent civilians. And that was the first indication or public indication that Israel was going to take responsibility for what had happened.

The IDF works together closely with the World Central Kitchen and greatly appreciates the important work that they do.

We later heard from the military’s chief of staff. Herzi Halevi issued a video statement in English.

I want to be very clear the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification.

And he said this mistake had come after a misidentification. He said it was in the middle of a war, in a very complex condition. But —

This incident was a grave mistake. We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK.

He was clear that this shouldn’t have happened.

I want to talk about that statement, because it seems to suggest — that word, “misidentification”— that the Israeli army believed that somebody else was in this convoy, that it wasn’t a bunch of aid workers.

That’s possible, although it’s extremely vague and cryptic language that genuinely is difficult to understand. And it’s a question that us in the Jerusalem Bureau have been asking ourselves.

I’m curious if the Israeli government has said anything in all of its statements so far about whether it noticed these markings on these three cars in the convoy. Because that, I think, for so many people, stands out as making misidentification hard to understand. It seems like perhaps a random pickup truck could be misidentified as perhaps a vehicle being used by a Hamas militant. But a group of World Central Kitchen trucks with their name all over it, driving down a known aid corridor — that becomes harder to understand as misidentification.

Yeah, it’s an important question. And at this moment, we don’t know exactly what the Israeli reconnaissance drones could see, and whether or not they were able to see, in the darkness of the night, the markings of the World Central Kitchen on the cars. But what is clear is that when the cars were found in the morning, right there was the big emblazoned logo of the World Central Kitchen.

Mm-hmm. I’m curious how you think about the speed with which Israel came out and said it was in the wrong here. Because as you said, that’s not how Israel typically reacts to many of these situations. And that makes me think that it might have something to do with the nature of the aid group that was the target of these airstrikes — the World Central Kitchen — and its story.

I think it does have to do with this particular group. This is a group that’s led by a celebrity chef, very high-profile, who is gone around the world to conflict zones, disaster areas, to provide food aid. And I also think it has to do with the people who were killed, most of who were Western foreign aid workers. Frankly, I don’t think we would be having this conversation if a group of Palestinian aid workers had been killed.

Nor, perhaps, would we be having the reaction that we have had so far from the Israeli government.

I would agree with that.

Adam, at the end of the day, what is going to be the fallout from all of this for the people of Gaza? How do we think that this attack on World Central Kitchen is going to impact how food, medicine, aid is distributed there?

So the World Central Kitchen has said that it’s suspending its operations across Gaza. Because it essentially seems that they don’t feel they can safely operate there right now. And several ships that carried aid for the organization, which were sort of just on the coast — those ships ended up turning back to Cyprus, carrying more than 200 tons of aid.

So aid that was supposed to reach the people of Gaza is now leaving Gaza because of this attack.

Yes. And it’s also had a chilling effect. Another aid group, named INARA, has also suspended its operations in Gaza. And it seems that there is concern among humanitarians that other aid groups could follow.

So in a place where people are already suffering from severe hunger, poor sanitation, the spread of dangerous disease, this is only going to make the humanitarian situation, which is already dire, even worse.

Well, Adam, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. The magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday has killed nine people, injured more than 1,000, and touched off several landslides. It was Taiwan’s strongest quake in the past 25 years. But in a blessing for the island’s biggest cities, its epicenter was off the island’s east coast, relatively far from population centers like Taipei.

And the first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig has fared so well that he was discharged from a Massachusetts hospital on Wednesday just two weeks after surgery. Two previous transplants from genetically modified pigs both failed. Doctors say the success of the latest surgery represents a major moment in medicine that, if replicated, could usher in a new era of organ transplantation.

Today’s episode was produced by Lynsea Garrison, Olivia Natt, and Carlos Prieto, with help from Asthaa Chaturvedi. It was edited by Marc Georges, with help from Paige Cowett, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
• April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
• April 3, 2024   •   27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief
• April 2, 2024   •   29:32 Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate
• April 1, 2024   •   36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
• March 29, 2024   •   48:42 Hamas Took Her, and Still Has Her Husband
• March 28, 2024   •   33:40 The Newest Tech Start-Up Billionaire? Donald Trump.
• March 27, 2024   •   28:06 Democrats’ Plan to Save the Republican House Speaker
• March 26, 2024   •   29:13 The United States vs. the iPhone
• March 25, 2024   •   25:59 A Terrorist Attack in Russia
• March 24, 2024   •   21:39 The Sunday Read: ‘My Goldendoodle Spent a Week at Some Luxury Dog ‘Hotels.’ I Tagged Along.’
• March 22, 2024   •   35:30 Chuck Schumer on His Campaign to Oust Israel’s Leader

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Kim Severson and Adam Rasgon

Produced by Lynsea Garrison ,  Olivia Natt ,  Carlos Prieto and Asthaa Chaturvedi

Edited by Marc Georges and Paige Cowett

Original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The Israeli airstrike that killed seven workers delivering food in Gaza has touched off global outrage and condemnation.

Kim Severson, who covers food culture for The Times, discusses the World Central Kitchen, the aid group at the center of the story; and Adam Rasgon, who reports from Israel, explains what we know about the tragedy so far.

On today’s episode

Kim Severson , a food correspondent for The New York Times.

Adam Rasgon , an Israel correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading

The relief convoy was hit just after workers had delivered tons of food .

José Andrés, the Spanish chef who founded World Central Kitchen, and his corps of cooks have become leaders in disaster aid .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Kim Severson is an Atlanta-based reporter who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking . More about Kim Severson

Adam Rasgon reports from Israel for The Times's Jerusalem bureau. More about Adam Rasgon

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Where are conjoined twins and former reality TV stars Abby and Brittany Hensel now?

• Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel rose to prominence after a 1996 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
• They later had a short-lived TLC reality show chronicling their lives as recent college graduates.
• The Hensels left the spotlight behind, but news that Abby got married has renewed attention.

Abby and Brittany Hensel, Minnesota-born conjoined twins who share a single body with separate heads and necks, first rose to fame as children in the 1990s.

Now, the two are back in the spotlight after news broke that Abby got married.

Here's what to know about the twins and their lives now.

Abby and Brittany Hensel became famous after appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 1996

The Hensel twins were five years old when they appeared as guests on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in April 1996. During the interview, the girls discussed their favorite Disney movie and explained how they work together to move their shared body.

The two also appeared on the cover of Life magazine the same month for a feature titled "One Body, Two Souls."

According to an interview with Time Magazine , their parents, Mike and Patty Hensel, were initially told by doctors they were expecting just one child. It wasn't until Abby and Brittany were born, via C-section, that they realized there were two babies — rare dicephalic parapagus twins, sharing a bloodstream and all of their organs below their waist.

After their story was publicized in Life magazine and on Winfrey's show, the Hensel twins' lives were chronicled in a series of follow-up TV specials, including "Joined for Life," a 2002 documentary that aired on the Discovery channel, and "Joined at Birth" the following year.

Related stories

"Joined for Life: Abby & Brittany Turn 16," an update released in 2006, followed the twins as they worked on getting their driver's licenses and attended high school.

They briefly starred in their own TLC reality show

After high school, the twins attended Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to the Huffington Post .

Following the success of their numerous TV specials, TLC ordered a series following the then 22-year-old twins after they'd finished college. "Abby and Brittany" premiered on the network in August 2012.

"Abby and Brittany" aired for an eight-episode season, ending in October 2012. It depicted their job searches, post-graduation travels in Europe, and part-time teaching. During the series, they also moved into their own house.

Abby reportedly got married in 2021

On Wednesday, Today.com broke the news that Abby, now 34, had gotten married to a man named Joshua Bowling in 2021.

According to the publication, Bowling is a nurse and veteran of the US Army. The sisters, who are both working as fifth-grade teachers, reportedly still live in Minnesota, where they were born and raised. Bowling's Facebook page, which has since been made private but was previously viewed by Business Insider, shows pictures of their wedding and the family traveling.

A Facebook page that appears to belong to Bowling's mother has also shared wedding photos and a video of her son with the Hensels and reference their marriage, tagging the twins' Facebook page . Bowling's mom has also shared photos of the family boating.

According to the New York Post , Abby became a stepmom through the marriage to Bowling's daughter from a past relationship.

TikTok and Facebook accounts that appear to belong to the Hensel twins didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Abby's reported marriage.

Abby and Brittany appeared to address speculation around the marriage on TikTok

News of the marriage gained attention online following the media coverage, which appeared to prompt the pair to respond with TikTok videos on Friday, according to outlets like People and The New York Post .

"The internet is extra LOUD today. We have always been around," the first video's caption read.

The video featured statues of conjoined twins alongside hashtags like "happy" and "marriage."

A second video appeared to show several pictures of the pair and Bowling together, including at their wedding. The third video featured a photo of Abby, Brittany, and Bowling embracing.

"This is for all you haters out there. If you don't like what I do but watch everything I'm doing, you're still a fan," a voiceover said.

• Main content

How to Write a Law Firm Business Plan + Free Sample Plan PDF

Elon Glucklich

6 min. read

Updated April 3, 2024

Free Download:   Sample Law Firm Business Plan Template

It’s a dynamic time to be in the legal industry. Over 63,000 new attorneys have started practicing in the U.S. in the past decade, and they’re joining law firms that are increasingly leveraging new technologies like AI to work more efficiently.

Owning your own law practice offers numerous advantages, from greater control of your caseloads to flexibility in setting billing rates. 

But running a successful firm requires more than a deep knowledge of the law. 

You need to market yourself, understand potential clients’ motivations and desires, and clearly explain to them why they should hire you over another firm. All of which you can figure out by going through the process of writing a business plan.

• What should you include in a law firm business plan?

Here are a few sections we recommend including in any law firm business plan:

Executive summary

Market analysis, marketing plan, company overview, financial plan.

The details of your plan will vary based on factors like the size of your legal practice and whether or not you need funding

If you’re seeking a bank loan or investment, you’re best off following the traditional approach to writing a business plan . Otherwise, don’t feel bound to writing a full plan. You can just focus on the business plan sections that are most relevant to your situation. 

The executive summary is your opening pitch to the reader. Although it comes first in a business plan, you should write it last, since it distills your entire plan into a concise, one- to two-page overview. 

Start by outlining your law firm’s focus and current status. Are you:

• A newly founded practice
• An established firm seeking expansion
• A multi-location enterprise

Then, summarize your practice areas and target clientele. Describe the issues you’re solving for potential clients, and why they should choose you over competitors. 

Maybe your team has experience that’s relevant to your ideal client, or you offer an appealing fee structure. Anyone who reads the executive summary should be able to understand what makes your law firm unique .

Your executive summary briefly touches on your law firm’s area of focus. But the services section is where you give readers a detailed look at the expertise your legal practice offers, and how you address specific client needs.

What are your core practice areas? Do you represent:

Businesses: Contract disputes, regulatory compliance, employment law issues

Individuals: Personal injury claims, divorce proceedings, estate planning

Simply list all of your legal services. If you run an existing law practice, you can mention your existing client base. Also, specify if your law firm specializes in courtroom litigation, drafting contracts, or legal advisory services.

When writing out your services, consider what sets your firm apart. Maybe you provide free or low-cost initial consultations or specialize in areas underserved by competitors. Any services that might give you a competitive advantage are worth mentioning.

Understanding your potential client base is vital. Do you know the size of your market ? What are their characteristics? 

To conduct a market analysis , start by profiling your ideal client. Consider basic demographic information , like their:

• Income level
• Geographic location

Take their life circumstances into account as well. Are they navigating events like:

• Recovering from an injury
• Being charged with a crime
• Running a business
• Planning an estate

Depending on their circumstances, you’ll need to research relevant trends in your area to determine whether there’s a growing demand for the services you offer. 

Document who your competitors are as well. What other law firms might potential clients turn to? Note their strengths and weaknesses and compare them to your own in your market analysis. 

This research will help you develop a unique value proposition—something only your firm offers that you can emphasize in your marketing strategy.

The marketing and sales plan is where you describe how you will stand out and attract clients.

Where are your potential clients seeking out legal information? Common channels for law firms to market their services include:

• Television and radio commercials
• Print and online advertisements
• Company website

You’ll likely want to consider a combination of these tactics. 

But before spending your marketing budget, take some time in your business plan to determine how you’ll position yourself. If you’ve determined your law practice’s unique value proposition , it should be incorporated into all of your messaging.

Say you offer a unique combination of legal services in your market, such as financial compliance services for businesses and high-net-worth individuals. Your marketing plan is where you develop engaging messaging around your services that are tailored to your ideal client and the medium you’re promoting your services on.

Examples could include:

• Hiring a video production team to film a commercial for your legal practice
• Ensuring your law firm’s website is optimized for visibility on search engines.
• Creating pamphlets highlighting your service to distribute at business networking events or places where high net worth individuals frequent, like upscale health clubs or financial advisory offices.

One key point to remember is that the legal profession has specific marketing restrictions, to ensure law firms are promoting their services in an honest, ethical way. Make sure your plans adhere to the bar association’s guidelines .

The company overview isn’t an exhaustive history of your firm’s experience. It’s meant to quickly give the reader an understanding of your background, experience, and the structure of your firm.

Start with the basics:

Founding date: When was the firm established?

Legal structure: Is it a partnership, LLC, corporation, or other structure?

Location(s): List the communities your firm serves

Provide some detail about you and your team as well:

Founding partners: Summarize their legal experience, specializations, and any notable accomplishments.

Key Associates & staff: Briefly outline their roles and credentials

If your legal practice is already established, note any milestones you’ve achieved, such as major cases or community recognition. But even if you’re just starting, listing milestones like securing office space or building an initial client base are worth noting here as well.

Your law firm’s financial plan is crucial to determining if you have a strategy for running a viable business over the long term. 

Here’s a breakdown of what you need:

Sales forecast : Project revenue based on billable hours, retainer fees, contingency cases (if applicable), and any other income sources. Be realistic, especially in the early stages.

Expense budget : List all of your costs, including:

• Salaries and benefits:
• Rent and office expenses
• Malpractice insurance and bar dues
• Technology (i.e. case management software)
• Marketing and client development

Profit & Loss (P&L) : Your income minus your expenses, showing if you expect to be profitable.

Cash flow statement : Predicts when cash comes in and goes out of your business. Cash flows are crucial to ensure you can cover bills and payroll.

Balance sheet : An overview of your law practice’s financial health, listing assets (cash, accounts receivable), liabilities (loans), and equity.

If you’re seeking outside financing to start your legal practice, list startup costs like office build-outs, initial marketing, and technology investments separately from your expenses, since these are areas you’ll be looking to fund with lender or investor funds.

Additionally, be clear about assumptions you’re making when forecasting your revenue streams (case volume, hourly rates, etc.). Researching similar law firms can help you ensure your projections are reasonable.

• Download your free law firm sample business plan

Download our law firm sample business plan for free right now and use it for reference as you write your own plan. You can even copy and paste sections from the sample plan and customize them for your business. Just make sure you’re taking the time to do your own research.

You can also view other legal business plans , or browse the full Bplans library of over 550 sample business plans across numerous industries.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Elon is a marketing specialist at Palo Alto Software, working with consultants, accountants, business instructors and others who use LivePlan at scale. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

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