LivePlan

Good business plan writers charge the same flat fee whether you're raising $50,000 or $2 million in funding. The work behind the plan is often about the same, regardless of the size of the ask.

The better question is what the plan is worth relative to what you're raising. Put the flat rate next to your funding goal and see how the math looks.

Book a free, no-commitment conversation with our business plan writers to see if professional help is right for you. Head to https://hubs.la/Q04ytmFY0 to get started.

Verizon is awarding $10,000 to 10 small businesses every month, and there is no application fee. One free requirement stands between you and the application.

Register for Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, then complete any two free courses or events. That unlocks the grant application, and a single application keeps you eligible for the grants awarded through the rest of the year.

Verizon reviews applications monthly from June through December, so not getting picked in October doesn't take you out of the running. You need to be 18 or older and own a for-profit business in the US, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands.

Find this grant and dozens of others in our free small business grants and funding guide. Get access using the link in our bio.

The resources for learning about business are everywhere, which is exactly what makes it hard to know where to start.

Your local community college is an underrated first stop. Many of them host a Small Business Development Center that runs workshops on real business operations, taught by people who have run businesses themselves.

From there, learn from founders directly. Podcasts like How I Built This give you the full story behind companies you already know, and a few solid general business knowledge books cover the fundamentals that stay true across every industry.

If you’ve got a business idea you’ve been wanting to explore, try our free idea validation tool. Get started using the link in our bio.

Before you spend time and money starting a business, make sure there’s a real market for what you’re selling. Our Market Research feature gives you the information you need to understand your industry, customers, competitors, and market opportunity.

Click the link in our bio to give it a try.

Commercial construction is a $567 billion industry in the US, spread across more than 76,000 businesses. In a market that crowded, winning bids matters more than how skilled your crew is.

The bidding process is where construction companies actually make their money. Every bid needs a detailed cost estimate, a realistic project timeline, and a clear supply and labor plan.

Construction runs seasonally, so build a cash reserve into your business plan before the slow season hits.

Our free construction plan, Fosse Commercial Contractors, takes a contractor from $572,000 in residential revenue to over $1 million in commercial work. It shows what wins bids and outlines a $161,000 funding strategy.

Get access to our free construction business plan using the link in our bio.

Working with a business plan writer is a chance to rehearse your funding meeting before it happens.

A good plan writer asks the questions a lender will ask. They'll push back on your projections and ask what happens if your assumptions turn out to be wrong.

By the time you're sitting across from a real banker, you've already worked through those questions with someone who wasn't deciding your fate. That preparation shows in how you present your business plan.

Book a free, no-commitment conversation with our business plan writers to see if professional help is right for you. Head to https://hubs.la/Q04x-S2w0 to get started.

A common rule of thumb is that a 5% net profit margin is low, 10% is healthy, and 20% or more is strong. But what counts as a good profit margin for your business depends almost entirely on what you sell.

Profit margin can mean three things. Gross margin is revenue minus the cost of making what you sell. Operating margin takes that gross margin and subtracts what it costs to run the business, like rent, payroll, and software, and net margin is what's left after every expense, including interest and taxes.

Grocery stores average about a 2% net margin, construction companies about 6%, and software companies closer to 25%. Research the average profit margin for your industry before you set goals for your business.

Use LivePlan to benchmark your numbers against other businesses in your industry. Get started using the link in our bio.

The average small business sold for 2.7x its annual cash flow in Q2 2026, so a business clearing $130K a year in profit won't come cheap.

Before you agree on a price, make sure the numbers and the team behind them hold up. Audit the P&L and ask whether that profit already accounts for an owner's salary. Then find out who runs the business day to day, and whether they're staying after the sale.

Request five years of financials instead of last year alone or an 18-year average. Recent history shows where the business stands today and which direction it's heading.

Thinking about buying a business? Use our Help Me Forecast feature to project how the business will perform under your ownership. Get started using the link in our bio.

Our Pitch Deck feature turns your business plan into an investor-ready presentation, so you can spend less time formatting and more time preparing to pitch.

Get started using the link in our bio.

Airbnb now has more than 8 million listings worldwide. With that many listings, you need to give guests a real reason to pick your property over every other one in their search results.

A generic description and a set of basic photos will make it tough to keep your property consistently booked. Pick a theme tied to an actual reason people travel to the area your Airbnb is located in.

Have your pricing be dictated by seasonality and demand instead of setting one flat rate for the whole year. A short-term rental that can accommodate groups of four or more is often where real profit shows up.

Get access to our free Airbnb business plan using the link in our bio.