The executive summary of your business plan for your online business is a key component and necessary in every business plan. However, you may be surprised to discover that rather than writing it first, you should actually write it last. That’s because your executive summary should be a clear and concise summary of the information in your business plan.

It’s very important that all the information in your executive summary and your business plan should be accurate and achievable. A business plan contains assumptions and projections; however, you should still be realistic and avoid ‘puffery.’

The executive summary is seldom recognized for just how important it is. Too many times, companies that seek to raise capital will focus their attention on their business plan. The fact is that venture capitalists and investment bankers quite literally will review thousands of executive summaries and that is why it is important that you can grab the immediate attention of the potential investor so that they want to read your entire business plan. 

You might be surprised to learn that the best way to attract the interest and attention of a potential investor to read your full business plan is to actually keep the executive summary short. Anywhere from one page to no more than three pages is good. This means you will need to pull what you think are the most important facts in your business plan to include in the summary. You will not be able to include everything you talk about in your business plan, but you will be able to include those that are most important. Discreetly choose the headings that will be most likely to gain the desired and immediate attention from the investors. 

It is very important that everything you present in your executive summary is factual and matches with what will be found in the detailed business plan. It needs to be completely accurate and it must not be built on puffery. Projections need to reasonable and achievable. There is nothing that will turn a venture capitalist or investment banker away from your project faster than an executive summary and/or business plan that are filled with puffery and exaggerations. If you are overly optimistic, you can expect your business proposal for your online business to be tossed aside. If they resemble fantasy more than reality, you will quickly lose the interest of investors.