Question: I’m in the process of writing an Internet startup business plan to present to prospective investors. The site isn’t live so I don’t even have a basis for speculation with respect to the financials. I would essentially be pulling numbers out of the air. Being that the Internet business as it pertains to advertising revenues is so mercurial, is it feasible to present the plan without having the financials included? If not, how can I make more realistic financial assumptions?

My answer: No, you won’t get anywhere presenting a business plan to investors without financials. I’m glad you asked me instead of just moving ahead with that idea.

Every new business, including a website business, has to be able to present a reasonable forecast if it’s going to hope to get an approval from outside investors. And it can never be “pulling numbers out of the air.” The assumption is that before you start a new business you have some idea how it’s going to work, based on some experience. If you have no idea, no investor wants to even share the same elevator with you.

In this case, the website business, you need somebody on your team who can project website traffic and sales based on real experience with search terms, search engine optimization, Google ad words and its competitors, conversion rates, and so on. Your traffic doesn’t get pulled out of the air, it’s a function of what you plan to do and what you plan to spend. Know your key search words and the traffic those words and phrases get for others, right now. Know reasonable conversion rates. Make estimates based on real assumptions about real variables.

For more information on this, you could try:

• How do I forecast a new product (YouTube video)
• How could I know? (from the Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan online site).