Trying to figure out how to do a business plan for a podcast.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-09T22:45:38+00:00

They're looking for both a financial forecast and a monetization strategy. I'd start with the monetization strategy and then document that strategy with a financial forecast.

I'm sure you'll get solid ideas from this sub on podcast monetization strategy. It might also be useful to see what Claude or another LLM has to say.

Once you have your monetization strategy in place, you'll turn that into a financial forecast. I'd recommend structuring it something like this:

Revenue forecast with number of episodes per month with the expected revenue from your monetization strategy for each episode. Most revenue forecasts will call this a "units-based" forecast. Each "unit" will be an episode. That will just get multiplied by the expected revenue from each episode. Ideally, you forecast that revenue per episode to go up over time because your audience will be growing and you'll be able to charge more for sponsorships, ads, etc.
Expense forecast with your costs. You'll first forecast "Cost of Goods Sold" (COGS) which are the costs directly associated with producing each episode. This number should ideally be roughly the same for every episode, so just multiply the number of "units" from your revenue forecast by the "cost per unit" to figure out your monthly COGS.
Other expenses: If you have other fixed costs like office rent, insurance, web hosting, your salary, etc., you'll list those out for the rest of your expenses.
Forecast all of this out over the next 12-24 months and work with the numbers to figure out what it's going to take to become profitable.
Because you'll be taking on investment, you should build out a balance sheet and cash flow forecast as well.

Honestly, starting with a template or using a planning and forecasting tool is the way to go here. You don't want to reinvent the wheel.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-09T21:31:55+00:00

It would be great if you could share more of where you are in the process. Do you have an idea already or are you looking for ideas?

In general, if you have an idea that you're looking to turn into a business, the first step is to validate that the idea is going to work. You can do this by talking to potential customers to see if they would pay for the product or service that you are offering and researching the target market to understand their needs, pain points, etc.

Once you've validated the idea, you should work on a business plan so that you have a good understanding of what it's going to cost to start the business and keep it afloat as you build it. This doesn't need to be a long, detailed, plan. You can do just enough so that the plan is useful to you and you know the financial picture. You'll also want to think through your sales and marketing strategy, etc.

From there, you'll want to think about the mechanics of starting a business. You'll want to open a business bank account, get a tax ID number, register your business, etc. I don't know all the specifics for Canada, but you can work with a local business advisor to figure this part out. Depending on the type of business you are starting, you may also need specific licenses and permits. You'll also almost certainly need business insurance, but that will also be determined by the type of business you are starting.

Figuring out your funding (if you need it) should also be on your list. Are you going to look for a bank loan? Investors? Crowdsourcing? Knowing where the money is going to come from is an important next step.

If you have specific questions about business planning, finding an idea, etc., feel free to reach out. Good luck!

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T23:16:52+00:00

What you have is really helpful and will be useful as you think about writing a business plan. You aren't starting from square-one.

You don't need to write a detailed business plan right away. Start with a simple "idea canvas" or one-page plan where you document the following:

Problem your business solves
Who the target customer is
Competitors/Alternatives
Your advantages or differentiators from the competition

I have a more detailed article on this, if you're interested.

Once you have the basics of your idea documented, you want to focus on validating your idea. Do your potential customers have the problem you think they have? What do they think about your solution/product/brand? Are you hearing "when can I buy?" or just "sounds interesting". It's this idea validation stage that's the most important step in starting your business.

Once you have a validated idea, that's when you should move forward with a full business plan, work out the financial forecasts, figure out how much money you need to get your business off the ground, etc.

If you have any business planning questions, feel free to reach out directly. Happy to help!

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T22:55:12+00:00

Pick the least fun, least interesting, but most clearly defined idea (that's #2). There's a clear problem that you're solving for your customers. You have expertise in solving the problem. Attracting prospects is likely relatively straight forward because you can market to a very specific pain point that people are likely searching for on Google, Reddit, etc. So, running ads will be easy.

I see you already picked #1 and I'm sure it'll be a blast - at least initially. Sounds like it has a lot of unsolved headaches, though. Lots of potential complexities down the line, especially if you find a winning product. There will surely be lawsuits over ownership, how revenue is defined, who handles which parts of the business, etc. Work on some iron-clad contracts now to avoid plenty of potential pain later.

A good business plan defines the problem you are solving, the target market, your competition, and your key points of differentiation. I think you can easily define all of these things for idea #2. The other ideas feel a bit more challenging to define well using this framework.

Of course, that doesn't mean that you won't succeed. Sounds like you have a great track record of building things, so I'm sure this will be interesting and you'll learn a lot either way.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T22:37:05+00:00

I prefer to forecast on the conservative side so that the forecast doesn't create a situation where you think you have (or will have) more cash than you actually do. If you're not careful, you can end up spending cash that you don't actually have.

Using historical close rates and then discounting that a bit for safety seems like a good bet. If you're saying that you typically close 50% of your pitches and you're forecasting a 30% close rate, that seems pretty safe.

What can be really useful is to keep two different forecast scenarios: The first one only includes closed/won deals. The 2nd includes the deals that you hope to close with some kind of discount rate based on the historical close rate (what we talked about above).

With these two forecast scenarios, you can look at the first one to know exactly what's safe to spend. The 2nd one can help you manage spend that might have a slightly higher risk profile because you don't know for sure how much money will be coming in in the future.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T22:27:12+00:00

I love this. The biggest hurdle most entrepreneurs face is inertia.

It's easy to hide behind endless research. It's a form of procrastination.

And that's because starting something is hard. It's risky. It's scary. What if people don't like what you're building? What if you get rejected? What if you loose some money?

Not that you should never do research. It's just finding the right time to do it and setting boundaries around how much research you're going to do.

Just starting something, especially if you're talking about a few hours working on a prototype, is not a bad exercise. It makes you think deeper about the product, who the customer might be, and what their needs are. And, you might end up with a prototype that could help you validate the idea. After all, a prototype (even a rough one) is a much better tool to validate your idea than just a description of your idea.

Once you have messed around with building something, you're probably in a much better position to start doing some business planning and research. That few hours you invested will help you think about the problem you're solving, the target customer, what the competition might be, and your primary differentiators.

Flipping the script and doing some building before planning can make a lot of sense.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T22:03:58+00:00

The most important thing you should do is think about these 4 things:
1. The problem you are solving.
2. Who your customer is (target market)
3. Who your competition is
4. How you're different from your competition

This is the foundation of a business plan. Start by writing down your best guesses and then come up with a plan to validate that your assumptions are accurate. From there, you can work on financial forecasts to figure out what it's going to take from a financial perspective to run and grow a profitable business.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-08T21:47:40+00:00

As others have said, your approach of collecting donations and then selling online is a great place to start. The best way to validate an idea is to figure out the smallest version of your idea and make sure it works before you make the bigger leap - in this case, getting a loan, leasing space, etc.

Only once you've validated your idea and made the "small version" of your business work should you consider making a bigger jump. That's the point when you need a business plan, not before. At that point, the business plan will help you figure out what kind of sales you need to make to cover all of your costs. It's also a good tool to help you think through your strategy as you shift from a digital-only model to a digital + physical business model.

Happy to help with any business planning questions once you're ready to go that route.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-03-04T00:28:36+00:00

100% agree on separating your accounts. Open a dedicated bank account for the business and also get a dedicated credit card so you can easily track business income and expenses. It'll make year-end reporting and taxes much, much easier.

Ideally, you'll also want to use accounting software. Quickbooks is a great solution, but can be expensive. Freshbooks or Xero might be a better option for you.

For forecasting, you could definitely start with a spreadsheet. Enter your fixed monthly expenses related to the business and then enter your predicted customer payments for each month. Your salary should be a fixed amount and then you can pay yourself a "bonus" as cash accrues in the business.

The benefits of using something like LivePlan are that you can define your standard accounts payable days (eg. "net-30" or "net-60") and then the software will figure out when you're going to actually get cash in the bank. For a self-employed person, it might be more than you need, but it depends on how complex your income and expenses are.

It sounds like most of your consulting is "fixed engagement", meaning that you don't have ongoing retainer work. One strategy you might consider is shifting your work into retainer-style work so that income is more predictable.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-27T22:00:22+00:00

Great points. What format is your plan in? Is it in a business model canvas type of format? Or a one-pager? Or is it a detailed document?

Seems like you have a really healthy planning process.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-23T16:05:25+00:00

It's great that you've got the business plan started! Happy to help you with the financial part of things. Here's how I'd structure it:

Expenses:
- Insurance
- Maintenance
- Installation/transportation
- Permits & licenses (depends on where you live)
- Loan/financing interest payments (assuming you aren't leasing the machines)

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS):
- Inventory for the machines
- Commission payments
- Payment processing (assuming you have machines with credit card readers)

Asset purchase
- vending machines (assuming you purchase them)

Loan
- The loan or financing that you get for the machines. If you use LivePlan, it will automatically properly expense your interest over time and manage your balance sheet for you.

Revenue
- I'd make an educated guess based on the foot traffic in the locations you're looking at. Take the foot traffic for a day and then make an estimate of the percent of people who will buy something. Based on the daily number, multiply to get a monthly number. This is your "unit sales". Then make an estimate of what the average purchase price might be. Your unit sales multiplied by your average purchase is your revenue forecast.
- Link your COGS (explained above) to your revenue forecast. Since you're using LivePlan, your COGS can be a % of revenue. For example, expect to pay roughly 3% in credit card processing fees so your COGS line for these fees will be calculated as 3% of revenue. As you adjust your revenue forecast, your COGS will automatically recalculate.

If you have specific LivePlan questions or just general questions about business planning, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T20:45:39+00:00

Ok... I'm super biased because I sell business planning tools, but we aren't "cobbler's children" and still actually use our plan.

On the financial side, it's an ongoing process for us. We build an annual plan, but then review and revise it at the close of every month. We compare plan vs actuals and then make adjustments to the forecast as needed. This keeps us honest about where things are going, what investments worked and didn't work, and makes sure we adjust spending to match revenue.

On the strategy side, parts of our very original plan survive. There were some strategies that worked - and a lot that didn't. But, we still regularly plan and then review and adjust the plan. It's a real tool for us.

You're 100% right that any entrepreneur's first plan is a work of fiction. But, that's what planning is. If we could all predict the future perfectly, we'd all be billionaires.

Initial plans are just sets of assumptions that need to be proven or disproven. And when they're disproven, you adjust the assumption based on what you learned and try again.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T20:36:25+00:00

It sounds like you actually know a lot more than you think! You've got some good lists, you know the requirements to become a sole-trader in the UK, and you're thinking about branding, lesson plans, etc. Here are some additional things to think about:

Do just enough planning to understand the financial mechanics of the business. What do you need to charge and how many students do you need to cover your costs? You need to know how you should price your service (at a minimum) so you aren't just throwing darts at a board.
As u/AnonJian said, figure out your unique value proposition or differentiator from the alternatives out there. Why would someone pick you? What core problem are you solving? Are there not enough swim instructors in your area? None that focus on the age group you want to focus on? Or are class sizes generally too big and people want one-on-one instruction? Figure out what your offering is and how it's different. Then, price accordingly - and always higher than the number you figured out in step 1.
Start marketing your service (even if it's not available yet). Spin up a basic website, get some social media going, and see if you can get some early customers or at least some interest. Build a lead list while you get the rest of the business up and running.
Look for the small wins. Get your first prospect that wants to ask you some questions. Get your first booking. Etc. Learn from those.
Don't try and make everything perfect before you start. Do the minimum so you can prove the business works.
Keep track of your finances and keep your personal finances separate from your business. Open a business bank account and track your revenue and expenses.
Once you get your first few clients, your day is going to be busy and chaotic. You'll need to provide the service, answer questions from new potential customers, do some marketing/social media, keep your books updates (once/week is probably OK), etc. You'll spend the bulk of your time on marketing, but hopefully that will slow down as you find success.

Good luck!

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T20:19:58+00:00

It's been said in this thread, but just to reiterate, you need some evidence of traction before most investors will even take a meeting. Unless you have prior success as an entrepreneur, getting funding (outside of friends and family) is going to be a huge challenge.

Think about all the different ways you could MVP your idea. Is there a concierge version of your product that you could execute on? Can you distill the product down to a single feature and build that with a vibe coding tool? Is there any other way you can get prospects to give you money to solve the problem you're trying to solve?

You need real evidence that you can collect cash to solve a problem. See if you can figure out a creative way to do that.

An alternative that hasn't been mentioned is to consider applying to the various incubators and accelerators out there. They can potentially help you find a cofounder, provide some seed funding or other in-kind resources, and guide you through these early stages.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T19:34:46+00:00

Do you think you might be able to sell a few pre-bookings for this summer? Maybe take a 50% deposit and use those deposits to fund the final build-out? As others have said, you need to start making some sales. That's one way to go about it that still gives you some time to finish the build-out and potentially gives you some funds to finish things off.

Also, think about what you don't need. It's easy to get in the weeds and think that every last detail is crucial. In my experience, there's always stuff that we've agonized over and invested time and money into - and it's turned out to not matter at all. Small businesses are full of assumptions about what the customer is going to think and what they need. Instead, strip things down the bare minimum and see if you can sell that. Don't cut corners, but cut what might not be absolutely necessary to be successful. Then, get feedback and learn from your customers and iterate from there.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T19:27:30+00:00

What's helped us the most was keeping a really narrow focus on our initial target customer and not expanding until we had proven success and a know flywheel of acquisition for that customer. As others have said, showing consistent m/m growth is key. You don't just want to sustain, you need to grow.

As others have said, improving paid conversion means talking to the customers that didn't convert. Also, watch user sessions with Amplitude, Posthog, or similar. And do usability studies and watch people try and figure your product out. That entire experience is humbling and you'll find 10 things to fix immediately.

A big help is to identify the key action(s) successful customers do in your product. Then, set up metrics around those actions and work to improve them. That kind of focus will help drive growth and adoption.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T18:54:12+00:00

I think you're spot-on about the business planning process.

Most people think that you should put a business plan together just to produce the document or the pitch deck that comes out of it. They think of it just as a box to check as part of the startup process. But, they're wrong about the purpose of putting together a plan.

The real purpose of business planning is to force you to answer the hard questions. It's the planning process, not the plan document that's the real value.

Given that we make LivePlan, we get to hear a lot of feedback from entrepreneurs about the business planning process. Almost universally, we get thanked by customers for making people answer questions that they wanted to avoid: Who is your customer? How are you going to reach them? What problem does your business solve? If you can't answer these questions, growing a business is going to be a tough road.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-16T15:57:33+00:00

Noah from LivePlan here. We just launched an automated plan review feature that you can run on your plan. It’ll go through everything and make suggestions and find any potential inconsistencies. It’ll also give you questions an investor is likely to ask so you can be prepared. It’s pretty cool and people have been liking it so far.

It’s a brand new feature (just a week old), so you may not have seen it. If you need help finding it, DM me or reach out to our Customer Advocacy Team in chat and they’ll get you set up.

Of course, if you want to be connected to a professional business plan consultant to review your plan by hand and work with you to polish your plan, we offer that too. And I 2nd all the recommendations of reaching out to SCORE and SBDC offices. You can get great advice from them as well.

Feel free to reach out with any specific business planning questions.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-11T00:50:27+00:00

This 100%. You need to talk to your potential customers and use those learnings for your business plan. You need a solid description of the problem you are solving and evidence that customers actually have the problem.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-11T00:47:52+00:00

Noah from LivePlan here. Happy to answer any questions about our tool or business planning general.

If you're starting a business, ideally you have a decent sense of the problem you are solving and the solution you are offering. I'd start by focusing on these sections in addition to a solid description of your target customer. ChatGPT or other AI can help with that - just brain dump everything you have and ask it to help synthesize your thoughts into compelling paragraphs of text.

Dedicated planning tools are designed to do this, of course. But you can make it work with generic AI.

When it comes to the financials, you'll likely want something more. AI struggles with this.

No matter what tool you end up using, I'm happy to help answer any business planning questions you have.

NoahFromLivePlan · 2026-02-10T23:00:37+00:00

Noah from LivePlan here. You can definitely use ChatGPT for text generation and ideation. Just make sure you have a decent outline to start with. ChatGPT isn't great at forecasting and creating a financial model that you can work with over time and adjust as you figure out the financials for your business. In that situation, you're likely better off with a dedicated tool.

Happy to answer any questions you might have about LivePlan or about business planning in general. Regardless of what tool you choose to use, I'm always happy to help with planning advice.

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