Cloud infrastructure was always a field that interested me, even though I didn’t fully grasp what it actually is. Currently I am pursuing an associates for network services technology and along the way decided to also pursue a enterprise cloud computing certificate to bolster my knowledge. I started this project on the capstone class already with a cloud practitioner certificate under my belt. In this post I’ll describe how each step went for me and troubles I had along the way.

1. Certification
Off to a great start! Already completed the first step with my certification in hand.

2. HTML
Before this challenge I only vaguely knew HTML commands. After viewing an HTML full course on YouTube, It wasn’t that tricky at all to get the bulk of a static resume up and ready to be styled with CSS in the next step. I had to redo the HTML though due to oversimplifying the kind of site I would need.

3. CSS
Never even written down one font style in CSS before and another course video helped me with what I needed to get cracking. The biggest issue was centering the website so it wasn’t all the way to the left of the browser. I messed with a gradient color scheme but it didn’t work out how I wanted to in the end so I decided on a simple Harvard style resume. I am really glad with how it turned out and this was the first time I felt gratification from completing something I thought was daunting a month ago.

4. Static S3 Website Your HTML
Finally to the first step in building infrastructure. I completely forgot about AWS best practices when using an S3 bucket as a static website hosting and fixed it later on in the challenge. I configured the bucket to allow all public access at the start then got to implementing an Origin Access Identity(OAI) policy via CloudFront. This step wasn’t difficult before the OAI.

Step 5 & 6/ HTTPS With CloudFront
As mentioned in the previous step this part was a bit tricky for me. The distribution had to be set up with the domain that I have purchased (albertomestrada.com) on Route53. Luckily YouTube comes to save the day like always. I learned about how a behavior works and setting up DNS records on Route53.

7. Javascript
The only thing I knew of Javascript was that it was the hardest part about learning web dev and it isn’t a language of choice outside that realm. DOM manipulation had me spinning in circles. The biggest skill I started to exercise was looking at official AWS documentation and from the W3 school for web development.

8. Database
A table with one item of ID 100 and a visitor count field? Easy. Great. Love it.

9. API
In this step I had to redo my Javascript since it was only refreshing upon local data. Implementing an API was my entrance to the developer side of things and got me interested in the manipulation of them. After this I will definitely look at open source API’s and see what I can build with them. New syntax had to be learned as in to invoke the API endpoint but not too bad this step. Some grey hairs where grown though.

Steps 10 & 11 Python/Lambda/Tests
I was pretty excited for this step since I have always wanted to learn Python. As for Lambda, it was my first hands on use of it. After a long free intro course I started hammering on documentation on how to manipulate Lambda handlers and events as well as what to expect on responses and debug my code on Lambda. After so many hours put into this step the function finally was able to call the DynamoDB table and target the single item to increment the counter by 1. I had hope I could finish from here.

*12. Infrastructure as Code(IaaC) *
This was the step that I spent the most time on. The concept of automating deployment in a template was crazy to me. There was so much jargon I had to learn and research online. The concept became clearer to me after testing out the AWS SAM CLI on my local machine. The credentials part was simple to configure and so was building a test template. After that I attempted to state my current project in YAML format. Jeez, how funny how a simplified version of the actual thing can still be daunting and cryptic. I tried to build and deploy my template to another AZ but the tests kept failing and ended up being rolled back. This is a step that I will finish even after my capstone class. This step was not completed at the date of this blog (04/23/24).

Steps 13 & 14 & 15 Source Control/GitHub Actions
Oh boy here we go. This step taught me that using other peoples programs is well and all but a small configuration can complete your goal. I learned how workflows work and how to implement GitHub secrets to be referenced in the file. One step by Jake Jarvis I believe was preventing me from accessing my bucket even though it had the correct bucket policy and IAM role being assumed. A simple argument that was passed that had to have the S3 bucket ACL’s enabled was the only thing preventing me from uploading updated code. The relief I felt from that eureka was amazing. Development is a great deal of head scratching and sleepness nights for the smallest of things. The only GitHub actions that was not completed was the SAM build, test and deploy. Sync to S3, update Lambda code were completed.

Summary & Takeaways:
This challenge has mainly taught me that to use the AWS cloud or any other provider is a bundle of knowledge that needs to be known to implement your needs to its fullest. There are many fully managed services that can help you along the way but it all comes down to what you make of it and your specific use case. I would love to delve more into the security side of AWS and complete the security focused certification after receiving the Cloud Solutions Architect cert. I will continue to improve upon this project and finish the parts that I haven’t completed. Everything is an ongoing process and the small accomplishments along the way will get me closer to really understand the ins and outs of the AWS Cloud.

The post AWS Cloud Resume Challenge appeared first on ProdSens.live.

As part of learning the Rust ecosystem, I dedicated the last few days to error management. Here are my findings.

Error management 101

The Rust book describes the basics of error management. The language separates between recoverable errors and unrecoverable ones.

Unrecoverable errors benefit from the panic!() macro. When Rust panics, it stops the program. Recoverable errors are much more enjoyable.

Rust uses the Either monad, which stems from Functional Programming. Opposite to exceptions in other languages, FP mandates to return a structure that may contain either the requested value or the error. The language models it as an enum with generics on each value:

#[derive(Copy, PartialEq, PartialOrd, Eq, Ord, Debug, Hash)]
pub enum Result<T, E> {
    Ok(T),
    Err(E),
}

Because Rust manages completeness of matches, matching on Result enforces that you handle both branches:

match fn_that_returns_a_result() {
    Ok(value) => do_something_with_value(value)
    Err(error) => handle_error(error)
}

If you omit one of the two branches, compilation fails.

The above code is safe if unwieldy.

But Rust offers a full-fledged API around the Result struct. The API implements the monad paradigm.

Propagating results

Propagating results and errors is one of the main micro-tasks in programming. Here’s a naive way to approach it:

#[derive(Debug)]
struct Foo {}
#[derive(Debug)]
struct Bar { foo: Foo }
#[derive(Debug)]
struct MyErr {}

fn main() {
    print!("{:?}", a(false));
}

fn a(error: bool) -> Result<Bar, MyErr> {
    match b(error) {                                   //1
        Ok(foo) => Ok(Bar{ foo }),                     //2
        Err(my_err) => Err(my_err)                     //3
    }
}

fn b(error: bool) -> Result<Foo, MyErr> {
    if error {
        Err(MyErr {})
    } else {
        Ok(Foo {})
    }
}

1. Return a Result which contains a Bar or a MyErr
2. If the call is successful, unwrap the Foo value, wrap it again, and return it
3. If it isn’t, unwrap the error, wrap it again, and return it

The above code is a bit verbose, and because this construct is quite widespread, Rust offers the ? operator:

When applied to values of the Result type, it propagates errors. If the value is Err(e), then it will return Err(From::from(e)) from the enclosing function or closure. If applied to Ok(x), then it will unwrap the value to evaluate to x.

—The question mark operator

We can apply it to the above a function:

fn a(error: bool) -> Result<Bar, MyErr> {
    let foo = b(error)?;
    Ok(Bar{ foo })
}

The Error trait

Note that Result enforces no bound on the right type, the “error” type. However, Rust provides an Error trait.

Two widespread libraries help us manage our errors more easily. Let’s detail them in turn.

Implement Error trait with thiserror

In the above section, I described how a struct could implement the Error trait. However, doing so requires quite a load of boilerplate code. The thiserror crate provides macros to write the code for us. Here’s the documentation sample:

#[derive(Error, Debug)]                                                   //1
pub enum DataStoreError {
    #[error("data store disconnected")]                                   //2
    Disconnect(#[from] io::Error),
    #[error("the data for key `{0}` is not available")]                   //3
    Redaction(String),
    #[error("invalid header (expected {expected:?}, found {found:?})")]   //4
    InvalidHeader {
        expected: String,
        found: String,
    }
}

1. Base Error macro
2. Static error message
3. Dynamic error message, using field index
4. Dynamic error message, using field name

thiserror helps you generate your errors.

Propagate Result with anyhow

The anyhow crate offers several features:

• A custom anyhow::Result struct. I will focus on this one
• A way to attach context to a function returning an anyhow::Result
• Additional backtrace environment variables
• Compatibility with thiserror
• A macro to create errors on the fly

Result propagation has one major issue: functions signature across unrelated error types. The above snippet used a single enum, but in real-world projects, errors may come from different crates.

Here’s an illustration:

#[derive(thiserror::Error, Debug)]
pub struct ErrorX {}                                                      //1
#[derive(thiserror::Error, Debug)]
pub struct ErrorY {}                                                      //1

fn a(flag: i8) -> Result<Foo, Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {               //2
    match flag {
        1 => Err(ErrorX{}.into()),                                        //3
        2 => Err(ErrorY{}.into()),                                        //3
        _ => Ok(Foo{})
    }
}

1. Two error types, each implemented with a different struct with thiserror
2. Rust needs to know the size of the return type at compile time. Because the function can return either one or the other type, we must return a fixed-sized pointer; that’s the point of the Box construct. For a discussion on when to use Box compared to other constructs, please read this StackOverflow question.
3. To wrap the struct into a Box, we rely on the into() method

With anyhow, we can simplify the above code:

fn a(flag: i8) -> anyhow::Result<Foo> {
    match flag {
        1 => Err(ErrorX{}.into()),
        2 => Err(ErrorY{}.into()),
        _ => Ok(Foo{})
}

With the Context trait, we can improve the user experience with additional details.

The with_context() method is evaluated lazily, while the context() is evaluated eagerly.

Here’s how you can use the latter:

fn a(flag: i8) -> anyhow::Result<Bar> {
    let foo = b(flag).context(format!("Oopsie! {}", flag))?;              //1
    Ok(Bar{ foo })
}

fn b(flag: i8) -> anyhow::Result<Foo> {
    match flag {
        1 => Err(ErrorX{}.into()),
        2 => Err(ErrorY{}.into()),
        _ => Ok(Foo{})
    }
}

1. If the function fails, print the additional Oopsie! error message with the flag value

Conclusion

Rust implements error handling via the Either monad of FP and the Result enum. Managing such code in bare Rust requires boilerplate code. The thiserror crate can easily implement the Error trait for your structs, while anyhow simplifies function and method signatures.

To go further:

• Rust error handling
• The Error trait
• anyhow crate
• thiserror crate
• What is the difference between context and with_context in anyhow?
• Error handling across different languages
• A retrospective on Errors Management: where do we go from here?

Originally published at A Java Geek on February 11^th, 2024

The post Error management in Rust, and libs that support it appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Introduction

Tables are a fundamental component of web development, often used to present data in a structured format. However, when dealing with large datasets, managing and navigating through the information can become challenging. This is where sorting and pagination come into play. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to implement sorting functionality on HTML tables using JavaScript, creating sortable and paginated tables for better data organization and user experience.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the implementation, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Familiarity with DOM manipulation and event handling in JavaScript will be particularly beneficial. Additionally, ensure you have a text editor and a web browser installed to test your code.

Understanding Sortable and Paginated Tables

Sortable tables allow users to rearrange the rows based on specific criteria, such as alphabetical order, numerical value, or date. Pagination, on the other hand, involves dividing large datasets into manageable chunks or pages, enhancing readability and performance. By combining these functionalities, we can create user-friendly tables that facilitate efficient data exploration and analysis.

Implementing Sorting in HTML Tables

To implement sorting on an HTML table, we’ll utilize JavaScript to add event listeners to the table headers. When a header is clicked, we’ll dynamically sort the table rows based on the corresponding column’s values. Let’s illustrate this with an example:

 lang="en">

     charset="UTF-8">
     name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    
    


     id="data-table">
        
            
                 onclick="sortTable(0)">ID
                 onclick="sortTable(1)">Name
                 onclick="sortTable(2)">Age
            
        
        
            
                1
                Nilesh
                25
            
            
                2
                SpeakLouder
                30
            
            
                3
                Raut
                20
            
 
                4
                Dev
                43
            
        
    

In this example, each table header (

JavaScript Code for Sorting

Now, let’s implement the sortTable() function in our script.js file:

function sortTable(columnIndex) {
    let table, rows, switching, i, x, y, shouldSwitch;
    table = document.getElementById("data-table");
    switching = true;

    while (switching) {
      switching = false;
      rows = table.rows;

      for (i = 1; i < rows.length - 1; i++) {
        shouldSwitch = false;
        x = rows[i].getElementsByTagName("td")[columnIndex];
        y = rows[i + 1].getElementsByTagName("td")[columnIndex];

        if (x.innerHTML.toLowerCase() > y.innerHTML.toLowerCase()) {
          shouldSwitch = true;
          break;
        }
      }

      if (shouldSwitch) {
        rows[i].parentNode.insertBefore(rows[i + 1], rows[i]);
        switching = true;
      }
    }
}

This JavaScript function performs a simple bubble sort algorithm to arrange the rows based on the values in the specified column.

Deafault Table

Clicked on the column Label age , it sort the column according to age in decreasing order

Table Sorting using React js

import React, { useState } from 'react';

const SortTable = () => {
    const [data, setData] = useState([
        { id: 1, name: 'Nilesh', age: 25 },
        { id: 2, name: 'SpeakLouder', age: 30 },
        { id: 3, name: 'Raut', age: 20 },
         { id: 4, name: 'Devto', age: 21 }
    ]);
    const [sortBy, setSortBy] = useState('');
    const [sortOrder, setSortOrder] = useState('asc');

    const handleSort = (column) => {
        const order = column === sortBy && sortOrder === 'asc' ? 'desc' : 'asc';
        setData(prevData => {
            const sortedData = [...prevData].sort((a, b) => {
                if (a[column] < b[column]) return order === 'asc' ? -1 : 1;
                if (a[column] > b[column]) return order === 'asc' ? 1 : -1;
                return 0;
            });
            return sortedData;
        });
        setSortBy(column);
        setSortOrder(order);
    };

    return (
        <table>
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th onClick={() => handleSort('id')}>IDth>
                    <th onClick={() => handleSort('name')}>Nameth>
                    <th onClick={() => handleSort('age')}>Ageth>
                tr>
            thead>
            <tbody>
                {data.map(item => (
                    <tr key={item.id}>
                        <td>{item.id}td>
                        <td>{item.name}td>
                        <td>{item.age}td>
                    tr>
                ))}
            tbody>
        table>
    );
};

export default SortTable;

Conclusion

In this blog post, we’ve learned how to apply sorting functionality to HTML tables using JavaScript, enabling users to interactively organize and explore data. By incorporating pagination techniques and responsive design principles, we can further enhance the usability and performance of our web applications. So go ahead, implement sortable and paginated tables to streamline data presentation and improve user experience!

For more advanced sorting algorithms and techniques, you can explore resources such as this article.

Remember, mastering the art of table manipulation opens up endless possibilities for creating dynamic and user-friendly web interfaces. Experiment with different features and customization options to tailor the tables to your specific needs and preferences. Happy coding!

The post How to Apply Sorting on Tables in HTML Using JavaScript: Sortable Paginated Tables appeared first on ProdSens.live.

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It’s that time of the year…

We asked a few badass colleagues and expert Trendsters what they think will be huge in 2024. Here’s what they said:

1. Niche Sports 

Sara Friedman, Senior Writer of The Hustle

Pickleball has grown into a national craze, with courts and other related businesses popping up everywhere. In 2024, more niche sports will follow.

Source: Google Trends, six-month rolling average

Games like badminton, racquetball, croquet, and spikeball will see increased popularity through activity bars, facilities, and clubs. These sports will be used to fill vacant shopping malls and offices that are too difficult to flip into residential space.

Badminton, where players use racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net, might be the next big hit among Gen Z and Millennials, per Pinterest.

2. The Menopause Market

Arlene Battishill, E-commerce maverick, Shark Tank trailblazer

The market is finally recognizing women ages 50 and older as a huge demographic with a lot of disposable income.

One way this trend will manifest is through the continued growth of the ~$17B menopause market. Globally, menopause causes $150B in lost productivity. It’s a big pain point for half the population, and a huge opportunity for businesses.

There’s already been an influx of products created for perimenopause and menopause care, with celebrities and influencers in the mix. But the market is still ripe for disruption.

3. Leaner Tech Startups

Dan Layfield, Subscription business expert, ex-Uber, ex-Codecademy

This year, many tech companies course-corrected their overhiring with massive layoffs. In 2024, the size of tech startups will continue to shrink, and we’ll see even leaner operations make bigger profits.

Source: Layoffs.fyi

With the help of better tools, newer codebases and AI, companies will need fewer engineers to build and ship meaningful products efficiently. This trend will show most clearly in the consumer app space – think fitness, health, nutrition and productivity.

4. Cryptocurrency

Cahill Camden, Fractional CMO with two 8-figure exits, web3 and AI expert

As the bad boys in crypto get cleared out of the way, there’s now space for cryptocurrency – especially Bitcoin – to receive mainstream adoption in 2024.

Major asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity already proposed to launch spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF), which will make bitcoin more accessible to the average investor.

A spot ETF allows people to directly invest in Bitcoin, rather than Bitcoin futures contracts. It’s simpler, more affordable, and could potentially boost the legitimacy of Bitcoin in regulators’ eyes.

5. Expertise-driven SEO

Caroline Forsey, Principal Marketing Manager at HubSpot

In 2024, entrepreneurs will need to lean heavily into their own expertise when they create content for search engines.

This year Google introduced new EEAT guidelines to evaluate the quality of search results. One of the “E’s”, Experience, will drive a lot of content decisions in 2024, particularly as more users turn to AI to get their questions answered (rather than Google).

Content creators will now focus their SEO and creation strategies on expert, human-first content. They will need to ask themselves: What first-hand experience can we draw from to make this content unique and unreplicable by AI?  

6. AI Video Tools

Justin Kelsey, Founder of SwitchFrame, serial entrepreneur

OpenAI now lets you prompt ChatGPT with voice and pictures, and other developers are following suit. So I see AI becoming more ubiquitous in multimedia production, with video AI leading the pack.

Every day a new video AI startup pops up, and you can easily find 5+ such tools within a minute of search. With consumers’ growing preference for short-form videos, we’ll see even more advanced AI capabilities for video editing in 2024.

These new tools will not only make your video look beautiful and master your audio professionally, but will also be able to chop a full video into snackable bits that fit different platforms, like Instagram Reels and TikTok.

7. Anything with A Human Touch

Ben Berkley, Editor of The Hustle

As AI continually heats up, so too will that AI-can’t-do-everything backlash. Amidst all the change, people will find comfort in anything that feels innately *human*.

This holiday season, and in 2024, we’re going to see a rise in:

• Paper goods, as people send each other hand-written cards and letters
• Art and dance classes, book clubs, and watch parties;
• Hand-crafted, Etsy-style gifts that scream “this was created by another human” rather than some bot.

This backlash will also play out in arenas like travel, as people will crave intimate connection and conversation with family, old friends, and truly anything non-GPT. They’ll hit “book” on affordable, shared experiences.

The post 7 Expert & Data-Backed Trend Predictions for 2024 appeared first on ProdSens.live.

In this weekly roundup, we highlight what we believe to be the most thoughtful, helpful, and/or interesting discussion over the past week! Though we are strong believers in healthy and respectful debate, we typically try to choose discussions that are positive and avoid those that are overly contentious.

Any folks whose articles we feature here will be rewarded with our Discussion of the Week badge.

Now that y’all understand the flow, let’s go!

The Discussion of the Week

We’re back with another excellent discussion! @mcharytoniuk initiated “Money or Passion?” encouraging folks to talk about which one is a bigger driver behind their decision to work in software development.

Money or Passion?

Mateusz Charytoniuk ・ Dec 2

#career
#programming
#beginners
#discuss

Mateusz opens the discussion mentioning that though it may be a bit provocative, it’s meant to be taken genuinely — I appreciated that self-awareness about starting up a topic that might trigger some hot takes.

They expand on this notion by driving home the point that they’re really hoping to learn more about what motivates developers to get a career in this industry, noting that the job market is particularly grim right now for juniors and suggesting that things may worsen for mid- to senior-level devs next.

Mateusz even offers an anonymous poll hosted on Reddit here for those who want to answer but would prefer to keep their response incognito.

As with most discussions, the real interesting bits occur in the comments section.

@lnahrf weighs in, explaining how they were encouraged by those around them to join the industry… they also respectfully push back against the idea of salaries dropping for senior devs in this thoughtful comment:

Lev Nahar

•

Dec 2

Provocative maybe – but a genuine question.
In my case, life somehow pushed me to be a programmer, old bosses at work and people around me told me that I should get a degree in CS (never had any meaning to before they did). I never actually got a degree but I did spend a couple of years learning mostly by myself, and somehow (almost as if by pure luck) got to where I am today.

I truly believe that this industry is tough (I will explain).
Yes, we get paid quite well, but we work unreasonable hours, we sit down at the computer for 9-12 hours a day, we handle toxic clients, coworkers, managers. We then go home to try and enjoy whatever is left of our day, just to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again. While this criticism might be directed at our societal structure as a whole and not specifically at the tech industry, the industry does shine a bright light on everything that is wrong with the societal work structure.

That is why I don’t think anyone who is working in this industry solely for the money will remain in this industry for too long. In order to work as a programmer – you have to love programming. If you don’t LOVE programming – you won’t remain a professional programmer. Passion is the answer all the way.

Ask yourself – is programming something I’d do even without the money? My answer is probably – if the need for a specific tool arises and there is no solution – I’d make one.

Your point about salaries dropping is completely wrong. Salaries might drop for Juniors and average-level developers because the market is saturated. Senior and highly technical developers will keep making more and more as time goes on.

My bottom line is – as of right now, I have no reason to search or switch to a different profession. If programming will become obsolete (it won’t) or if I will get so tired of interacting with others in this industry – I will probably switch to being a personal chef or an author, or a farmer (probably farmer, honestly).

There are plenty of folks on both sides of the money/passion argument making a case for what’s most important to them — no wrong answers here!

Gotta appreciate @chaoocharles‘ honesty in the following response:

Chaoo Charles

•

Dec 3

• Edited on Dec 4
• Edited

Money If I had lot’s of money for sure I wouldn’t write code. would be more of a gamer and stressing about quests instead of bugs. But after coding for a long time it’s now like a passion, i have fun building projects, learning new things and teaching others.

Likewise and directly below that comment, you have @dustinbrett making the case for passion:

Dustin Brett

•

Dec 3

Passion all day. I have no desire to work for money. Follow your passion and the money will come, and if it doesn’t at least you are doing what you love.

And of course, there are plenty other folks who claim both are equally important:

Ben Halpern

•

Dec 3

I’d say both.

I think I ultimately chose this path above some others I thought about because it was a more pragmatic career, but I do have a passion for technology that is a driver for the things I considered.

I wouldn’t work in a field I had no passion for, but I have other passions I strayed from in order to pursue a more financially-secure career.

Paramanantham Harrison

•

Dec 3

Both.
Money without passion a never ending ending game. You will get tired sooner or later. Passion without money hits you from Day 1 with no life left to make your soul stay in the game of life.

You need to balance both, chase passion and make sure you have enough money to feed that monster.

I have been in startups with just passion with lot of financial burdens, I have walked out many times empty handed and frustration than anything else.

Reasonable amount of money and passion for what we do is always essential. There is no this or that in this scenario.

Monty Harper

•

Dec 2

Both! I’ve done programming all my life, here and there, when I needed a custom app, or just for fun, if an idea struck me. When I was very young I sold cassette copies of a haunted house game I wrote for the ZX81. My first job as a teen was designing a database for the forestry department here at OSU & I loved it. But nobody ever told me it could be, like, a career! It seems dumb to me now to have missed it. But recently I needed a change for financial reasons, and poking around, I discovered that yeah, this is a great way to make a living. So I’m giving it a shot. How do you like my timing? I started on this path and just a few weeks later, layoffs hit the headlines. Well, even as salaries fall, if I can find a position, I’ll be better off than I ever have been, money-wise, doing something I really enjoy. Hopefully the slump will be temporary.

While @moopet falls on the side of neither:

Ben Sinclair

•

Dec 4

I’m not sure it’s either, for me.
It’s more like, “this is the only thing I’m any good at”!

There are answers all over the map! Hop in there to see all the other awesome comments and let folks know what motivates you to be a developer — money or passion?

What are your picks?

The DEV Community is particularly special because of the kind, thoughtful, helpful, and entertaining discussions happening between community members. As such, we want to encourage folks to participate in discussions and reward those who are initiating or taking part in conversations across the community. After all, a community is made possible by the people interacting inside it.

There are loads of great discussions floating about in this community. This is just the one we chose to highlight.

I urge you all to share your favorite discussion of the past week below in the comments. And if you’re up for it, give the author an @mention — it’ll probably make ’em feel good.

The post Discussion of the Week: Money or Passion? appeared first on ProdSens.live.

This article is based on a presentation given by Andrew Keating at the Product Marketing Summit in Denver. Catch up on this presentation, and others, using our OnDemand service. For more exclusive content, visit your membership dashboard.

Thanks for joining me for this deep dive into the world of analyst relations (AR)! Here’s a taste of what we’ll cover:

• Analysts’ vital role in the tech space
• The four steps to build your AR strategy
• How you can engage analysts throughout your GTM
• How to measure the impact of your AR strategy
• Some best practices and hard-won lessons in analyst relations

But first, let me introduce myself. I’m Andrew Keating and I currently spearhead analyst relations at Beamery. That and my past experiences in product marketing and industry marketing teams, where I worked closely with dedicated AR teams, have given me a broad perspective on analyst relations. 

So, whether you’re part of a team focusing on analyst relations, or you’re a solo product marketer overwhelmed with launching products and wondering how to even get started with analyst relations, this article has something for you.

Let’s get into it.

What role do analysts play?

Let’s take a step back and think about the role of analysts. Analysts are like brokers whose currency is trust and relationships. They bridge the gap between customers and technology providers. They’re the trusted intermediary that talks to both sides.

Now, sometimes that intermediary role can be a little frustrating for us in the software realm – we wish they were more clearly on our side. Customers can get a little frustrated with all this, too – they’re like, “Just tell me what to buy!” while analysts remain steadfastly neutral. 

The post Analysts are personas too: Best practices to develop your analyst relations strategy appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Moonly weekly progress update #66 — Upgraded Raffle Feature and Twitter Space Giveaway

How are you guys? Hope you are having a great day!

Worked on Twitter Spaces Giveaway app and new Raffle feature, again mostly done, but still need some testing and polishing.

Upgraded so many things, resolved some issues and overall we improved these features a lot!

Weekly devs progress:

• Deploy updated mints scraper to production

• A 10M token scraping experiment has been done

• Created a minimal wallet connect adapter for ETH and Polygon

• Created a fix for locked NFTs with Staking V1

• Fixed backpack wallet signing issue and showed modal every time

Karamendos WL Flow:

• Merged the Karamendos flow service with staging

• Merged the whitelist server with staging

• Testing the WL Flow on a staging server

• Testing the Wl Flow on different browsers and on mobile

Holder Verification Bot:

• Refactored the Token and attribute collector class

• Changed the flow of scraping Tokens

• Included config for handling token scraper

• Rebuild the batch algorithm to select the perfect NFTs for scraping their attributes and tokens

• Introduced a new batcher that optimizes the batching functionality

• Implemented a cache system to streamline the token scraping process

• Added a check cycle functionality to keep track of NFTs over time

• Fixed a hidden issue with the wallet checker

Raffle Feature and Twitter Space Giveaway:

• Show an error when a user tries to access the admin page without wallet

• Ability to buy multiple tickets at once

• Hide the buy ticket button when the raffle is not active

• Show the claimed button when the raffle prize is claimed

• Fixed the raffle admin crashing with a specific wallet: the issue was with metadata

• Automatically deliver the raffle prize

• Option for admin to select one prize per ticket or for all

• Manually compared all the files in in giveaway branch with staging & merged the conflicts

• Updated program data structure to adjust new requirements

• Updated the client code to adjust the new changes on the program side

• Fixed the broken token creation tool

• Fixed bug with token transfer utility

• Fixed bug about reward token — return tokens when removing reward token

Upcoming NFT collections:

https://moon.ly/nft/uessup

https://moon.ly/nft/karamendos

https://moon.ly/nft/phantom-mages

https://moon.ly/nft/oneplanet-game-pass-x-hantao

Minted projects worth mentioning:

https://moon.ly/nft/solcasinoio

https://moon.ly/nft/mad-lads

https://moon.ly/nft/the-heist

https://moon.ly/nft/the-heist-orangutans

The post Moonly weekly progress update #66 – Upgraded Raffle Feature and Twitter Space Giveaway appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Reading sample business plans is essential when you’re writing your own. As you explore business plan examples from real companies and brands, you’ll learn how to write one that gets your business off on the right foot, convinces investors to provide funding, and confirms your venture is sustainable for the long term.

But what does a business plan look like? And how do you write one that is viable and convincing? Let’s review the ideal business plan formally, then take a look at business plan templates and samples you can use to inspire your own.

Business Plan Format

Ask any successful sports coach how they win so many games, and they’ll tell you they have a unique plan for every single game. The same logic applies to business. If you want to build a thriving company that can pull ahead of the competition, you need to prepare for battle before breaking into a market.

Business plans guide you along the rocky journey of growing a company. Referencing one will keep you on the path toward success. And if your business plan is compelling enough, it can also convince investors to give you funding.

With so much at stake, you might be wondering, “Where do I start? How should I format this?”

Typically, a business plan is a document that will detail how a company will achieve its goals.

Most business plans include the following sections:

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary is arguably the most important section of the entire business plan. Essentially, it’s the overview or introduction, written in a way to grab readers’ attention and guide them through the rest of the business plan. This is important, because a business plan can be dozens or hundreds of pages long.

Most executive summaries include:

• Mission statement
• Company history and leadership
• Competitive advantage overview
• Financial projections
• Company goals

Keep in mind you’ll cover many of these topics in more detail later on in the business plan. So, keep the executive summary clear and brief, including only the most important takeaways.

Executive Summary Business Plan Examples

This example was created with HubSpot’s business plan template:

And the executive summary below tells potential investors a short story that covers all the most important details this business plan will cover in a succinct and interesting way.

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Tips for Writing Your Executive Summary

• Clearly define a problem, and explain how your product solves that problem, and show why the market needs your business.
• Be sure to highlight your value proposition, market opportunity, and growth potential.
• Keep it concise and support ideas with data.
• Customize your summary to your audience. For example, emphasize finances and return on investment for venture capitalists.

Check out our tips for writing an effective executive summary for more guidance.

2. Market Opportunity

This is where you’ll detail the opportunity in the market. Where is the gap in the current industry, and how will your product fill that gap?

In this section, you might include:

• The size of the market
• Current or potential market share
• Trends in the industry and consumer behavior
• Where the gap is
• What caused the gap
• How you intend to fill it

To get a thorough understanding of the market opportunity, you’ll want to conduct a TAM, SAM, and SOM analysis and perform market research on your industry. You may also benefit from creating a SWOT analysis to get some of the insights for this section.

Market Opportunity Business Plan Example

This example uses critical data to underline the size of the potential market and what part of that market this service hopes to capture.

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Tips for Writing Your Market Opportunity Section

• Focus on demand and potential for growth.
• Use market research, surveys, and industry trend data to support your market forecast and projections.
• Add a review of regulation shifts, tech advances, and consumer behavior changes.
• Refer to reliable sources.
• Showcase how your business can make the most of this opportunity.

3. Competitive Landscape

Speaking of market share, you’ll need to create a section that shares details on who the top competitors are. After all, your customers likely have more than one brand to choose from, and you’ll want to understand exactly why they might choose one over another. Performing a competitive analysis can help you uncover:

• Industry trends that other brands may not be utilizing
• Strengths in your competition that may be obstacles to handle
• Weaknesses in your competition that may help you develop selling points
• The unique proposition you bring to the market that may resonate with customers

Competitive Landscape Business Plan Example

The competitive landscape section of the business plan below shows a clear outline of who the top competitors are. It also highlights specific industry knowledge and the importance of location, which shows useful experience in this specific industry. This can help build trust in your ability to execute your business plan.

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Tips for Writing Your Competitive Landscape

• Complete in-depth research, then emphasize your most important findings.
• Compare your unique selling proposition (USP) to your direct and indirect competitors.
• Show a clear and realistic plan for product and brand differentiation.
• Look for specific advantages and barriers in the competitive landscape. Then, highlight how that information could impact your business.
• Outline growth opportunities from a competitive perspective.
• Add customer feedback and insights to support your competitive analysis.

4. Target Audience

This section will describe who your customer segments are in detail. What is the demographic and psychographic information of your audience?

If your immediate answer is “everyone,” you’ll need to dig deeper. Ask yourself:

• What demographics will most likely need/buy your product or service?
• What are the psychographics of this audience? (Desires, triggering events, etc.)
• Why are your offerings valuable to them?

It can be helpful to build a buyer persona to get in the mindset of your ideal customers and be clear on why you’re targeting them.

Target Audience Business Plan Example

The example below uses in-depth research to draw conclusions about audience priorities. It also analyzes how to create the right content for this audience.

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Tips for Writing Your Target Audience Section

• Include details on the size and growth potential of your target audience.
• Figure out and refine the pain points for your target audience, then show why your product is a useful solution.
• Describe your targeted customer acquisition strategy in detail.
• Share anticipated challenges your business may face in acquiring customers and how you plan to address them.
• Add case studies, testimonials, and other data to support your target audience ideas.
• Remember to consider niche audiences and segments of your target audience in your business plan.

5. Marketing Strategy

Here, you’ll discuss how you’ll acquire new customers with your marketing strategy. You might consider including information on:

• The brand positioning vision and how you’ll cultivate it
• The goal targets you aim to achieve
• The metrics you’ll use to measure success
• The channels and distribution tactics you’ll use

It can help to already have a marketing plan built out to help you with this part of your business plan.

Marketing Strategy Business Plan Example

This business plan example includes the marketing strategy for the town of Gawler. It offers a comprehensive picture of how it plans to use digital marketing to promote the community.

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Tips for Writing Your Marketing Strategy

• Include a section about how you believe your brand vision will appeal to customers.
• Add the budget and resources you’ll need to put your plan in place.
• Outline strategies for specific marketing segments.
• Connect strategies to earlier sections like target audience and competitive analysis.
• Review how your marketing strategy will scale with the growth of your business.
• Cover a range of channels and tactics to highlight your ability to adapt your plan in the face of change.

6. Key Features and Benefits

At some point in your business plan, you’ll review the key features and benefits of your products and/or services. Laying these out can give readers an idea of how you’re positioning yourself in the market and the messaging you’re likely to use. It can even help them gain better insight into your business model.

Key Features and Benefits Business Plan Example

The example below outlines products and services for this business, along with why these qualities will attract the audience.

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Tips for Writing Your Key Features and Benefits

• Emphasize why and how your product or service offers value to customers.
• Use metrics and testimonials to support the ideas in this section.
• Talk about how your products and services have the potential to scale.
• Think about including a product roadmap.
• Focus on customer needs, and how the features and benefits you are sharing meet those needs.
• Offer proof of concept for your ideas, like case studies or pilot program feedback.
• Proofread this section carefully, and remove any jargon or complex language.

7. Pricing and Revenue

This is where you’ll discuss your cost structure and various revenue streams. Your pricing strategy must be solid enough to turn a profit while staying competitive in the industry. For this reason, you might outline:

• The specific pricing breakdowns per product or service
• Why your pricing is higher or lower than your competition’s
• (If higher) Why customers would be willing to pay more
• (If lower) How you’re able to offer your products or services at a lower cost
• When you expect to break even, what margins do you expect, etc?

Pricing and Revenue Business Plan Example

This business plan example begins with an overview of the business revenue model, then shows proposed pricing for key products.

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Tips for Writing Your Pricing and Revenue Section

• Get specific about your pricing strategy. Specifically, how you connect that strategy to customer needs and product value.
• If you are asking a premium price, share unique features or innovations that justify that price point.
• Show how you plan to communicate pricing to customers.
• Create an overview of every revenue stream for your business and how each stream adds to your business model as a whole.
• Share plans to develop new revenue streams in the future.
• Show how and whether pricing will vary by customer segment and how pricing aligns with marketing strategies.
• Restate your value proposition and explain how it aligns with your revenue model.

8. Financials

This section is particularly informative for investors and leadership teams to figure out funding strategies, investment opportunities, and more. According to Forbes, you’ll want to include three main things:

• Profit/Loss Statement – This answers the question of whether your business is currently profitable.
• Cash Flow Statement – This details exactly how much cash is incoming and outgoing to give insight into how much cash a business has on hand.
• Balance Sheet – This outlines assets, liabilities, and equity, which gives insight into how much a business is worth.

While some business plans might include more or less information, these are the key details you’ll want to include.

Financials Business Plan Example

This balance sheet example shows the level of detail you will need to include in the financials section of your business plan:

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Tips for Writing Your Financials Section

• Growth potential is important in this section too. Using your data, create a forecast of financial performance in the next three to five years.
• Include any data that supports your projections to assure investors of the credibility of your proposal.
• Add a break-even analysis to show that your business plan is financially practical. This information can also help you pivot quickly as your business grows.
• Consider adding a section that reviews potential risks and how sensitive your plan is to changes in the market.
• Triple-check all financial information in your plan for accuracy.
• Show how any proposed funding needs align with your plans for growth.

As you create your business plan, keep in mind that each of these sections will be formatted differently. Some may be in paragraph format, while others could be charts or graphs.

Business Plan Types

The formats above apply to most types of business plans. That said, the format and structure of your plan will vary by your goals for that plan. So, we’ve added a quick review of different business plan types. For a more detailed overview, check out this post.

1. Startups

Startup business plans are for proposing new business ideas.

If you’re planning to start a small business, preparing a business plan is crucial. The plan should include all the major factors of your business. You can check out this guide for more detailed business plan inspiration.

2. Feasibility Studies

Feasibility business plans focus on that business’s product or service. Feasibility plans are sometimes added to startup business plans. They can also be a new business plan for an already thriving organization.

3. Internal Use

You can use internal business plans to share goals, strategies, or performance updates with stakeholders. Internal business plans are useful for alignment and building support for ambitious goals.

4. Strategic Initiatives

Another business plan that’s often for sharing internally is a strategic business plan. This plan covers long-term business objectives that might not have been included in the startup business plan.

5. Business Acquisition or Repositioning

When a business is moving forward with an acquisition or repositioning, it may need extra structure and support. These types of business plans expand on a company’s acquisition or repositioning strategy.

6. Growth

Growth sometimes just happens as a business continues operations. But more often, a business needs to create a structure with specific targets to meet set goals for expansion. This business plan type can help a business focus on short-term growth goals and align resources with those goals.

Sample Business Plan Templates

Now that you know what’s included and how to format a business plan, let’s review some templates.

1. HubSpot’s One-Page Business Plan

Download a free, editable one-page business plan template.

The business plan linked above was created here at HubSpot and is perfect for businesses of any size — no matter how many strategies we still have to develop.

Fields such as Company Description, Required Funding, and Implementation Timeline give this one-page business plan a framework for how to build your brand and what tasks to keep track of as you grow. Then, as the business matures, you can expand on your original business plan with a new iteration of the above document.

Why We Like It

This one-page business plan is a fantastic choice for the new business owner who doesn’t have the time or resources to draft a full-blown business plan. It includes all the essential sections in an accessible, bullet-point-friendly format. That way, you can get the broad strokes down before honing in on the details.

2. HubSpot’s Downloadable Business Plan Template

We also created a business plan template for entrepreneurs.

Download a free, editable one-page business plan template.

The template is designed as a guide and checklist for starting your own business. You’ll learn what to include in each section of your business plan and how to do it. There’s also a list for you to check off when you finish each section of your business plan.

Strong game plans help coaches win games and help businesses rocket to the top of their industries. So if you dedicate the time and effort required to write a workable and convincing business plan, you’ll boost your chances of success and even dominance in your market.

Why We Like It

This business plan kit is essential for the budding entrepreneur who needs a more extensive document to share with investors and other stakeholders. It not only includes sections for your executive summary, product line, market analysis, marketing plan, and sales plan, but it also offers hands-on guidance for filling out those sections.

3. LiveFlow’s Financial Planning Template with built-in automation

This free template from LiveFlow aims to make it easy for businesses to create a financial plan and track their progress on a monthly basis. The P&L Budget versus Actual format allows users to track their revenue, cost of sales, operating expenses, operating profit margin, net profit, and more.

The summary dashboard aggregates all of the data put into the financial plan sheet and will automatically update when changes are made. Instead of wasting hours manually importing your data to your spreadsheet, LiveFlow can also help you to automatically connect your accounting and banking data directly to your spreadsheet, so your numbers are always up-to-date.

With the dashboard, you can view your runway, cash balance, burn rate, gross margins, and other metrics. Having a simple way to track everything in one place will make it easier to complete the financials section of your business plan.

Why We Like It

This is a fantastic template to track performance and alignment internally and to create a dependable process for documenting financial information across the business. It’s highly versatile and beginner-friendly. It’s especially useful if you don’t have an accountant on the team. (We always recommend you do, but for new businesses, having one might not be possible.)

4. ThoughtCo’s Sample Business Plan

If you want to reference an actual business plan while writing your own, ThoughtCo’s got you covered. It created a fictional company called Acme Management Technology and wrote an entire business plan for it.

Using its sample business plan as a guide while filling out your own will help you catch and include small yet important details in your business plan that you otherwise might not have noticed.

Why We Like It

This is a fantastic template for an existing business that’s strategically shifting directions. If your company has been around for a while, and you’re looking to improve your bottom line or revitalize your strategy, this is an excellent template to use and follow.

5. BPlan’s Free Business Plan Template

One of the more financially oriented sample business plans in this list, BPlan’s free business plan template dedicates many of its pages to your business’s financial plan and financial statements.

After filling this business plan out, your company will truly understand its financial health and the steps you need to take to maintain or improve it.

Why We Like It

We absolutely love this business plan template because of its ease-of-use and hands-on instructions (in addition to its finance-centric components). If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of writing an entire business plan, consider using this template to help you with the process.

6. Harvard Business Review’s “How to Write a Winning Business Plan”

Most sample business plans teach you what to include in your business plan, but this Harvard Business Review article will take your business plan to the next level — it teaches you the why and how behind writing a business plan.

With the guidance of Stanley Rich and Richard Gumpert, co-authors of “Business Plans That Win: Lessons From the MIT Enterprise Forum“, you’ll learn how to write a convincing business plan that emphasizes the market demand for your product or service. You’ll also learn the financial benefits investors can reap from putting money into your venture rather than trying to sell them on how great your product or service is.

Why We Like It

This business plan guide focuses less on the individual parts of a business plan, and more on the overarching goal of writing one. For that reason, it’s one of our favorites to supplement any template you choose to use. Harvard Business Review’s guide is instrumental for both new and seasoned business owners.

7. HubSpot’s Complete Guide to Starting a Business

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know writing a business plan is one of the most challenging first steps to starting a business. Fortunately, with HubSpot’s comprehensive guide to starting a business, you’ll learn how to map out all the details by understanding what to include in your business plan and why it’s important to include them. The guide also fleshes out an entire sample business plan for you.

If you need further guidance on starting a business, HubSpot’s guide can teach you how to make your business legal, choose and register your business name, and fund your business. It will also give small business tax information and includes marketing, sales, and service tips.

Why We Like It

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of starting a business, in addition to writing your business plan, with a high level of exactitude and detail. So if you’re in the midst of starting your business, this is an excellent guide for you. It also offers other resources you might need, such as market analysis templates.

8. Panda Doc’s Free Business Plan Template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is one of the more detailed and fleshed-out sample business plans on this list. It describes what you should include in each section, so you don’t have to come up with everything from scratch.

Once you fill it out, you’ll fully understand your business’ nitty-gritty details and how all of its moving parts should work together to contribute to its success.

Why We Like It

This template has two things we love: comprehensiveness and in-depth instructions. Plus, it’s synced with PandaDoc’s e-signature software so that you and other stakeholders can sign it with ease. For that reason, we especially love it for those starting a business with a partner or with a board of directors.

9. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers several free business plan templates that can be used to inspire your own plan. Before you get started, you can decide what type of business plan you need — a traditional or lean start-up plan.

Then, you can review the format for both of those plans and view examples of what they might look like.

Why We Like It

We love both of the SBA’s templates because of their versatility. You can choose between two options and use the existing content in the templates to flesh out your own plan. Plus, if needed, you can get a free business counselor to help you along the way.

Top Business Plan Examples

Here are some completed business plan samples to get an idea of how to customize a plan for your business. We’ve chosen different types of business plan ideas to expand your imagination. Some are extensive, while others are fairly simple.

Take a look.

1. LiveFlow

One of the major business expenses is marketing. How you handle your marketing reflects your company’s revenue. We included this business plan to show you how you can ensure your marketing team is aligned with your overall business plan to get results. The plan also shows you how to track even the smallest metrics of your campaigns, like ROI and payback periods instead of just focusing on big metrics like gross and revenue.

Fintech startup, LiveFlow, allows users to sync real-time data from its accounting services, payment platforms, and banks into custom reports. This eliminates the task of pulling reports together manually, saving teams time and helping automate workflows.

When it came to including marketing strategy in its business plan, LiveFlow created a separate marketing profit and loss statement (P&L) to track how well the company was doing with its marketing initiatives. This is a great approach, allowing businesses to focus on where their marketing dollars are making the most impact.

“Using this framework over a traditional marketing plan will help you set a profitable marketing strategy taking things like CAC, LTV, Payback period, and P&L into consideration,” explains LiveFlow co-founder, Lasse Kalkar.

Having this information handy will enable you to build out your business plan’s marketing section with confidence. LiveFlow has shared the template here. You can test it for yourself.

2. Lula Body

This is a good business plan example for service-based businesses such as gyms, boxing classes, dancing studios, etc. For starters, the plan shows how to budget for the business loan and what to focus on buying first. Everything is well presented, including what to charge the customers in different scenarios and the expected revenue. This is a good foundation from which business performance can be evaluated with time.

Brooklyn Business owner and Pilates instructor, Tara Kashyap, saw a need in her community for a Pilates, tissue, and bodywork studio. In response, she opened Lula Body in Crown Heights.

Pictured above is a hypothetical pricing and revenue statement based on Lula Body’s business plan. As you can see, Kashyap breaks down the cost of classes, start-up expenses, monthly expenses, and her monthly sales projection. Everything from equipment costs to loan interest is included in the expenses to give the most accurate picture of operating costs and revenue.

If you’re seeking outside funding for your business, you’ll want to make sure this section of your business plan is as thorough as possible.

3. Patagonia

Sometimes all you need is a solid mission statement and core values to guide you on how to go about everything. You do this by creating a business plan revolving around how to fulfill your statement best. For example, Patagonia is an eco-friendly company, so their plan discusses how to make the best environmentally friendly products without causing harm.

A good mission statement should not only resonate with consumers but should also serve as a core value compass for employees as well.

Outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, has one of the most compelling mission statements we’ve seen:

“Together, let’s prioritise purpose over profit and protect this wondrous planet, our only home.”

It reels you in from the start, and the environmentally friendly theme continues throughout the rest of the statement.

This mission goes on to explain that they are out to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to protect nature.”

Their mission statement is compelling and detailed, with each section outlining how they will accomplish their goal.

4. Vesta Home Automation

This is the kind of business plan you need when applying for business funds. It clearly illustrates the expected future of the company and how the business has been coming along over the years.

This executive summary for a smart home device startup is part of a business plan created by students at Mount Royal University. While it lacks some of the sleek visuals of the templates above, its executive summary does a great job of demonstrating how invested they are in the business.

Right away, they mention they’ve invested $200,000 into the company already, which shows investors they have skin in the game and aren’t just looking for someone else to foot the bill.

5. NALB Creative Center

This fictional business plan for an art supply store includes everything one might need in a business plan: an executive summary, a company summary, a list of services, a market analysis summary, and more. Due to its comprehensiveness, it’s an excellent example to follow if you’re opening a brick-and-mortar store and need to get external funding to start your business.

One of its most notable sections is its market analysis summary, which includes an overview of the population growth in the business’ target geographical area, as well as a breakdown of the types of potential customers they expect to welcome at the store. This sort of granular insight is essential for understanding and communicating your business’s growth potential. Plus, it lays a strong foundation for creating relevant and useful buyer personas.

It’s essential to keep this information up-to-date as your market and target buyer changes. For that reason, you should carry out market research as often as possible to ensure that you’re targeting the correct audience and sharing accurate information with your investors.

6. Curriculum Companion Suites (CSS)

If you’re looking for a SaaS business plan example, look no further than this business plan for a fictional educational software company called Curriculum Companion Suites. Like the business plan for the NALB Creative Center, it includes plenty of information for prospective investors and other key stakeholders in the business.

One of the most notable features of this business plan is the executive summary, which includes an overview of the product, market, and mission. The first two are essential for software companies because the product offering is so often at the forefront of the company’s strategy. Without that information being immediately available to investors and executives, then you risk writing an unfocused business plan.

It’s also essential to front-load your company’s mission if it explains your “Why?” In other words, why do you do what you do, and why should stakeholders care? This is an important section to include if you feel that your mission will drive interest in the business and its offerings.

7. Culina Sample Business Plan

Culina’s sample business plan is an excellent example of how to lay out your business plan so that it flows naturally, engages readers, and provides the critical information investors and stakeholders need. You can also use this template as a guide while you’re gathering important details. After looking at this sample, you’ll have a better understanding of the data and research you need to do for your own business plan.

8. Plum Sample Business Plan

This is one of my favorite sample business plans because you can see how implementing visuals can help tell your brand’s story. The images in this plan are cutting-edge, which makes sense for an innovative company like Plum. When creating your own business plan, make sure the pictures and design you use make sense for your branding.

Additionally, the financial charts included are an excellent guide if you’re not sure what financial information to include.

9. LiveShopBuy Sample Business Plan

With this business plan, the focus is the investment opportunity. This is an excellent template to use if you’re going to use your business plan to seek funding. The investment opportunity section is placed right up front and is several pages long. Then, it goes into more detail about the company and its key services.

Get Started Writing Your Business Plan

When you’re first getting started on your business plan, it can be daunting. The business world moves fast, and it’s full of ambitious companies scrambling to gain the majority of their industry’s market share.

That’s why it’s important to make sure you understand the value your business offers and can communicate that through a properly formatted business plan.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

The post 24 Best Sample Business Plans & Examples to Help You Write Your Own appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Do you take a good, hard look at your team’s marketing strategy every year?

You should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it’s nearly impossible to put a number on the budget you’ll need to secure for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing you’ll encounter over the course of a year if you don’t have a plan.

To make your plan’s creation easier, we’ve put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let’s dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we’re going to discuss:

• What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes
• How to Create a Marketing Plan
• Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
• Simplified Marketing Plan Template
• Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

Marketing Plan Outline

Download This Marketing Plan Outline for Free

The below marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you’re in, whether you’re selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It’s essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan. Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

• The company name

• Where it’s headquartered

• Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan’s business summary also includes a SWOT analysis, which stands for the business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

However, be patient with your business’ SWOT analysis; you’ll write most of it as you conduct your market research and create your strategy. Feel free to come back to this section periodically, adjusting it as you discover more information about your own business and your competition.

3. Business Initiatives

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you’d normally find in a business plan. This section of your marketing plan should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You’ll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

4. Customer Analysis

In this part of the marketing plan outline, you get plenty of space to share all the data you collected during your market research. If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together. Either way, try to do your research before synthesizing it in a shareable document like this one.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you’re selling to and your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like:

• Age

• Location

• Title

• Goals

• Personal challenges

• Pains

• Triggering event

5. Competitor Analysis

Including a competitive analysis is essential when creating a marketing plan. Your buyer persona has choices when it comes to solving their problems, choices in both the types of solutions they consider and the providers that can administer those solutions. In your market research, you should consider your competition, what they do well, and where the gaps are that you can potentially fill. This can include:

• Positioning

• Market share

• Offerings

• Pricing

Our marketing plan template includes space to list out the specific products you compete with, as well as other facets of the other company’s strategy, such as their blogging efforts or customer service reputation. Keep this part of your plan simple — your full competitive analysis should be done separately. Here are a few competitive analysis templates to get started.

6. Market Strategy

Your market strategy uses the information included in the above sections to describe how your company should approach the market. What will your business offer your buyer

personas that your competitors aren’t already offering them?

As you fill out the section, use the insights from your SWOT analysis, your competitive analysis, and your market research to create targeted, effective descriptions that will help you secure buy-in for your later tactics and strategies. For instance, if you found that one of your competitors employs stronger social media marketing strategies, you might add “We’ll post 3 times per week on our social media profiles” under “Promotion.”

In our full-length marketing plan outline, the market strategy section contains the “seven Ps of marketing” (or the “extended marketing mix”):

• Product

• Price

• Place

• Promotion

• People

• Process

• Physical Evidence

(You’ll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

7. Budget

Don’t mistake the marketing budget element of your plan with your product’s price or other company financials. Your budget describes how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you’ll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include:

• Outsourcing costs to a marketing agency and/or other providers

• Marketing software

• Paid promotions

• Events (those you’ll host and/or attend)

Knowing the budget and doing analysis on the marketing channels you want to invest in, you should be able to come up with a plan for how much budget to invest in which tactics based on expected ROI. From there, you’ll be able to come up with financial projections for the year. These won’t be 100% accurate but can help with executive planning.

Remember: Your marketing plan only includes a summary of the costs. We recommend keeping a separate document or Excel sheet to help you calculate your budget much more effectively. Here’s a marketing budget template to get started.

8. Marketing Channels

Your marketing plan should also include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you’ll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to map out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you’ll use this social network for, and how you’ll measure your success on this network. Part of this section’s purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside and outside the marketing department, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template.

9. Marketing Technology

Last, but certainly not least, your marketing plan should include an overview of the tools you’ll include in your marketing technology (MarTech) stack. These are the tools that will help you achieve the goals you outlined in the previous sections. Since all types of marketing software usually need a generous investment from your company’s leadership, it’s essential to connect them to a potential ROI for your business.

For each tool, describe what exactly you’ll use it for, and be sure that it’s a strategy that you’ve mentioned elsewhere. For instance, we wouldn’t recommend listing an advertising management tool if you didn’t list “PPC Advertising” under “Marketing Channels.”

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

Before you can get started with your marketing plan, you have to know your current situation.

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Conducting a basic SWOT analysis is the first step to creating a marketing plan.

Additionally, you should also have an understanding of the current market. How do you compare to your competitors? Doing a competitor analysis should help you with this step.

Think about how other products are better than yours. Plus, consider the gaps in a competitor’s approach. What are they missing? What can you offer that’ll give you a competitive advantage? Think about what sets you apart.

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

Once you better understand the market and your company’s situation, make sure you know who your target audience is.

If your company already has buyer personas, this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

If you don’t have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it’ll help you define your goals, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, “You can’t go somewhere unless you have a road map.” Now, for me, someone who’s geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can’t improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you’ve figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals.

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete them.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you’ve written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on?

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve those goals should be easy.

However, while writing your tactics, you have to keep your budget in mind, which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of the ideas that you’ve come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don’t have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you’re writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it’ll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let’s dive into creating a marketing campaign outline that will help you reach the goals outlined plan.

Marketing Plan Timeline

Rolling out a new marketing plan is a big lift. To make sure things are running smoothly with all of your projects, you’ll want to create a timeline that maps out when each project is happening.

A marketing plan timeline allows your team to view all projects, campaigns, events, and other related tasks in one place — along with their deadlines. This ensures everyone on your team knows what’s due, when it’s due, and what’s up next in the pipeline. Typically these plans cover marketing efforts for the entire year, but some companies may operate on a bi-annual or quarterly basis.

Once you’ve completed your analysis, research, and set goals, it’s time to set deadlines for your assignments. From new blog posts and content initiatives to product launches, everything will need a deadline. Take into account any holidays or events taking place over the course of the year.

While setting deadlines for the entire year may seem daunting, start by estimating how long you think each task will take and set a deadline accordingly. Track the time it actually takes for you to complete similar types of projects. Once you’ve completed a few of them, you’ll have a better idea of how long each takes and will be able to set more accurate deadlines.

For each project, you’ll want to build in time for:

• Brainstorming: This is the first phase where your idea comes to life in a project outline. Decide what you want to achieve and which stakeholders need to be involved to meet your goal. Set a due date and set up any necessary meetings.
• Planning: This can include determining the project’s scope, figuring out how much budget will be allocated for it, finalizing deadlines and who is working on each task. Map out any campaigns needed for each project (social media, PR, sales promotions, landing pages, events, etc.).
• Execution: This third phase is all about your project launch. Decide on a date to launch and monitor the progress of the project. Set up a system for tracking metrics and KPIs.
• Analysis: In this final phase you will analyze all of your performance data to see whether or not your marketing efforts paid off. Did you meet your goals? Did you complete your projects on time and within budget?

All projects and their deadlines should be in a central location where your team can access them whether that’s a calendar like HubSpot’s tool, shared document, or project management tool.

One-Page Marketing Plan Template

As demonstrated above, a marketing plan can be a long document. When you want to share information with stakeholders or simply want an overview of your plan for quick reference, having a shorter version on hand can be helpful. A one-page marketing plan can be the solution, and we’ll discuss its elements below.

1. Business Summary

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

Example

2. Business Initiatives

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

Example

3. Target Market

Outline your target audience(s) that your efforts will reach. You can include a brief overview of your industry and buyer personas.

Example

4. Budget

This is an overview of the money you’ll spend to help you meet your marketing goals. Create a good estimate of how much you’ll spend on each facet of your marketing program.

Example

5. Marketing Channels

List the channels you’ll use to achieve your marketing goals. Describe why you’re using each channel and what you want to accomplish so everyone is on the same page.

Example

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it’s time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

Download your marketing plan template here.

Marketing Campaign Template

Your marketing plan is a high-level view of the different marketing strategies you’ll use to meet your business objectives. A marketing campaign template is a focused plan that will help achieve those marketing goals.

A marketing campaign template should include the following key components:

• Goals and KPIs: Identify the end goal for each of the individual campaigns you’ll run and the metrics you will use to measure the results of your campaign when it ends. For example, conversion rates, sales, sign-ups, etc.
• Channels: Identify the different channels you’ll use to enact your marketing campaign to reach your audience. Maybe you run a social media campaign on Twitter to raise brand awareness or a direct mail campaign to notify your audience of upcoming sales.
• Budget: Identify the budget you’ll need to run your campaign and how it will be distributed, like the amount you’ll spend on creating content or ad placements in different areas. Having these numbers also helps you later on when you quantify the success of your campaign, like ROI.
• Content: Identify the type of content you’ll create and distribute during your campaigns—for example, blog posts, video ads, email newsletters, etc.
• Teams and DRIs: Identify the teams and people that will be part of enacting your marketing plan from start to finish, like those responsible for creating your marketing assets, budgets, or analyzing metrics once campaigns are complete.
• Design: Identify what your marketing campaigns will look like and how you’ll use design elements to attract your audience. It’s important to note that your design should directly relate to the purpose of your campaign.

Digital Marketing Plan Template

A digital marketing plan is similar to a marketing campaign plan, but, as the name suggests, it’s tailored to the campaigns that you run online. Let’s go over the key components of a digital marketing plan template to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

• Objectives: The goals for your digital marketing and what you’re hoping to accomplish, like driving more traffic to your website. Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your website, or
• Budget: Identify how much it will cost to run your digital marketing campaign and how the money will be distributed. For example, ad placement on different social media sites costs money, and so does creating your assets.
• Target audience: Which segments of your audience are you hoping to reach with this campaign? It’s essential to identify the audiences you want to reach with your digital marketing, as different channels house different audience segments.
• Channels: Identifies the channels that are central to your digital marketing campaign.
• Timeline: Explains the length of time your digital campaigns will run, from how long it should take to create your assets to the final day of the campaign.

Many people use social media in their digital campaigns, and below we’ll discuss some ideas you can use for inspiration.

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As marketing departments grow, so will their presence on social media. And as their social media presence grows, so will their need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content they want to publish across each network.

If you’re looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy — even further than the marketing plan template above — the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here.

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you’ll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

• Annual social media budget tracking
• Weekly social media themes
• Required social media image dimension key
• Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
• Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let’s review the social media reporting templates, and what you’ll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

Once you know what social media tactics you’re going to implement in your marketing plan, it’s time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Facebook Live Schedule

If Facebook Live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live’s you want to do and when.

Once you’ve decided on dates, you can color code your FB calendar and coordinate with your editorial calendar so everyone can see what lives are running in relation to other campaigns.

3. Instagram Post Log

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

Additionally, you can organize your assets and campaigns on this doc. Use this doc to collaborate with your team on messaging, landing pages linked in your bio, and campaign rollout.

4. Paid Social Media Template

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

You’ll want to use this in conjunction with your marketing plan budget to make sure you are not overspending and funds are allocated appropriately.

5. Social Media Audit

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is key to determining ROI.

Use this template to track each of your campaigns to determine what worked and what didn’t. From there, you can allocate funds for the strategies that deliver the results you want.

6. Social Media Editorial Calendar

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what’s going live on any given day.

7. Social Media Image Sizes

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Having a resource like this readily available for your team ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding image sizes and prevents delays.

8. Social Media Marketing Proposal

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, the scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

Think of this proposal as more of a deep dive into the marketing channel section of your marketing plan.

9. Social Media Reporting Template

With this template, you’ll gain access to a slide deck that includes templates for social media reporting. If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress.

If using the social media audit above, you can add all of your data here once it’s been collected.

10. Hashtag Holidays

If you’re going to lean into social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you’ll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year.

Once you’ve come up with content ideas, you can add them to your social media calendar.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you’re strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try.

This tool simplifies yearly planning by asking prompted questions to help guide your process. You’ll be asked to input information about:

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here.

• Your annual marketing mission statement, which is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
• The strategy that you’ll take with your marketing throughout the year to accomplish your marketing goals.
• Three main marketing initiatives that you’ll focus on during the year (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline) metrics you’ll use to measure your success.
• Your target goals for those marketing initiatives like generating 100 leads per week.
• Marketing initiatives that are not aligned with your current strategy to stay focused on your goals and activities that will help you be successful.

Once you input all information, the tool will spit out a table (as shown in the image below) that you can use to guide your processes.

Pro Tip: If the tool doesn’t work, clear your browser’s cache or access it in incognito mode.

Start the Marketing Planning Process Today

The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The post 5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates] appeared first on ProdSens.live.