A one page business plan, or 1 page business plan, puts the whole case for a business where a reader can see it at once: what you sell, to whom, why they will pay, how big it can get, how one sale makes money, and what happens in the next year. Founders use it to think, banks and angels read it first, and co-founders use it to check they agree.
This template starts with a lean canvas, Ash Maurya's nine-box version of the Business Model Canvas, and adds the parts a canvas leaves out: market numbers, unit economics, a 12-month timeline and the use of funds. The example above is for a fictional Austin company that rents plants to offices and sends technicians to care for them.
What goes in each section
The headline
The business in five words and the 12-month goal: "Greenroom: office plants, cared for. $1.2M ARR in Austin within 12 months." Under it, the date, who the plan is for, and two sentences on how the business works. Mistake to avoid: a mission statement. A reader should know what you sell after one line.
01 · The business on one page
The lean canvas. Fill the boxes in their numbered order: customer segments, problem, value proposition, solution, channels, revenue, costs, metrics, unfair advantage. Keep each box to two or three short lines, and name existing alternatives and early adopters, since those are what make the canvas specific. Mistake to avoid: an unfair advantage that is really a feature. If a rival with money could copy it in a quarter, it is not unfair.
02 · Market
Four numbers: how many customers could buy where you start, what that is worth a year, your target share, and how many direct rivals there are. Then one paragraph on why now. Mistake to avoid: a national market size from a research report. Count the customers you can actually reach first; the example counts offices with 20 to 200 staff in one city.
03 · Revenue model
One unit's economics in a table: price, the direct costs and the gross margin. Then a forecast chart and the break-even point in customers and a date. Mistake to avoid: revenue without costs. A bank reads the margin line before anything else.
04 · The next 12 months
A timeline with sales, operations and money, a chart of what the money is for, and three goals with dates. Mistake to avoid: milestones with no dates or owners. "Grow the team" is a wish; "two technicians in February" is a plan.
How long, and when to write a longer plan
One page, 400 to 700 words plus the numbers. Expect two or three hours for a first version and half an hour each quarter after. If you are applying for an SBA loan, raising a priced round or entering a business plan competition, you will need a longer plan with a three-year forecast; write this page first and use it as the executive summary. If the page has to sell you to a customer or investor after a call, use the business one-pager; if the company exists and must choose a focus, write a strategy memo. The US Small Business Administration publishes a good outline for the longer version.
How to use this template
- In Obsidian: install the free myone.page plugin, run New page from template and pick One-page business plan.
- With AI: paste your notes, pricing and rough numbers into ChatGPT or Claude with the prompt from myone.page/ai. Check every number it writes; AI is good at structure and bad at your costs.
- By hand: copy the Markdown of the example above. The charts and timeline are plain text in the note and are edited on the page.
Where myone.page helps
A plan is more useful when co-founders and advisors can mark it up. Shared as a link, each of them edits the canvas or the numbers in the browser, and the changes come back into your note. If you need a full financial model, keep that in a spreadsheet; this page is the story the spreadsheet supports.