Business Plan Builder
AI-powered business plan generator with a built-in Generator-Critic pipeline — from company inputs to a comprehensive, investor-ready 7-section document.
Overview
Business Plan Builder is a screen in the Strategy & Fundraising mode that generates comprehensive, analytically rigorous business plans from eight user-supplied inputs. An internal Generator-Critic pipeline runs three sequential AI calls — draft, audit, refine — before you see any output. The result is a structured 7-section document with a 5-year financial projection table, rendered in a full-screen viewer with section navigation and Markdown export.
Generator-Critic Pipeline
Three sequential AI calls: generate a full draft, audit it for logical gaps and unsupported claims, then refine the output. Only the polished third pass reaches you.
7-Section Structure
Fixed hierarchy matching standard venture investment memo format: Executive Summary through Financial Projections & Ask. Every section is always present, never optional.
5-Year Financial Chart
A color-coded bar chart of projected ARR with EBITDA margin indicators (red = loss, yellow = near break-even, green = profitable) plots the inflection point visually.
User-Level Isolation
Plans are stored at the user account level, not the workspace level. Team members on the same tenant cannot see each other's plans.
Markdown Export
Download the full plan as a .md file, ready to convert to Word or PDF via Pandoc, Typora, or any document tool that accepts Markdown.
No Hollow Language
The AI prompt explicitly bans superlatives like "revolutionary", "game-changing", and "world-class". Every assertion must be grounded in the user-supplied data.
Quick Start
AI Engine Required
Go to Settings → Doc View → Writer Engine and select API (requires ANTHROPIC_API_KEY on the server) or Local CLI (uses your Claude Code subscription). The Local LLM option uses BERT for classification only and cannot generate text — it will return an error if selected for plan generation.
Input Variables
The wizard collects eight inputs that anchor every AI-generated claim. Be as specific and data-driven as possible — the AI uses these values verbatim as its grounding context.
| Field | What to provide | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Company Name | Legal or working name | Nexus Analytics Inc. |
| Industry Vertical | Primary market segment | B2B SaaS / Supply Chain Intelligence |
| Core Problem & Solution | The pain point and your product's remedy in one or two sentences | Manufacturers lack real-time demand visibility; Nexus provides an AI demand-sensing platform |
| Target Audience | Customer profile, ICP, TAM/SAM estimates | Mid-market manufacturers ($50M–$500M revenue) in North America & EU |
| Current Traction & Metrics | Revenue, ARR, MRR, user counts, growth rates — precise numbers only | $1.2M ARR, 34 paying customers, 18% MoM growth |
| Financial Goals | Revenue targets and key milestones with timelines | Reach $10M ARR by end of Year 2 |
| Capital Ask | Funding amount and intended allocation breakdown | Raising $5M Series A; 60% product, 30% sales, 10% ops |
| Additional Notes | Competitive moat, technology differentiators, team background, key risks | Proprietary ML model on 10B+ data points; founding team ex-SAP |
Specificity drives quality
Vague traction numbers ("some users", "growing fast") produce generic projections. Precise figures ("34 paying customers, $1.2M ARR, 18% MoM") give the AI the data it needs to produce analysis that can withstand investor scrutiny.
Load from Financial Model
Instead of typing Current Traction and Capital Ask by hand, click Load from Financial Model in the New Plan wizard header and select a saved model from the Financial Projection Modeler. TotalApp computes a short summary from the model — Year 1 revenue, gross margin, break-even timing, and LTV:CAC ratio for Current Traction; projected cash runway and funding need for Capital Ask — and fills both fields for you. This is a one-time snapshot at the moment you load it, not a live sync — if you update the model afterward, re-open the wizard and load it again to refresh the text.
Generator-Critic Pipeline
Business Plan Builder runs three sequential AI calls internally. You see only the final output — intermediate passes are discarded.
The complete pipeline runs in a single generation cycle — typically 30–90 seconds with the Anthropic API and 60–180 seconds with Local CLI.
Document Structure — 7 Sections
Every generated plan contains exactly seven sections in this fixed order. All seven are always present — the AI estimates where data is absent and flags the assumption explicitly in the text.
Plan Viewer
Clicking a completed plan card opens a full-screen overlay with two areas: a left sidebar for navigation and a main scrollable panel for content.
| Area | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Left nav | Clickable list of all 7 sections. Click any item to jump to that section in the main panel. |
| Overview cards | Three summary tiles: Company (name + industry), Capital Ask, and Y5 Revenue projection extracted from the financial table. |
| Financial chart | Bar chart of 5-year projected ARR. Bar fill color is coded by EBITDA margin: red = loss green = profitable |
| Section accordions | Each of the 7 sections collapses and expands individually. Content renders full Markdown: headings, bold, lists, pipe tables, inline code, and horizontal rules. |
| Export button | Downloads the full plan as a .md file. All 7 sections and the financial table are included. |
Plan Management
Table & Card View
Toggle between a sortable table and a card grid using the LayoutList / LayoutGrid icons in the filter bar. Which style loads by default follows your Settings → Appearance → List Style preference — the same setting used across My Presentations, My Boards, and other list screens. Table view shows a sticky header with a checkbox column for multi-select (individual rows or select-all). Card view shows the status badge, industry tag, capital ask amount, and Year 5 ARR at a glance.
Search
The search input filters by company name or industry vertical. Case-insensitive, matches partial strings.
Plan Status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Wizard inputs saved but generation has not been triggered. |
| The three-pass AI pipeline is running. A spinner appears on the card. | |
| Complete | Plan has been generated successfully and can be viewed. |
| Error | Generation failed. Check AI engine settings and try again. |
Row Actions
Each row (table view) or card (card view) has a ··· menu with three actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Download as MD | Downloads that plan's Markdown file directly from the list, without opening the viewer. |
| Link to a Project | Associates the plan with one of your Project Management projects, the same linking pattern used in My Presentations and My Boards. Only shown if you have at least one PM project. |
| Delete | Prompts an inline "Delete?" confirmation before removing the plan. Deletion is permanent — there is no trash or undo. Export the Markdown file first if you need an offline copy. |
Tone & Style Constraints
The system prompt enforces a management-consulting delivery style. Specific rules baked into the prompt:
- No hollow superlatives. "Revolutionary", "game-changing", "world-class", "cutting-edge", "disruptive" are explicitly banned. Claims require evidence from the user-supplied data.
- Authoritative and objective. Every assertion is grounded in the user inputs or flagged as an assumption with a bracketed note.
- Surgically precise. Market claims include TAM/CAGR figures. Financial projections include the growth driver behind each year-over-year step. No vague ranges.
- Executive Summary is self-contained. The investor thesis, numbers, and the ask must all appear in Section 1 without requiring the reader to consult other sections.
Verify market figures before using with investors
The AI estimates TAM, SAM, and CAGR from training data, not live research databases. Cross-reference against current Gartner, IDC, or Statista reports before presenting projections to investors. Financial projections are illustrative — adjust them to match your actual cost model and pipeline.
Export
Click Export as Markdown in the plan viewer to download the full document as a .md file. The file includes all 7 section headings, their Markdown body content, and the 5-year financial projections table.
Converting to Word or PDF
- Word (.docx): Open in Typora or Obsidian and use their native Word export, or run
pandoc plan.md -o plan.docx. - PDF: Run
pandoc plan.md -o plan.pdf(requires a LaTeX engine), or use Typora's PDF export. - Google Docs: Copy the Markdown text, paste into a new Google Doc, then apply heading styles manually. The table pastes cleanly as structured content.
Data Storage
Business plans are stored server-side in a per-user JSON file at the /api/data/business-plans endpoint. The file is scoped to your user account — team members on the same TotalApp workspace cannot access your plans. Data persists across page refreshes, browser restarts, and server deployments.
User-level isolation vs. tenant-level
Most TotalApp data (employees, projects, financial accounts) is scoped to the tenant workspace so all team members can share it. Business plans are the exception — they use per-user isolation because strategic documents are personal and confidential by default.
AI Engine Settings
The Writer Engine setting in Settings → Doc View controls which backend generates the plan.
| Engine | How it works | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| API | Calls the Anthropic API using ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set in the server environment. Uses Claude Sonnet. |
Highest quality, fastest. Requires a valid API key. |
| Local CLI | Spawns claude --print using your Claude Code subscription OAuth session. |
Equivalent quality to API. No API key required. Slightly slower. |
| Local LLM | Uses BERT for intent classification only. Text generation is not supported. | Will return an error if selected for plan generation. |