Why You Need A Bakery Business Plan Even Without A Storefront

Your home bakery is still a business even without a storefront and even if you follow food cottage laws. It is still a business even if you never plan to have a storefront. Your home bakery business is just that; a business, and you should be treating it as such.

As a business owner, you need a bakery business plan even without a storefront. If you don’t want to create a thorough business plan right now, I totally understand, but you at least need to create a one-page business plan. Go here to get our FREE business plan template.

Business plans are required if you ever need to seek financing. You will have to provide one for loans and grants, but there is an even bigger reason why you need a business plan. Business plans help you set goals and create a vision for what you want your business to look like and where you want your business to go even without a storefront.

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Creating A Simple 7-Step Bakery Business Plan Even Without A Storefront

Business plans can be incredibility in-depth, or it can be a general overview of your business. There are a few items that you will want to include in your basic business plan. Go here to grab our FREE business plan template. Then, come back to this post so that you can complete your bakery business plan for your company even without a storefront.

Brainstorming

Before you begin filling out the business plan template, just like other writing prompts, you need to sit down and start imaging how your business will look. Start brainstorming ideas for your business. Think about how it will look; what you will sale.

Imagine the places you will sale your products. Think about where you will make your products; how you will package your products. As you are brainstorming, ask yourself the following questions and write down what comes to mind.

What does your menu look like?
Where do you want to be in 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, and 15 years?
Who is your ideal customer?
Where will you sell your items?
Where will you bake your items?
Who is your competition?
Where is your location?
What do you want to be known for?
How to you image your day?
How will you structure your day?
What does your team look like?
How will your marketing look?
Who will do what roles?
How much time do you have to dedicate to your business?

These are just a few questions to help you get your brain juices going. Now just sit and write about your business. You are almost creating a vision board or storyboard for your business during this phase.

Executive Summary

Ok, now that you have started envisioning your business even without a storefront, let’s start on the business plan. Every business plan needs an executive summary. In this section, you want to write a brief overview of what your business will do. What problems will you solve for your customers? How do you actually plan to solve the problem for your customers?

For example, as a keto bakery that specializes in creating products that are keto-friendly, you may want to say the following:

XXX Brand is a keto-friendly bakery. We will provide baked pastries, both sweet and savory, that are truly keto-friendly. We will sell our products in local retail stores, online through Etsy, and at local events. Many bakeries will claim that they are keto-friendly, but we have a dietician who reviews all recipes to meet the definition of keto.

In the example above, the executive summary lists what problem the company will solve for customers and how the company plans to solve the problems.

Opportunity

In this section of your business plan, you want to list the different opportunities you have to sell and promote your business. This section will look different for each business. Maybe you plan only to take customer orders. Then, you would want to brainstorm ways to get your custom orders.

If you are going to do pop-up events, then in this section, you want to talk about different businesses that will allow pop-ups. Maybe you plan to ask boutique shops to allow you to host a monthly pop-up shop. Maybe you have a friend who owns a building who is willing to let you rent out space monthly to host a pop-up shop.

Whatever plan you have, here is where you want to include the different opportunities that you will use to sell your products and to make your business successful even without a storefront.

Market Analysis Summary

The section is about knowing thy enemy. No, just kidding, but you do need to do research. You need to look at who is your direct competition in the area. Then look at who is competition.

So for example, if you are a home baker who specializes in cookies and there is another cookie business within 30 miles, that is your direct competition. If you are a home baker who does cookies and there is a grocery store in your area, that too is your competition, but most likely not your direct competition.

Why not direct? Most people who go to a grocery store for bakery products are not looking for the unique product and services you bring to the table, and vise versa. Most of your customers will not be going to the store bakery. However, it is important to size them up as a competitor because you will both be after new customers. So know your direct and indirect competition.

Once you identify your competitors, then you will need to determine how you plan to stand out above them. Ask yourself these questions and think about what your company will bring to the table.

Do you have better value?
Do you have a better price?
Do you have a unique experience?
Do you offer something free?
Do you offer a better experience?
Better customer service?

Really give this section a lot of thought and research. This will help you be better prepared to run your business and be successful even without a storefront.

Execution

Once you have answered all the above sections, you can create a plan of execution. In this section you will lay out your plan to execute all of your thoughts and ideas. In this section, you want to answer the following questions:

Where will you be located?
How will your organization run?
How will you package items?
How will you market your business?
How do you plan to grow your business?
How will you price your products?
What products will you offer?

In this section, you can be as detailed as you want. Our bakery business plan has several phases to it. We have a plan to establish the foundation for our business even without a storefront. Once our foundation is set, we have plans for our growth in phases. All of these ideas are spelled out in this section, along with how our organization currently functions.

Company Management/Roles Summary

Now this section might be short and sweet for your organization if you are the only person on your team. We have three people on our team and a professional marketing/graphic artist that we use for consultations. In this section, you will explain who is on the team and what expertise they bring to the table.

Think about how each person functions in the organization. What skills does that person bring to your team, and how do you utilize those skills?

For example, we have a professionally trained pastry chef who has a ServSafe Manager Certificate. She adds value to our team by developing recipes, preparing products, and safety and sanitation regulations. We have another member of our team who does our networking. She does not have professional experience, but she has many different contacts that have made her a valuable member of our team

When assigning job tasks within our organization, we look at our bakery business plan to determine who should do which tasks based on personality, expertise, and skills. This has worked well for growing our business even without a storefront.

Financial Plan

How do you plan on making money for your business even without a storefront? I once read that to be successful, a person and a business should always have 7 streams of income. Now I cannot currently recall where I came across this nugget of information, but I hold this dear to me both in my personal finances and my professional business.

Now we do not currently have 7 streams of income for our business, but we have brainstormed and developed plans to have 7 streams of income. For our business, we are focusing on 3 streams currently. Once we have these 3 income streams working and money flowing into our business, then we will add on additional income streams.

In this section, list your different income streams. Think about how your company will make money.

Do you sell digital products?
Do you sell recipes?
Do you sell baking tools?
Do you run a blog?
Do you have a retail store?
Do you sell classes?
Do you sell books?
Candies?

Sit down and brainstorm your 7 streams of income. Then develop and plan and goal for establishing these streams of income. This section will help give you guidance when making decisions on the next steps to take in your business.

Using Your Bakery Business Plan Even Without A Storefront

Now that you have sat down and really given your business some thought, you should be ready to take the next steps in starting up your business. We have a great article here about starting your baking business even without a business.

As I said before, you should create your business plan even if you only plan to do this as a side hustle. Business plans help give shape and form to your ideas. It gives you goals to help you focus your direction with your business. Think of your business plan as a blueprint on how you ideally want your business to work and where you expect your business to go.

The last MOST important thing about your business plan is to know that this is not set in stone. Your business plan is going to change. Things are going to happen the way they are meant to happen. You may start your business in one direction, but opportunities take your business in other directions. We find it important to revisit our business plan every 3-6 months in the early stages of your business.

Review your bakery business plan and see if things should be changed or updated. For example, we originally planned on jumping in with both feet on a storefront, but things took shape in different ways. We still want a storefront, but for now, we have shifted our focus on different aspects. We moved our storefront plan to a different phase in our business that we plan to focus on after we finish building what we call the “foundation” of our business.

When my mom and I started talking about opening a bakery 2 1/2 years ago, I actually wanted to buy an already established business, then we decided to have my mom relocate to Florida and open a storefront, but now we have started building our customer base in Missouri. This has forced us to revise our bakery business plan and work with what we have built.

If you are seriously considering starting your own baking business even without a storefront, then we invite you to check out our other articles about starting a baking business.

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We wish you the best of luck in your endeavor, and we want to help you succeed. We believe that as fellow entrepreneurs, it is important for us to help each other with our business.

There is plenty of business out there in this big beautiful world even without a storefront. Each of us can exist and be successful. That is why we have created the Baking Business Start-Up Kit here. This kit is packed full of important and helpful information to get your business up and running. In the kit, you will find:

Added bonus- Plus, we throw in a lot of FREEBIES to you. I mean, just look at this list.

Waste logs
Business Plan Template
Bakery Business Resource List
GFS pricing guide
IG bakery content planner

And much, much more….

That’s more than an $125 value for only $93.75… but that is not all. We want you to be successful. So, we want to give you a few of our favorite recipes to help you get ready for your business.

If you are truly serious about starting your bakery business even without a storefront, then get your Bakery Business Starter Kit. Stop wasting time and get started today here.

After you get your starter kit, make sure to come back and grab all the FREE recipes we have listed on our website. I mean, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, grab the ones that we know work. We use them for our own business.

As always, we encourage you to share knowledge with others. Make sure to share our blog posts with friends and other bakers who are looking to start their own successful baking business by sharing and pinning our blog posts to Pinterest and sharing them on your social media.