Step 10. Bussiness Plan

Before you go out and start doing anything to create your business, you need a road map to move forward. You need to plan out what winning looks like for you and your business, that's where the business plan comes into play. You now know what makes you happy, you've decided to become your own boss and be financially independent, you know what you want to do and what you are going to call your business, but where to go next? Enter the business plan.

You have to design, think and research in detail your market, your product or service, your competition, your costs, what equipment you will need, how are you going to manufacture your product or what tools you need to provide your service, how big is your team going to be, etc. These are the basic question that your business plan will answer to help you trace your path to success.

There are several reasons you need a Business Plan, but mainly is to be able to explain your ideas to other people, for example, you will need your business plan to convey your ideas to your spouse or significant other on how you plan to bring food to the table, you will need it to explain your business to team members you are bringing in, every funding method out there will require you to provide a business plan to show how you intend to create revenue, what you'll costs be, what equipment will be required and who will be your market.

Let's see which basic questions your Business Plan needs to answer:

• The Problem: You found an itch in a niche that needs to be scratched, explain what it is.
• The Solution: How are you going to scratch that itch?
• Business Model: How are you going to make money scratching this itch.
• Tarket Market: Who is the group of persons or niche that has this itch, how big is this group?
• Competitive Advantage: Compared to other products or services that scratch this itch, what will make you better?
• Financial Summary: How much is it going to cost you to scratch the itch, how much are you going to charge to scratch it and what other factors will have a financial impact while scratching the itch.
• Required Funding: How much money you will need to start your business to scratch this particular itch.

There are several samples out there for Business Plan templates, software that helps you create your business plan and books on the subject. But if you are able to answer these basic questions, you can make a one page Business Plan that will help you pitch your idea to possible investors, or email them this one page BP and if it is in one short page, they will have time to read it, a busy person rarely has time to read more than one page, so this first one page business plan can help you get started in many ways. But mainly it will help you design the path you will follow to success and what winning, for you and your business, looks like.

Here is a list of the best Business Plan software to help you get started.

and here are some books I recommend:

There are many great books on how to start your own business, that I will share in future posts, but I do want to emphasize the importance of your business plan, so having a book specially for that will help you go a great length before you even start. 

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward!

MrFireDragon