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

Step 8: Vision, Shoot For The Moon.

It is amazing when you start working hard for something, you start to research about the business you want to launch, and while you learn about it, things start to click. You start to see connections of all the things you know and hold dear with the new information you are learning about this new business. It's like a sign from above, you can call it everything you want depending your particular religion or set of beliefs, but the important thing is that once you see all these connections popping up and you start tracing all the dots, you have to believe and have faith that the path you have taken is the right path for you. 

Life for some reason wants you to complete this path, so I say you follow it, you'll be fired up and excited and will want to know more and do more and move as fast as you can, just don't forget to plan ahead. Don't let the feeling that everything is falling into place cloud your judgement. You now have a vision of where your path is heading, having things click will allow you to see where you are and where you want to go.

The vision is crucial for an entrepreneur, it let's you know where you are aiming, knowing where to aim will let you create the actions that have to be taken to reach that target. If the actions do not render the desired result, don't worry, you still have your vision, stick to it, just find a different approach, improve your actions. This could be launching a new campaign, targeting a different market, creating a new product or service, it doesn't matter what action you take as long as it is focused on your vision. 

A leader without a vision is a failure as a leader, how is the team going to follow a leader that doesn't know where to go? A leader with vision is a great leader, just see what other great leaders past and present have done. I recommend to read biographies of great leaders. Abraham Lincoln, Mandela, Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Walt Disney, Patton, Bolivar, Asoka, Churchill, Napoleon, you name it. Every great leader in history had a vision and kept to it and created their own path. 

If you start a business without a clear vision, you will fail, you will learn that vision is key, but if you find your vision before starting you will save yourself great headache. What could be your vision? To be the greatest contractor in your area, with amazing quality, 5 of 10 working crews, strive for happy customers all the time, provide the best materials and finishes for your projects even if that means doing the job with someone else. Maybe you want to be the cupcake tycoon of America, selling cupcakes on the web, door to door, on a store, reaching millions with delicious frosted pieces of happiness. It is up to you what you want to do, as long as you have a long term look of what you want to do and what do you want to achieve. Follow your vision and everything will fall into place.

For me, finding my vision required me to have a little alone time, I had little time to actually meditate, clear my mind and find a solution to the problems I want to solve. So I used my commute, sometimes I would pop a podcast either Entrepreneur on Fire, Entreleadership Podcast or even WDW Radio, since I'm such a geek and enjoy that podcast very much, and during those commutes, hearing great podcasters and great interviews, then my mind would start working like crazy. The audio became a white noise while I was immersed in my own thoughts on how to create my business, but specially I created the goal I wanted to reach for both projects, I have a very clear and defined vision of where I want to go, and from that I have been planning and designing the actions I'm going to take to reach that goal. 

So get out there and think, plan, meditate, explore, try to find patterns and connect the dots. Create an amazing vision, shoot for the moon, if you miss you'll still be among the stars.

Exciting New Paths by Finding a Pain

Aside of writing tips and advice for those of you who want to start your own business I will also try to share my our journey, failures and experience for it prove to be of some value for you. So today I want to open up a little about two projects I am about to start, both I will launch through Kickstarter by March or beginning of April.

I won't be saying much right now because I am still polishing the kinks a bit to launch a successful Kickstarter campaign and researching within my target audience to try to find any and all pains I can soothe with my two projects. 

One of the projects is based on alternative energy, in a product that I've, so far, not found in the market as a viable product. I've seen many successful experiments, but nothing in the market out there that can be purchased by the public in general. This has me on fire at the moment, and a team of very talented people is forming to research, develop and launch an amazing product that could provide with free, clean energy in a small scale to charge your gadgets.

The other one is an online service with app and web system that will let people with any kind of degenerative disease to track their everyday symptoms along with their medicine, food, supplements, etc to look for patterns. The systems is going to be way more complicated than just this, but this was the basic idea that triggered this idea and concept. I've also been talking with my target audience and they have been amazing, I've received tons of ideas and suggestions based on their actual needs. They are excited about this service and that fires me up even more.

So the basic idea that I want to share here with you is that, no matter what your idea might be, always try to reach your target audience and ask what they really need. Find a problem, an itch, a pain that you can solve, scratch or soothe. That way you can be sure that your idea for a product or service can have a profitable future. I had a basic idea for what I wanted, for both projects, but getting in touch with my target audience allowed me to take new directions that I had not even thought of, having their feedback opened up my mind and created a wider and lighted path for me to follow.

MrFD

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward!

Step 7: The Going Gets Tough

When you have decided that you are going to become an entrepreneur, start your own business and become your own boss, you are going to find your share of obstacles that you will have to overcome. Like the saying goes, you make plans and then life happens. You will receive your share of unexpected expenses, health related issues, the stream of naysayers that will call you crazy for going independent, even the eventual hater that makes his/her life's mission to bring your happiness down. There will be some that will tell you that what you are doing is a waste of time.

But you want to know what really is a waste of time? A waste of time is to have invested time and money in formal education and be stuck in a job you hate, fading away a little each day into numbness. If you dare go for your happiness, the things that makes you tick, if you go out and find your "food truck", research about this thing that makes you happy, the past, the present and dare to create its future. That is definitely not a waste of time. If you are in a hole, you have to stop digging.

I went through all of this, I was dying a little every day, I had people that seemed invested in keeping me bottled down and stuck at a job that I started to loath, I was way too overweight, my wife was diagnosed with arthritis at 31, a little girl starting school and people around me trying to convince me that I was crazy for wanting for more. I broke my fears, and went for it and I am starting to see the fruits of my work, how my dreams and ideas are slowly becoming realities. 

You don't have to be tough to make it, as the old saying goes. You just have to keep moving, as slow as you want, but just as long as you don't stay on the same place. Remember, when the going gets tough, just keep moving forward.

MrFD

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward.

The Power Of Habit

Yesterday I rambled on about how you have to change your habits and take accountability on your own life, before you can start your own business. Yet, I never talked about the real secret on changing your habits, sorry for that. But I really had a reason, I wanted to make this a post on it's self. 

The real secret to be able to change your habits, is to know how habits in general work, how they are created, what triggers them and what we expect to obtain from them. Once you really understand how they work, you will be able to create systems that will help you substitute or change your current habits for a new set of better and improved habits.

Today I want to share with you the book that helped me know all about habits and showed me the way to change my old bad habits: The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg.

I have to admit, and you'll find this same thing on the book, I have to keep battling against my old habits every day, but by knowing how they work, I am able to keep them at bay much better that I did before. It is hard work, but the results are extremely rewarding.

I also recommend the audiobook, read by Mike Chamberlain. Mike makes this book easy to hear, fun and keeps your attention. I have to admit that while listening I had to rewind several times, but that is just because this book triggered a whole bunch of ideas for products and services and got me on fire.

So I hope you really do get this one and read it, I am confident that it will do a ton of good for you, it will help you improve your life and your business. 

Google Play Books: The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business.

Happy reading!

MrFD

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward.

Step 6: Change Your Habits, Be Accountable For Your Life.

7 Minute read

From this point forward you are going to take serious actions towards completing your goals, setting up your business and take accountability for what comes next, and this step is going to be the hardest for most of you. I have to admit it was the hardest for me, it took me quite a long time to actually change my old habits for a new set of better and productive habits, and it didn't just took me a while, I battled with myself to reach a point where my new habits were kicking in and making me move forward.

There is a quote out there that is attributed to JD Huston, if you have different source, please share and I'll change it. But the quote says: 

"If you want something you've never had, 

you've got to do something you've never done."

What a power thought, right? It means that if we do not have something right now that we wish we had, it is because we haven't done anything to get it, and if we have done something but failed to obtain that something, then we need to do something else, something we have never tried before. We have to break our ideas that the world is out to get us, that there is something  or someone out there to blame for our failures, because there is nothing and no one but us that have stopped us from getting what we want.

"But MrFD, I had an accident, or someone robbed me, or there was a fire and lost everything, I was left paraplegic or quadriplegic." Ok, there is someone to blame for an event in your life, but what happens after that event is entirely up to you. You have the power to change your situation or make the most of it. There are tons of success stories out there of people that have suffered pain and misery, people who have had accidents, or where born without a limb or all four limbs, or people who have a disease that have left them unable to move or talk, yet, they are successful, they are business owners, motivational speakers, writers, scientists, in short they are entrepreneurs. They do not sit still and let the world whip them around, they take control of their current situation and work hard to move forward.

You have that same power and ability to move forward, to accept your current situation and work your way up. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do now for a living or what is your situation in general. You can do it. You may be a single mom wanting to start your own cupcake business from home, or a retired grandpa who wants to start the business you always dreamed to do but never got around to doing it, or a broke and broken person that feels like there is nothing left in this world for you. YOU CAN DO IT! I believe in you, I believe that we all have the power to change our lives, we have to face the fears and doubts that grow in our minds, change the daily things we currently do and start moving, no matter how slow, but as long as you don't stay in the same place.

How can we change to be able to take all the planning and dreaming we made in the past steps to actually start moving? Again, we have to work on ourselves. We have to improve our habits, some of you will be able to change very quickly, some, like I said before, will have a hard time breaking your habits. But if you give it a try, you can change everything in your life.

It is said that you can form a new habit in 28 days and once formed, you will still have to work to keep at it, because your old habits will continue to pop up when ever you allow them.

There are 3 main habits that I've experienced as the most important to change your whole life. The first one I've already covered. Writing. The second one is: Reading. The third one is: Exercise.

Writing, Reading and Exercise. The three of them are habits that build and improve you as a person, as an entrepreneur and improve your health, and all 3 give you energy and motivation to start moving towards your goals, no matter what they are.

As I covered in a previous post, I recommend that you write down everything important, keep a daily journal, and write down everything you were grateful for each day, write down what you have done to move towards your goals. That will help you to obtain the habit of writing everything you need to start, keep and grow your business. Leave yourself a cue, leave your journal in a place you will know that you'll see it at both the end and the beginning of your day, so you'll write something down.

Reading will cultivate both your intellect and your writings skills, I will share with you all material that I consider relevant for your personal and entrepreneurial growth and things that will motivate you. But you have to learn about the business you want to explore, you have to read books, magazines and blogs about the subject. The past, the present and the future of your business. Search for news articles, studies and basically everything new that is out there about the market you want to explore. You have to read your way into becoming an expert in your field. Again, use a cue for yourself, leave the book you are reading in a place you know you'll read it, I recommend before going to bed, instead of watching TV or checking up on your smart phone, read a real book, it will help you sleep better. If you have a long commute use it to hear an audiobook.

Exercise will give you energy, endorphins, strength and the health you need to keep working towards your goals. In future posts I will constantly write about the importance of health and rest for business success. You don't have to do a heavy workout, start by walking, if you enjoy swimming, dancing or zumba, do that. Do what you feel comfortable doing three times a week and then challenge yourself to do 5 minutes more, after a week, 5 minutes more. Until you are able to do one full hour of any exercise you like, as long as you really break a sweat. Leave your exercise bag or shoes, in place you'll see them, that way you'll remind yourself with a visual cue that you have to exercise. If the exercise you choose allows it, hear an audiobook or a podcast instead of just music.

If you focus in just these 3 habits, you will see how other new habits will start to form without you even planning. You will improve your finances, you will quit some really bad habits like smoking and drinking, you'll eat healthier, you'll be a happier person, you'll spend more time with friends and family and you will start to appreciate what you have and what you can do to get where you want. You will have taken accountability for your life and acquired the necessary habits for your success. 

MrFD

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward.

About Accountability

Today is Sunday, and it is a great time to relax a little and invest time in your self education. I want to talk to you about a book on accountability. Throughout the years I have been working, I've been an able to see and be a part of, what I call, the accountability dance.

When a problem arises at the workplace, ever single person that is in some part involved in this problem will perform an intricate set of movements where they will swerve, jump, twirl, leap and tiptoe away from accountability and when possible divert it to the nearest person available. Almost no one is willing to take accountability for their actions, but the real problem is that no one is willing to take accountability on issues that happen at the workplace. It might not be a problem, it could be something as simple as directing a customer to the right direction, or cleaning up a spot on the floor.

How many times have you heard people say: "That's not my job". Rarely people will step up to the plate, take ownership of a problem and ask "what can I do to improve this situation?"

As a leader and entrepreneur, you are the first person that will have to take accountability of your business and everything that happens there, but you also have to teach and preach about accountability to your team members, and the best way to do it is by example.

I want to share with you an amazing book that teaches about accountability, this book changed the way I saw the problems at the workplace, I hope it can help you to build up your own business with strong accountability foundations.

Google Play Book Version Here

Happy reading and have a great Sunday!

MrFD

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward!

Step 5: Goal Setting For Success.

Today I want to talk to you about the importance of goal setting, both in business and in personal life. When you want to achieve something and you only have that on you head, that is a wish. You wish to get to a place you are not in right at this moment. But when you write it down, that same wish becomes a goal.

There is a secret into creating goals, not every wish you have can become a real or optimal goal, there are some steps you have to consider to have a perfect goal that will help you reach your dream and succeed in your planning.

1.- Write them. The most important aspect of a perfect goal is that is has to be in writing. I suggest writing a draft of your goals in a piece of paper, and once you have perfected them, then write them down in a place where you will be able to look at them every day. This way they will serve as motivation for you to keep moving forward with your plans.

2.- Goals have to be specific. Don't write "I want to make more money", write down the amount you want to achieve, "I want to make 100k USD". Don't write "I want to lose weight", how much weight you want to lose? Don't write "I want to spend more time with my family", how much time you want to spend with them? Every goal you want to accomplish has to be specific.

3.- Goals have to be timed. Ok, so you want to make 100k USD, when? You want to lose 20 pounds? when? you want to spend time with you family? when? You have to give yourself a measure of time to achieve your goal, it has to be long enough to let you reach your goal but not too long that will keep success at bay for so long that you will eventually forget it and drop it.

4.- Goals must be measurable. You want to make 100k USD this year? How? If you have a job in sales, how many sales you have to make a year to reach 100k USD? now you know the exact amount of sales you have to make per month to achieve that, and from that you know how many sales you have to make per week and daily. How many phone calls you have to make per hour to make one sale? ok, so now you know how many calls you have to make daily to make the sales you need every week, to reach the sales you have to make every month to earn those 100k USD per year you want.

5.- Goals must have an ultimate purpose. When you give your goals an ultimate purpose, you will find that it is easier to work towards your goals, the purpose is the actual motivator, it is the engine of your goals. You want to lose 20 pounds in 3 months? why? To improve lead a happier and healthier life to be able to be here for my family. You want to make 100K usd this year? why? because I want to buy my mom a house. You want to invest 1.5 hours with your family every day of the week? why? because I want to strengthen the bond with my spouse and be a part of my kids' lives. That ultimate purpose will motivate you to keep going until you reach your goal.

If you follow these 5 simple steps you will be able to create goals that matter, goals that will be specific, goals that you will be able to track and measure, goals that will be attainable. 

Now that you have written down your goals, like I mentioned before, put them in a place you'll see them every day. I suggest that you always write them all down in your own handwriting, don't use a computer, that way they will become impersonal, but these are your goals with your purposes, they don't get much personal than this. So grab pen and paper and write them down, for example, in a note card, laminate it and keep it in your pocket or wallet, so you'll read them every day and hold yourself accountable for them.

Use your journal and calendar to keep track of your goals, and the next action you have to take to reach those goals. Keep moving, create momentum, if you do not stop and work every day towards your goals, you will reach them in the time frame you have set yourself. You have a guide now of where you want to go, once you have your goals clear and in writing, there feeling of being lost fades away, you are not lost, now you know where you are and where you want to go. Now, your path has become clear. Follow it.

MrFD

Jon Favreau's "Chef": Entrepreneurship by Happiness.

Have you had time to see the movie "Chef" yet? if not, please check my previous post, then come back here.

Ok, after these lines you must have seen the movie. I am about to give a bunch of spoilers.

SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD

You have been warned....

I loved this movie, not just because it was made by Jon Favreau, one of my favorite directors, not even because of the fact that I am a hardcore foodie and this movie is based on food, and amazing looking food at that! It is not even Jon is able to show the power of a social network such as Twitter. No, what I loved the most about this movie is that Jon touched two of the most basic entrepreneurship principles: failure and the quest for happiness.

Jon's character, Carl Casper is introduced as a failure as a father and husband, but still quite successful as the main chef of the restaurant he has worked for over 10 years, and we seem him fail at that too, miserably. He doesn't fail when he quits, he leaves the restaurant moved by his own principles, but he fails when he is not able to take the heat from Oliver Platt's character Ramsey Michel, going viral at the same time all over the internet.

But he knows what makes him happy, he knows that making food, really good food for others makes him happy. So, with nothing to lose he goes to Miami to be his kid's nanny with her scheming ex-wife, that is using the trip as an excuse to set him up with her other ex-husband to get a dilapidated food truck that he tries to restore with the help of his son Percy.

We see the transformation on Carl, from depression to excitement. It happens quite quickly, and this is the part that is the most important for me, after all that failure, he is able to take this thing that makes him happy, he gets back up, dusts himself up, learns from his past mistakes and  he moves forward with this idea that he didn't like at the start, but in the end was his stepping stone for happiness. 

When his friend Marvin arrives to help out and work for Carl. Carl, Marvin and Percy go on a road trip to drive the food truck back to L.A. and it is during this trip that Carl finds the new source of his happiness, to cook food with his son. Cooking food alone, makes no sense for him anymore, so his source of happiness is the same, but it is bigger when done along with a loved one that shares his passion. In the end even his ex-wife joins in, and Ramsey Michel comes back to become his investor to set up a nice Cuban restaurant where he has total freedom and in the end he also finds love again with his ex-wife and they all become a big happy family once again.

I'm a sucker for happy endings, I have to admit. Just liked I said before, this movie is just like comfort food, I love it.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, where you principles are compromised, you are pressured until the point of meltdown, you fail at something big in life. Just find your happiness, find your support group and share that happiness with them, success will find you. You just have to go out there and find your "food truck".

Don't stay on the same spot. Keep Moving Forward! 

MrFD

Jon Favreau's "Chef". Entrepreneurship, Happiness, Family and a Food Truck.

Entrepreneurship Movie #2

Jon Favreau's movie "Chef" is an amazing movie, it is just like comfort food, it is not complicated, it makes you feel good and leaves you craving for a little more.

There is certain elegance to the story's simplicity that also delves deeper into entrepreneurship at it's greatest, social media, the pursue of happiness and the strong bonds between family and friends. All within the confines of a food truck. Doesn't sound too sexy, you say? well, you are wrong, you'll see.

I will write a follow up post later on because I do not want to spoil this movie for you. But I can tell you something, if you are not happy where you are right now, if you have been laid off recently, if you want to start a business, I highly recommend this movie.

Warning: Do not watch this movie on an empty stomach, grab a large range of snacks before you hit play. You'll be drooling from start to finish, be sure to stay until the end of the credits. 

Netflix   Amazon Prime

Step 4. Find your happiness and success will find you.

How many times have you felt frustrated, desperate and downright unhappy at your current job. Maybe it is the actual work you do that makes you feel this way, or your co-workers are giving you a hard time, perhaps your boss is a terrible leader that is bringing the whole work environment down. All those are topics for a full entry by themselves, and believe me I'll get to that later. But the point is that if you are not happy with what you do, where you do it or who you do it for, it will have a negative effect in your personal life, your health and your ability to succeed. 

You have to give yourself permission to want to do the things you actually want to do. I mean, come on, how many times have you wanted to do something but told yourself that you couldn't, it wasn't the right time, you didn't have time at all or well, just someday you would get to that. The issue here is time, we have a limited amount of it, and someday might come too late, or not come at all. So why not allow you to be happy? Do the things that make you happy!

What are you really good at? exceptionally good, better than anyone else you know. Does it make you happy? if yes, then pursue it, let it be your thing and go with it. If it doesn't make you happy, but you are really good at it, perhaps you should explore other things, maybe you are really good at something else, you just have to find out.

When you realize what is your thing, the thing that makes you tick and gives you happiness, then give a really good time and thought on how to monetize that thing that makes you happy. Out there in the world there is people that would be willing to pay you to do exactly what you love to do. You might find a job doing the thing you love, that is great, but there is no greater feeling than to do the thing you love in a business of your own. 

Be aware that there is still a lot to do before you can live off the thing you love to do, there is still a lot of planning and tinkering to do before you can quit your job and start your own business, but now you know where you are headed, and that is half the way. Your business dragon egg is laid, it is time to find out how to make it hatch.

Remember future Dragon Riders,

Live, Laugh, Love and Keep Moving Forward.

MrFD