I recently mentioned my search for business partners for a new startup I’m involved in. Well, I’m happy to say I the team is now set and work is just getting underway.
As this is my first real business startup (not including my own freelance web design business), I’m finding it to be very much a learn-by-doing experience. So this is the first of what will be an ongoing series of posts titled ‘Startup Revelations’, where I’ll share the lessons I’m learning along the way to building a (hopefully) successful business.
Startup Revelation #1
Business planning is a lot more time consuming than I had expected. I mean, I knew planning was important going in, but I didn’t foresee how intensive it would be.
The really surprising thing is that we’re only at the beginning of the planning stage and we already have about 6 shared Google Docs amounting to roughly 30 printed pages, plus several excel spreadsheets and a basecamp account filled with to-do tasks and more docs.
The bulk of planning so far has been mapping out the details of the product and the way our business partnership will be structured. The product itself has quite a few in’s and outs which makes planning that much more of a project.
While rough numbers were thrown around, we haven’t reached intensive budget & sales forecasts. That will come as we’re farther along in the process.
We also haven’t begun the process of drafting our legal partnership contract, although we are in the process of planning the broad principles.
Planning is fun
What can I say? I enjoy it. I dig the process of crafting the ideas and hammering out the details.
It’s kind of a combination of creativity and problem solving, which can probably be said about many skills in the realm of design. When planning a business, the goal is to map it out with the following intentions:
- Craft a truly great product
- Map out a system for delivering that product
- Answer the question, how will the business profit?
Apparently, being a “planner” is one of the 7 uncommon traits of successful entrepreneurs, which seems to be a good thing.
Until the next revelation…