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For business planning purposes there are a few ways that you can approach the project. Business planning, as tedious as it sounds, is important whatever kind of enterprise you're building. Business planning serves as a road map and a guide to keep you on track, coordinate your work and milestones and allow you to understand what and how you will accomplish your goals.
A solid business plan is a working document that assists you in realizing your vision, staying true to your mission and gives you a useful tool to help you head off potential challenges or road blocks and measure success. There's a few approaches to business planning. The traditional business plan can range from something as basic as 1 page to an extremely lengthy and detailed document that can have dozens of pages. Be not afraid, there's a purpose to the madness. The very exercise of creating a business plan helps you in thinking through the purpose and potential growth and trajectory of your business. It should help you identify what problem you're solving, the resources you need to do so, the market you're targeting and how you're going to sell your product or service to them. This post on Forbes identifies a lot of the key components of a solid business plan "10 Essential Business Plan Components" At times, traditional business planning can be overwhelming. Particularly for someone who hasn't done much studying of business principles, management or finance. Don't worry - there's other ways to approach business planning and get started, even if it's not something you feel 100% comfortable with. The important thing is to get started, and if you're a MICA student or alumni, MICApreneurship is here to help - don't hesitate to reach out and set up a meeting. Meanwhile, here's a few suggestions: Business Model Canvas A favorite of the start up community, the Business Model Canvas is a tool that helps you identify and visually plot things like key resources, key partners, revenue models and more. It is a great skeleton to help develop a more meaningful and complete business plan. 1 Page Business Plan 100Startups.com has a very handy FREE one page template that helps you get started with business planning. Eight Free Business Plan Templates and Business Planning Resources for Startups This is a great overview, through an article published on Business News Daily that gives you several options and resources to help you with the business planning process from templates, to wizards, to lessons and more. Like anything you get what you put into the process of business planning. Having some sort of plan definitely increases your chances for clarity, focus and success. Also, depending on if you're seeking credit, funding or investors - a plan can become critical to your ability to move forward. Like anything the more you practice at business planning the better you get at it. Good luck & if we can help - don't hesitate to reach out to MICApreneurhip. |