Entrepreneurship, The Process of starting a business

I am a big believer in a business plan.  I have written or helped write 4 business plans in my life.  3 of those 4 business’s have moved forward to the point where money has been spent on them and 2 of the 4 have had revenues.  In my eyes a business plan does several things for you:

1. It makes you start putting time into the company.
   1. A lot of people talk about a great idea or a company but that’s all they ever do.  To me a business plan can provide that needed spark to get you moving towards making it happen.
2. It forces you to think about all nuts and bolts of the potential company (not just the fun stuff like how awesome your product is and how much it will make you).
   1. The dreams of big money and all the fun parts of running a company are what make entrepreneurship great.  Unfortunately there are a lot of crappy aspect of running a company that you have to think about, execute on, and master if you even want to have a chance to be successful.  A business plan will not answer these questions but it will make you think about all the ancillary work you will have to do to make your company successful.
3. It can help validate your idea.
   1. When You write a plan you do a ton of research.  In doing this research you can validate that there is a great opportunity for you to enter the market.  With ScrubSquared our research did just that.  We found that the research we did backed up our gut feeling that selling scrubs to nurses and other hospital personel was a great market for www.scrubadoo.com.
4. It can help you realize the business is a terrible idea.
   1. If you figure this out in your research phase of a business plan you can save yourself a lot of time, stress, and money.  You also need to be honest with yourself if you do find this.  One of the plans I wrote sounded like a great idea but after an in depth look it really just would not have worked out.
5. It will point out holes that need to be filled.
   1. This goes along with better understanding the nuts and bolts of your company.  Another thing is it can help you realize your weaknesses as a CEO of your company.  I have no experience in the medical field.  I have no experience to selling scrubs or medical uniforms to nurses or anyone else in the medical industry.  I needed someone with that experience so we made a board spot for it.
6. It gives you something to hand to people.
   1. This can be for a bank, employees, or maybe investors.  There are a ton of competitions out there that you can enter to win money, publicity, etc.  If you don’t have a plan you can’t enter these.

I am not going to sit here and tell you I look at my business plans on a daily basis.  In fact, since I wrote the original plan for ScrubSquared LLC I hadn’t looked at or revised it until a few days ago.  It was amazing to see how much our business had changed from what we expected it to be.  But for me the Scrubsquared plan was important because it got me started and it got me moving down a road.  Anytime you want to get somewhere it helps to have a map.  A business plan can be the map that helps guide you to your goal.