Now I have already written a business plan myself for my current business but I wanted to cover my thoughts on writing one.

With my last business we never wrote a formal plan. We had written some ideas on papers and some vague strategies of how we would go about things, but nothing was written in the formal style of a business plan. Maybe this is why we didn’t hit the big times and become the world dominating corporation we wanted, but we will never know. With my last business I personally did want to sit down with my business partners and write at least a informal plan. One that covered some basics, marketing, sales, financials. With my new business I did write a plan and as much as I hated writing it, I feel more prepared to follow through with my idea.

Writing a business plan forces you to think about areas of your business that you might have not thought about. Or even just how you are actually going to something, such as marketing. By taking the time to write a plan, you start to see areas in your thought process that just don’t make any sense. This part can be hard, especially if you have never thought about it before.

While writing my business plan I had a hard time figuring out my financial. What I predicted I was going to sell, my estimated costs, month to month predictions. It was all just so confusing for me I just wanted to make money. I can honestly say that it took me a few weeks just to get past this part. What got me through it was reading a book and a few articles online about writing a business plans. My favorite resource was www.bplans.com. I also read ‘How to Write Business Plan for Dummies.’ Which I honestly thought was a waste of time and a very crappy book. The best resources I found were just from Google Search Results.

In the end writing a business plan was a good first step into starting my business. It gave me some new insite about my market and how successful I can be with my idea. I learned a lot about what it will take to run my business and some challenges that I will need to overcome in the future. With my plan in hand I feel more confident with moving forward.