Starting a Business "Art of the Start" Style

Business Name Plan Note that all highlighted text should be replaced or deleted. Business Name makes the world a better place because _______________________. Put your logo here. www.YourBusiness.com Mantra Your mantra goes here. Here are some guidelines:     The mantra is for your employees, not your customers. It should define why your business exists. All decisions should be able to reference the mantra for an example. It should be as short and powerful as possible. The Art of the Start has many great examples of Mantras vs. Mission Statements. Business Model A short and easy to understand description of your business model (how you will make money) goes here. Define who your customer is, specifically. Create a table that shows the monthly operating cost of your business. Define the gross profit of each unit sold. Take the gross profit of each unit sold and divide by the total monthly operations cost and put that number here. X units sold monthly achieves break even. MILESTONES I recommend that you track the milestones in BaseCamp. However, any solution that is easily sharable among the key stakeholders will suffice. You must define the following milestones: 1. Proof of concept 2. Complete design specifications Sponsored by ThemBid.com and ATLInnovations.com. Contact the author at ThinkingSerious.com. 3. Complete Prototype. 4. Raise Capital. 5. Launch Beta. 6. Official Launch. 7. Achieve Break Even. 8. Check Assumptions (recurring). In BaseCamp, setup a new company for each business you are starting. Under that company create a project for each of these milestones (prefix these projects with an *, this is to denote that these are the key projects to complete). Then within each project define the milestones necessary to complete each project (the milestones above). Each milestone in BaseCamp should have a due date and person responsible. List each of the milestones above here with the associated due date. Provide a link to the relevant page on BaseCamp here. ASSUMPTIONS List out all of your assumptions here along with a link to the system where you will track those assumptions (if applicable) and which milestone the assumption belongs to. Here are some common assumptions to track:           Performance metrics. Market size. Gross margin. Sales calls per salesperson. Conversion rate. Sales cycle length. ROI for customers. Technical support tracking. Payment cycle. Compensation requirements for your staff. Sponsored by ThemBid.com and ATLInnovations.com. Contact the author at ThinkingSerious.com.  Cost to produce your product or service. TASKS Define all the tasks necessary as projects in BaseCamp. Here are some example tasks:         Rent office space. Create partnerships with vendors. Set up accounting systems. Set up payroll systems. File legal documents. Purchase insurance policies. Set up phone services. Buy servers. Provide a link to the relevant page on BaseCamp here. Resources Companion blog post. Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. Sponsored by ThemBid.com and ATLInnovations.com. Contact the author at ThinkingSerious.com.