i am having questions about business plan development, i know there are some quite good business owners and business savy poeple here so hope some can help.

i am at a lost about some things, like marketing for the most part. i am just at the feasability planning stage, i am not sure the best route to go to see if my service and product is a marketable one that would attract interest. i would be creating a kind of new market for a service, but it really is just a more practicle and better version of a pre existing service.

i am wondering how to go about seeing if there are people really interested in this so i can see if it is worth proceeding with a full business plan and thus investing money into start up.

that is my real hang up right now, plus trying to even figure out details like cost, acceptable profit margins, heck, even warranty, but that would come with the business plan.

also i was wondering for you business owners, at what point did you bail? or at what point did you decide to rely on your own business as your sole source of income?

also, what made you decide that your business is worth doing? i understand about a plumber or hvac guy, there is always a market, but what about something even like FTE? basically creating a market or maybe meeting demands you could say, but the service does not physcially exist (assuming no ford truck forums when fte started).

 

Good start: "He who fails to plan plans to fail". Starting a business without a business plan is like sailing without a compass.

 

It took me about two years of planning before leaving my job and taking on the new venture. I moved about an hour away so there was no competition issues with my previous employer.
Once I did move it was another 6 months of setup/construction before I was ready to generate revenue. Good thing I had saved up some money to live on in the mean time. Things were still pretty lean for a few years, starting to look good now though. Especially in 3.5 years when I get the equipment loan paid off.

 

Do some market research basically take and ad out in a paper and get a disposible
cell phone for the number in the ad. Don't exactly put what you are doing you don't
want to give anybody Ideas, Just be vauge say you have some dandy new pool
filter device or something put an ad out for pool cleaning and maintenece. Put a
coupon for a new sand filter(just an example) and see what kind of response you
get. Take the ad out in you towns largest paper or in a couple of papers, If you
have a bargain news type paper try to get a 1/4 or 1/8 page ad towards the front
or in the dead middle of the paper, Don't skimp on the ad size. The business
expenses should be employees the biggest then advertising followed closely by
product then of course taxes taxes taxes!!!! jk!! Ohh yeah the most important
thing to have being is an accountant at least every quarter have one go over your
books, find one that deals with companies in the same sector as you so he will have
an idea of what expenses are in line and what is way out of line. My womans uncle
boss just closed up his business because his mechanic was just replacing parts
instead of getting rebuild kits or replacing a hyd pump when actually it was a hose
that was leaking and his office manager was doing the books and since they only had
an accountant do the taxes at the end of the year, She was pocketing money and
making work orders up and basically she got away with a couple of million they didn't
figure it out until they laid her off and his wife started checking the books out. I am
pretty sure the mechanic was getting kickbacks as soon as I heard it I was like kick
backs that is the # 1 sign of that spending way more money on parts then needed.
A good accounted of a certain persuasion would have caught that if he also works
in the same industry he could have said your mechanic is spending more money than
a company three times your size. It was going on for a long time he eventually got
slow and couldn't afford to pay the guys(#1 expense!!) so he layed everyone off
and closed the doors, If the money he lost was in the bank he could have floated
the company until things got better. The moral of the story You have to spend
MONEY to make MONEY!! And to protect the money you have, and don not trust yourself either you do not know the laws and loopholes like a pro does!!

 

Hey this is marketing research and i got my thread deleted for something very similar beware!