To hell with a business plan! My momentum is up and I’m not gonna stop myself and run the risk of a starter going out on me. I’m like the old car Robert Klein jokes about: have a listen. Besides, since I am going to attempt to self fund this bad boy, at least initially, I don’t really need a formal business plan written up just yet. I want to build something, get it out there, learn, and then write a business plan. It seems like business advisors always want you to slow it down and fill out paper work and plan everything out to the smallest detail…screw that, I’ve got it all in my head, it’s time to take action! I’ve been taking it slow for far too long now.

Long story short, I decided to slow it down a bit and write a business plan :). I’m a sellout, what can I say? Not for the investors though, for myself. When I started thinking about how I am going to market my applications with little money and who they are for and what I want to achieve with them and all that good stuff, I realized that I really don’t have as clear of picture as I thought. And the stuff that is clear in my head now, won’t be for long, as the tornado of to-do’s comes through and scatter my brain. It became clear to me that I needed to sit down and think things through up front, while everything is relatively calm out. This would help me get a clear picture and provide me with a reference sheet down the road to help make decisions and stay on track. It’s definitely a good thing…definitely (Martha Stewart as Rain Man).

So I sat down and started writing what my vision of the future is, how much I want to be making in 1, 3, 5 years (I want to be making 100K/yr in 2 years, if you must know), who my target market is going to be, and … well actually that’s as far as I got. I came up with a few different target markets and am still working on analyzing them to see which one represents the best opportunity for me. Once I’ve settled on one, my next step will be to write out how I plan to penetrate it and reach my goals. Here’s a good article about writing strategic business plans by Andrew Neitlich: Write a Business Plan that works.

I’ve spent the last couple days focusing on business structures (LLC = good), visions, goals, markets, finance, trade associations, etc. This is all very necessary and good, but now I am looking forward to spending the next couple days getting back to building my product. It will be a nice break from the business side of things and allow me to get back to my web-dev roots. I’ve decided to spend 50% of my time biz’n (can I just make up words like that?) and 50% geek’n (huh, I guess I can) in order to break up the monotony, keep a nice balance, and continue making progress in both arenas. Warning: these percentages may vary as needed.

One last tidbit, if you happen to be in the Portland area, the 13th Annual Oregon Small Business Fair is going down on September 16th. I’ve never been before, but it looks like a good opportunity to do some learning and networking. I was happy to find out about it beforehand for once, as typically I find out about these sort of things the day after the fact. But not this time boy! You hear that “luck of zack”? I outwitted you at last! It’s probably a misprint and it was last month, but whatever.

Update: I still plan on releasing my appetizer app in a month, so stick around. While I’ve learned that writing a business plan upfront is a good idea, I stand by my original philosophy that it’s important to just start doing something, anything! Too much obsessive thinking and not enough doing is what has held me back these last few years. So my business plan will be relatively short and sweet and, as I’ve mentioned, written in conjuction with the app ;).