Ideation

Escorting Execution

After a few early moves, developing a business plan is a hearty exercise. Business plans are less pivotal than some scholars preach, but writing a business plan does force you to pick through the details of your business. This deliberate planning will help pave a path toward sustainability. The understandings will also help you articulate honest details to potential co-founders, investors, and early adopters.

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I considered sharing the original FliteBrite business plan from 2016, but decided to keep this detailed document offline. That said, if you’re building and would like to look at this multimedia masterpiece, send me a note and we’ll look at it together! If you’d like feedback on your emerging business plan, I’d be happy to discuss that as well.

This first version of a business plan does not need to be super long, but it should include a handful of key elements. While this can feel heavy, the work you previously put into wireframing and canvasing will lighten the load as you flesh out details. Below are the traditional elements to include:

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Company Description
  3. Market Analysis
  4. Products & Services
  5. Marketing & Sales
  6. Operations
  7. Financials
  8. Appendix

While using a standard form may add efficiency for readers, one size does not fit all. Consider how you’ll be using this dynamic document and who will be reviewing it. There are more details and endless examples online, such as this guide from the U.S. Small Business Administration, which will help you cater a business plan to your needs.

Creating a business plan is rarely a waste of time, but they do become a required asset when you’re raising financial capital. A few situations where you’ll likely need a business plan include grant applications, traditional bank loans, equity financing, and pitch competitions. Entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) may request a business plan to activate their services as well.

As you build a business plan, use a clarifying framework, concise content, and mark areas that may need to be frequently updated. This makes the document interesting, more digestible, and easier to maintain. Along with keeping this evolving asset fresh, consider how your business plan connects to support other emerging resources that collectively paint the picture of your company.

Stay tuned as we’ll look at one pagers, pitch decks, and investor memos next week, then explain how to weave everything into a forwardable investor pack as we conclude this month of themed tactics geared to keep your idea from slipping toward someday.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Canvasing

The New Year is already starting to feel like old news, eh. Let’s shake off that early temptation to push your new idea toward someday. Look, I get it. There was intoxicating enthusiasm when you first thought through everything over the holidays. As you’ve returned to routine, the idea that felt like it was the one & only thing that mattered, now seems to be falling down your priority list.

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This is normal, but we’re not normal!
We are the weird who make a ruckus.

After some creative wireframing, I challenge you to setup (at least) two meeting to breath life into this budding idea. First, meet with a #givefirst mentor. This should feel like a supportive space, but avoid rainbows and butterflies. Be realistic by sharing the exciting aspects of the idea, but also the challenges. As discussed in YDNTB, a fast no is much better than a long, wrong yes. That said, playing it safe is easier than activating initiative, so don’t let early doubt slow you down. Instead, welcome it. Let this energizing form of curiosity uncover new understandings. Pivots are inevitable and this exploration adds confidence as the original ideal is tweaked toward product-market fit.

After transparently talking with that trusted mentor, the next meeting is with a potential customer. This will feel too early, but it’s not. Your actually protecting your personal bandwidth by not swinging at a bad pitch too many times. Be smart to optimize these early interactions. Arrive prepared to ask good questions. Take notes and speak less so you can actively listen to how this potential early adopter is responding. Are you building a pain killer or vitamin? Remember, feedback is data and this is only one data point, but let this conversation absorb reality into the idea. Show up, stand out, follow up, stay connected by accelerating their work, and let’s keep building.

To do so, let’s continue brewing into this month’s theme of early moves. The business model canvas is a tool for crafting a story that sells. Here is a business model canvas that includes a little extra encouragement.

As we dive in, I’d like to share a suggested cadence from a friend of mine. Based in Sacramento, JDM is a fellow founder, entrepreneurial ecosystem builder, and tenacious content creator. He will be sharing a caffeinated contribution soon, but the way he moves through the business model canvas caught my attention. In short, most business models can’t be told in one story so it’s not one box at a time, but one story at a time. Instead of trying to boil the ocean, organize different stories for each customer segment. I’ve numbered each box in this downloadable business model canvas as a friendly guide.

  1. Customer Segments – Start with the details of a particular type of customer. The goal isn’t to complete the Customer Segments box. It’s starting a story to follow through the rest of the canvas. Now lean into the pain as you move from box to box and watch as your solution transforms into a story.
  2. Value Propositions – Based on this single customer, outline the value you’ll deliver.
  3. Channels – Where will your business connect with this specific customer?
  4. Customer Relationships – Who are you working with and how will collaboration feel?
  5. Revenue Streams – Based on the first four boxes, what’s the exchange the value?
  6. Key Activities – To deliver on the promise, you must execute with action(s).
  7. Key Resources – Using all seven capitals, here’s what’s needed to keep building.
  8. Key Partners – We can do more with less in the connected era. Who helps you get where?
  9. Cost Structure – The financial capital needed to go from problem to solution.

By telling the story of how you’re creating value for one customer segment, hypotheses connect through all nine boxes and are properly contextualized. Now add more stories, one at a time. To stay organized, use a clean business model canvas for each customer. With different stories told for each customer, color code each story as they are merged into one business model canvas. As everything blends together, the rainbow of color creates a roadmap to reality.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Wireframing

After a holiday season full of creative conversations with family and friends, the New Year inspires an openness to what’s next. This leads many to consider building something new. To kickoff 2023, go beyond only being the idea machine. Let’s start building now.

We’ll begin with a common scenario – there’s a cool concept and maybe some industry insight, but the idea requires technology and you lack an ability to code. This often makes first-time founders feel like there’s nothing they can do without paying for development or immediately recruiting co-founders to help build the product. This locks the idea in limbo, when in fact, there are many methods to make purposeful progress without writing a line of code.

One easy way to start is to visualize the idea through a process called wireframing. Wireframing is an entrepreneurial exercise that only requires a pencil, paper, and time. This activity is thought-provoking and allows anyone to conceptualize the structure and flow of their idea. It helps identify each type of user and the user experience (“UX”) with no tech required.

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This twitterstorm connected 78+ tweets and highlights all of my weekly writings from 2022. I work toward this all year, so I hope you’ll enjoy clicking into each satisfying rabbit hole. Please be sure to RT and LIKE your favorites to connect with others as well!

Ready for action? Excellent! Use a wireframing template to draw everything on screens of the device(s) your product will be used on. For example, if it’s a mobile app, find a wireframing template that includes blank smartphone screens and space for notes (example) to describe each state and how everything connects within the user interface (“UI”). Wireframing is mostly used to outline technology-based products, but some thoughtful sketching helps jump start physical products as well. If you’re thinking about a physical product, test your drawing skills by highlighting how different elements collectively come together to form the final embodiment.

Along with clarifying concepts for yourself, coordinated wireframing makes it easier for others to follow how everything fits together. The time spent here will save you money if you outsource development, as a solid roadmap helps lone wolves avoid costly detours. Wireframing helps you hire a team that can build what you want without pushing the idea into a more ordinary direction that works best for them. If you decide to seek co-founders who can effectively help build ideas into reality, (which would be my recommendation, but will take more time), wireframing is one more way to show you’re serious.

As you plug into the startup community, which is critical, this wireframing activity helps support the early versions of a pitch that tells a more impactful story as you breathe fresh air into the idea with feedback from others. While product design and the business to support it will need to evolve, earnest wireframing will help idea machines avoid melting momentum.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Sequencing

Perhaps everything is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters?

Even when it all connects, discovering how endless sequences relate is impossible for even the most methodic mind. Be it system thinking, design thinking, meta-synthesis, neural networking, or whatever mindset you choose, the intensity of such complexity makes it hard to see how a few things connect, let alone immeasurable members in infinite streams.

Machines can add computed awareness, but the squishy nature of each member within a sequence feels like it will remain a futile enigma that will forever transform based on if, who, what, when, where, why, and how something is being observed.

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Nerd alert, but hopefully you’re smiling because that first sentence and many of the terms I’ve sprinkled in, is how a sequence is defined in mathematics.

The processing power required to source the root connection(s) of every moment would paralyze your thoughts. One reason our brain is awesome, is its ability to deduce answers with limited real-time input, but even the way our brain works is like a sequence of positioned memories that provide reasonable assumptions toward what’s next. This saves time and helps us avoid insanity, but it’s interesting how this type of internal sequencing actually mutes the depth of each sequence.

Enjoy the moment and be a serendipitist, but keep a hint on how each member fits into the length of sequenced sequences (not a typo, haha). This mindfulness brews awareness, appreciation, and understandings from the past. It also adds a lightness to each moment, thanks to the liberation of future elements that are yet to arrive down string/stream.

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Merry Holidays! This year-end tour of seven 1MC communities in just four days, was wonderfully wild. As I shared in our Roasted Reflections Discord server, we’ll also be minting the last 5 tokens in the Roasted Reflections NFT Collection, we’re hosting a nationwide holiday party for active 1MC organizers today, and I’m looking forward to crafting the year-end Twitter thread (example) to highlight my second full year of writing every single week! Whoa, cheers to sequencing, eh

By Ben McDougal, ago

Not to Lose

I’ve been around soccer the majority of my life.

Whether it was traveling with the college team my dad coached as a kid, playing club soccer at an early age, focusing on the sport in high school, playing all through college, or being the product of my first entrepreneurial venture, soccer was a part of my identity for over 20 years. This team sport helped me push to be my best, but the sense of belonging is what made it special.

As I’ve enjoyed the World Cup in Qatar, I’m reminded how easy it can be to get ahead in a match, before slipping into a dangerous trap. Instead of staying sharp by maintaining the offensive pressure that earned an early lead, it’s tempting to start playing not to lose.

In soccer, this often means a team sinks back into an overly defensive formation. Less variety invites frantic desperation and the added pressure often leads to an equalizing goal being scored by the opposing squad. Even if the need for another goal shifts your team back into a more balanced attack, the momentum has shifted.

When applied to business, getting ahead and then playing not to lose can be seen all over the map. For instance, snagging a few early adopters, then assuming customer discovery is over. Hiring new talent, then hoping everyone can work together without initiative. Launching a new product with existing customers, then not supporting them through the chasm of change. Securing product-market fit, then avoiding innovation due to a misguided sense of risk. Finding generous mentors, then forgetting to nurture relationships. Those are just a few, but many leaders are lulled into this trap that’s defined by a sense of scarcity.

Tactics to stay ahead differ based on situational factors, but when in doubt, trust that uncertainty is certain. Be strategic to avoid recklessness, then stay on the offensive by leaning into the pain. As you find fresh ways to serve customers, continue celebrating milestones and stay ahead with initiative to keep building beyond the fear of losing.

By Ben McDougal, ago