Shoot holes in my business plan
- Thread starter johnmatrix
- Start date
I'll tell you one thing...
It's business, so things are never going to go as smoothly as you think. The best thing to do is jump in feet first, stick to your plan, and learn as you go.
There will be issues and problems that arise, but you will deal with them because your an entrepreneur and that's what we do.
It's business, so things are never going to go as smoothly as you think. The best thing to do is jump in feet first, stick to your plan, and learn as you go.
There will be issues and problems that arise, but you will deal with them because your an entrepreneur and that's what we do.
You're shooting yourself in the foot if you're only trying to do this in your backyard. You have proven sales. If you continue to sell through multiple outlets in your same city, you're only going to be cannibalizing your profits.
Take a few days and visit some other towns and cities and work lining up exclusive deals in each geography. It adds a selling point for each dealer that the customer will not be able to walk into another store in town and find the same product.
First, good on you for taking initiative. Secondly, please don't ever say ^^ this again. It would make any serious investor run for the hills!!
There's no such thing as a "riskless" investment....
What are your goals here? Are you planning to run this business for the rest of your life? Or, do you plan to cash out for an early "pretirement"?
If so, I would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY recommend checking out the book Built to Sell.
Built to Sell, the Book, by John Warrillow | Selling a Business
IF you are building a business that you plan to sell one day for a great profit, you should understand that the SMALL STUFF Makes a difference to anyone with a deep pocket who may want to buy you out.
Here are some examples:
- Do you have solid written contracts with your joint venture partners? What are the terms (one year, every 3 months, 5 years, etc)?
-Are they signing agreements with you as a personal/sole entity or your company?
-When it comes to your online sales mentioning that "facebook is your main source of traffic" would be a serious red flag to any deep pocketed investor.
One of the first thing one would take a look at is HOW DIVERSIFIED YOUR TRAFFIC SOURCES ARE. Few traffic sources = more risk...
Do you have written contracts with your suppliers locking in favorable terms or not? Once again, why build something that you couldn't sell if you got WAY FUCKING TIRED OF IT for a huge premium?
Some of the small points I'm speaking here could be the difference between cashing out at $200,000 in 1 year and cashing out at $2M....
A little work now could mean a big pay out later...
Just some thoughts from an investors' perspective - over 10 years of writing b plans and working with suits on this end....
Good luck....
Well the main reason why I am doing this is because my online business is never steady, you're right.. traffic sources die off, shit happens.. could go a week without selling anything. If I get them into 10 physical stores, it *should* be a constant revenue stream that won't die off, especially averaged over 10 stores. I never really planned to sell the business off, I want a sustainable income that I am not getting from my online side of things.
I contacted a jewellery store franchise yesterday that has about 7 stores in my state, so I am waiting for a reply from them at the moment, that would be an awesome deal to get. I am also about to head out on a scouting mission to make a list of more potential locations to contact while I wait for the stock to arrive.
I will keep this thread updated as I make some more deals.
