Startup planning

Master planning overview: The decision to start a business has serious consequence for one's life design. A solid foundation may help, but there are no guarantees that can be purchased or acquired otherwise. Thinking several steps ahead in order to adjust initial and subsequent directions may help—a foundation for future directed decisions.

• Foundational awareness
  • Realities
    • 99% of business plans go unread
    • Very small % of patented items are profitable
    • Small % of start-ups get VC funding
    • Organizationally crowded world: Today's major economic problem is overcapacity in most of the world's industries. Customers are scarce, not products. Demand, not supply, is the problem. Overcapacity leads to hyper competition, with too many goods chasing too few customers. And most goods and services lack differentiation—read more—Philip Kotler.
      • Limits of consumer time and money
      • Business crisis stories in news (Google News Search: bankruptcy OR layoffs OR downsizing)
        • Walking dead
        • Entrepreneurs pushed out
    • Warren Buffett doesn't invest in Venture Capital situations. Why? Why does he avoid tech companies? (Peter Drucker's observation that tech companies think that customers buy technology rather than what it does for them.)
  • Action design resources
    • Managing oneself
    • Peter's Principles — Inc. Article
    • Peter Drucker on Leadership — Forbes Article annotated
    • The Daily Drucker (world class planning resource)
    • Peter Drucker article on innovation and entrepreneurship
    • Innovation and entrepreneurship (the book)
      • Purposeful innovation
        • Sources of Innovative Opportunity
          • Enterprise or Industry
            • Within
              • The Unexpected
                • Success
                • Failure
                • Event
              • Process Needs
              • Incongruities
              • Changes in Industry & Market Structures
            • Outside
              • Demographics
              • Changes in Perception, Mood, & Meaning
              • New Knowledge: scientific/nonscientific
          • Bright idea
            • Riskiest and least successful
      • Principles of innovation (hard core of the discipline)
      • Strategies
        • Introduce something
          • Fustest with the Mostest
          • "Hit Them Where They Ain't"
            • Creative Imitation
            • Entrepreneurial Judo
          • Ecological Niches
            • Toll-gate
            • Specialty skill
            • Specialty market
        • The strategies that are the innovation
          • Changing Values and Characteristics (creating a customer)
            • Creating utility
            • Pricing is not price
            • Adaptation to customer's social & economic reality
            • Delivering what represents true value to the customer
      • The new venture
        • Market focus
        • Financial foresight: cash flow & capital needs ahead
        • Building a top management team
        • Founding entrepreneur: role, area of work, relationships
          • Need for independent, objective, outside advice
    • The Entrepreneurial Myth
    • Small business management
    • Marketing and Innovation in a society moving in time
    • Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices Revised Edition. Look for topics below:
      • Find: Theory of the Business
      • Find: Making the Future Today
      • Find: The Elements of Effective Decision Making
      • Find: How to Make People Decisions
      • Find: Information Tools and Concepts
    • The Knowledge System View
      • Strategic chain
    • Five Most Important Questions
    • Five deadly business sins
    • Alliances, collaborations, outsourcing
    • The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki (a product driven viewpoint i.e. not market driven)
    • Guerrilla Marketing plus other related topics
    • Organization evolution
      • Organization Evolution Definition
      • A Linear View of Organization Evolution
      • The Winning Performance
      • Rules for Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki
      • Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki (more product driven thinking)
      • Mike Kami's Corporate Strategic Planning Process Manual
      • Mike Kami's Management Golf
      • Chief TLN officer
  • Calendarizing (the process choreographing action steps)
    • Concepts to daily action (a collection of work flow elements for integrating conceptual resources—like the ones introduced on this page— into one's daily action)
    • Project planning
      • David Allen's Project Planning
      • NovaMind
• Startup plan development
  • SBA resources (see below)
  • Startup Thinking Mind Map (below)
  • Written plan format and content
    • One-Page Proposal (by Patrick G. Riley)
    • The One Page Business Plan by Jim Horan
    • Writing Business Plans That Get Results by Michael O'Donnell
    • Amazon.com (below)
      • Best selling
• Planning help available

SBA resources

Startup thinking mind map

Full size image

Action timing chart

Amazon.com books: writing business plans: Amazon search for best rated and most popular (familiar mental patterns)

1. The One-Page Proposal: How to Get Your Business Pitch onto One Persuasive Page (TOC)
2. The One Page Business Plan with CD-ROM (Flyer)
3. Amazon.com: Books: Writing a Convincing Business Plan (TOC)
4. Amazon.com: Books: Writing Business Plans That Get Results (TOC)