Howard Thurman wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is morepeople who have come alive.” This is good advice when you are thinking about your startup business, about your career, and about most aspects of your life. It is also good advice [...]
Nobody likes to think about the “what ifs” of business. There you are, pitching your heart out, asking for funding, convinced that your company is the next Facebook or Virgin or Apple, and yet somehow they expect you to give a set of “what ifs” about your business. This is called the Risks and Contingencies section of [...]
When you create your business plan, one of the sections will be about the “Management Team.” This isn’t just asection to show that you know how to make a cool management structure graphic in Microsoft Word, or to include the resumés of your employees. Any investor or advisor of your business wants to see the [...]
“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth Von Moltke Von Moltke’s quote above is one I’ve used before, and I’ll keep using it because it is the truth. In many startups I’ve helped, the business plan is written, researched, tested and presented as a fait accompli or a done deal – something [...]
This is a key question that entrepreneurs ask all the time: “How much money do I need to start my business?” The answer is: “It Depends.” Let’s look at a few of the things you’ll need to think about in order to answer this question. We cover these things in both step 5.10 as part of [...]
You’re writing your business plan, and of course there are many sections, including the marketing part – a competitive analysis and a marketing and sales plan. We take these two sections as two action items in Section 5 for Wicked Start, but they are somewhat related. The competitive analysis, aptly named, is where you’re looking at [...]
Creating your business plan with Wicked Start is step 6 in our process, and there’s a good reason for that. We believe there are five key steps to take before you spend the time to create your plan, and these will help you to ultimately make a stronger plan and be in a better position [...]
A key point in your journey to starting your business is creating a business plan. Many sites will sell or give away business plan templates, intended to make it easier for you to write the tome you need. But, the question is, who is your audience? “My view is that most templates are designed to be [...]
The Non-Disclosure Agreement, or NDA, is a staple of startup life when you’re creating a new product or service. According to the free legal service Nolo, “An NDA is a contract in which the parties promise to protect the confidentiality of secret information that is disclosed during employment or another type of business transaction. The NDA may [...]
Businesses can’t function without making money. So when you plan yours, you’ll have to think through the different ways that it will make money. And of course, you don’t want to just make money, you’d like to be profitable as well. That means you want to bring in more revenue from products or services than [...]