Simple Business Plan Video #1: Overview


4 comments

This is the first of a series of videos I’m putting together for you on how to put together a no-MBA-required business plan to help you organize and grow your business.

NOTE: It starts out fine, but the audio ends up lagging a few second behind by the end. I’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen in the next video.

As always, let me know what you think!

|4 comments

Comments

4 Responses to “Simple Business Plan Video #1: Overview”

  1. Chris Mills on November 9th, 2009 2:08 pm

    I see no pro-bono in your workweek and I know you do a good bit of it.

  2. Danny on November 9th, 2009 3:29 pm

    Chris: lol. Only for hapless designers, for whom I am overcome with pity…as I am for the three-legged dogs and the indigent poor. For if I left them to their own devices I just wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

  3. Pat Wallace on November 13th, 2009 12:09 am

    Hi Danny,

    I liked the tree structure of your business plan, in which you deliver maximum information in a minimum amount of space. The only drawback, as I see it, is for investment loans for your business. Specifically, you would have to give an oral presentation, or is it that you would send them this video so they could view it on their computer?

    One other thing: the audio was so low I had to strain to hear it, losing some of your information at times. I viewed it on my Firefox browser.

    Good work!

  4. Danny on November 13th, 2009 7:54 am

    Pat,

    Thanks for stopping by, and I appreciate the feedback.

    The business plan, as I cover it in these initial videos, is really just to help freelancers wrap their minds around their practice as a real, honest-to-god business….to approach it with a focus and strategy toward an actual plan for growth, as opposed to simply “being a freelancer,” which is the extent of business planning for most writers I’ve talked to.

    The mind map is really just to help organize the information for this discussion. If you were going to present it to banks or investors, then you’d need to write out a more formal plan in a more traditional fashion.

    That said…one of the beauties of being a freelancer is the spectacularly low overhead. A phone and access to an internet-capable computer is really all you need to get started. Not sure how many writers just starting out would need a business loan or help from investors…unless perhaps it was just as insurance against the lean times…maybe a business line of credit?

    Sorry about the audio. I’ll do my best to have that ironed out for the next video.

    Thanks again!

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