If you landed on Personal Plan first, pleas consider starting this blog at the Prologue: Ehh?
Unbridled Naivety – Part 2
Basking in Unbridled Naivety you have decided to take the leap and found a new venture. Congratulations! It’s a brave move and the start of an exciting life journey that only 9% of people ever make. Your accountant, lawyer, most of your friends, and your parents will think you’re crazy. At best they’ll half smile, at worst flat out tell you it’s too risky. I was warned by my lawyer about the very real risk of ruin and bankruptcy. I left his office dejected. That evening I attended a business mixer and told a prominent business focal that I wasn’t sure I’d go through with my new company. He waved his hand across a large crowd of business owners and said “do you see all of these successful people? Almost every one of them has been bankrupt once or twice.” Hmm, maybe not the best pep talk, but it stuck with me. I think there is a shame associated with failure for new entrepreneurs, and knowing that everyone else is just as prone to it as you diminishes the stigma. Ahead of you will be a jagged line of major fucks and major ups. The key is to get this ragged line trending more up towards your goals than down.
“You are founding this company and it needs to serve you because you are going to be serving it and everyone in it for the rest of its short – or long – needy life.”
You have an idea! Now you need a plan… but where to start? The market opportunity? The product? The team? Investment? Sales? R&D? Legal? Incorporation?… Let’s start with you… You are founding this company and it needs to serve you, because you are going to be serving it and everyone in it for the rest of its short – or long – needy life. Do you crave high income? A creative outlet? A challenge? Freedom? No boss? Selling? Relationship building? Talking to people? Never talking to people? Accolades? Passive income? Dig deep and be very very honest with yourself, don’t tell yourself what people expect to hear you say, or what you think is the right thing to say.. What do you want? this is your last chance to very very be selfish.
Personal Plan
As the founder of a company, you need to start with a personal plan. Where do you want to be in 10 years? Consider family, fun, finances, friends, fitness and picture your successful self in 10 years. What do you need to start doing – and stop doing – now to reach this vision? There are lots of books and methods out there for visioning and collecting your thoughts and then breaking them into achievable goals. I really like the One Page Personal Plan from Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up, the book itself will also come in handy if we survive the odds and get to product market fit and a million in revenues.
You in 10 Years
Do you want to be sitting on a beach (running your company? or letting others run it?) Do you want to be independently wealthy? Do you want to take your family traveling? Do you want to be in great physical health so you can explore on your travels? This is the time to sit back and dream, once you have a vision, you can decide what business structure and dollar figure will let you achieve it. Later when we move to your company’s BHAG and strategic plan, we need to ensure that that plan is also able to serve you financially in 10 years to reach your personal goals. This could mean revenue and net profits, it could mean an exit .
You in 1 Year
“The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, the second best time is today.” – anonymous. If you have any hope of reaching your 10 year personal goals, you have to start now. And you need smaller achievable but uncomfortable sub goals. Where should you be in one year to prove that you are on the right path? It’s definitely not 10% of the way there; growth is slow and accelerates over time; you do want to show that you have developed good habits that will see you through the next 10 years: Financially, in year one maybe you’ll have saved 1% of your financial goal. Maybe you’ll be able to take your family on one local trip. Maybe you’ll run your first 10K.
Your Next Quarter
This is one of the parts I loved in Vern Harnish’s One Page Personal Plan. So in this quarter (90 days) what steps must you take to reach your one year goals? What do you need to start doing for 90 days? and what do you need to stop doing? If one of your goals is to save 1% of your dream wealth. Maybe you Start putting $2000 per month in a savings account, and Stop eating out. If your goal was to run a 10K in one year, maybe you Start running 1K three days a week and then add 1K to the distance every month until you are running 10K no problem. Maybe Stop eating junk food on weekdays.
Design Your Dream Job
“Dig deep and be very very honest with yourself, don’t tell yourself what people expect to hear you say, or what you think is the right thing to say.. What do you want? this is your last chance to very very be selfish.”
Ask yourself what do I like doing? Even more importantly what do I hate doing? Make a list as it pertains to your venture. Do you really like being creative but really hate accounting and bookkeeping? This list should be a living document, you actually don’t even know what you don’t know about the ins and outs of your business yet! Unfortunately at this moment you are responsible for everything on the list, but as you grow you need to eventually delegate every single thing in the hate list to someone that loves doing it! Next, list the skills you have, and rate how good you are at them (again this is a living document, and will change over time) If you love business development for instance, but have no experience or skills, this is something you will need to do self development on through courses or coaches or associations.
The goal here is to eventually make yourself a job that you absolutely love, that drives you towards your personal aspirations, and that you are highly skilled at. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Anonymous. If you have co-founders you should all do this, and then merge the Loves and Hates and Skills, and make sure that everyone is doing what they love, and you all know the hates and skills that need to be hired for and delegated as soon as feasible!
You can learn about my Love, Hate, Good at. Bad at (LHGaBa) Analysis tool and download it here: La-GaBa Analysis
Armed with a personal plan we can start to dream out a startup business plan that makes them all happen, that uses your skills and lets you do the things that make you happy. This is going to be invaluable when the going gets tough and the difference between success and failure.
Want to Read More?
In the next blogs we will look at Business Plan Number One and the Research and Analysis needed to create a business plan.
If you make it through the startup phase to product market fit, check out my Business Growth Consulting practice.
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About Me
Hi, I’m a founder-CEO with 20 years of experience growing companies, building relationships, imagining the future, and creating new things. I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2002 when I founded my first company, creating visual effects for Hollywood TV shows, where I won an Emmy for ‘Lost’ and received four nominations.
In 2010, I founded an aerospace and defense technology startup and led the company through unbridled naivety, survival, bootstrap, dogged resilience, and scaling. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to sit on numerous boards and round tables comprising diverse companies, communities, people, and points of view. I’ve successfully sold to Hollywood giants like SyFy, Fox, ABC, and Disney, to aerospace leaders such as Boeing, Lockheed, and Babcock, as well as the Canadian government, securing multi-year multi-million dollar contracts.
Now, my mission is to help fellow founder-CEOs by bringing proven strategies and customizable playbooks into their businesses. I coach them on building a solid team and executing their plans while focusing on what they love to do, ensuring their business thrives. My coaching expertise lies in strategy, business development, B2B & B2G, marketing, sales, and creative problem-solving. I’m here to help you get your business working for you, not the other way around!
Awards
1 Emmy, 4 Nominations, News Maker of the Year, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Team of the Year, Tech Company of the Year, Top 5 Moments in Television History (Lost – Pilot), 4 Time Top 75 Defence Company
Achievements
TEDx Talk, FuckUp Night Talk, Host of Western Innovation Forum, Trade Show Panelist, and Speaker.
Boards
Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology & Entrepreneurship Council (VIATEC) Western Canadian Defence Industry Association (WCDIA), The Alternative Board (TAB), Vancouver Island Aviation Association (VIAA)
Hobbies
Painting, Running, Sailing, Hiking, Camping, Traveling, Reading, Cooking.
Great Books
Scaling Up, Unfuck Yourself, Good to Great, Everything is Fucked, The Untethered Soul. How to Sell an Elephant