Implementation & Planning

The two web articles one by Guy Kawasaki and the other one by Kimberly Weisul offered practical and sound advice on implementing a business plan. Some of the things which I thought were particularly interesting were:

• Focus on Cash Flow and not profitability: Focusing on keeping the organisation running paying up bills on time is important in the first few months of launching a social venture. At the end of the day if your company does not have enough money to pay off its bill / suppliers , not only spoiling the reputation of the firm but also loosing trust among partners.

• Forecasting from bottom up : The paper on Discovery driven planning also stresses on the same point through out the paper. I think its one common mistake all entrepreneurs make is to plan from the top-down. I thought this was a brilliant suggestion because it helps us in planning and forecasting better and not overestimating profits or expenses.

• Establish specific measurable goals of what you aim to provide: The Kellogg article also stressed on this in the Framing section. Understanding the business model and being able to predict the unit of business plays a key role in this goal. Also being able to relate it to the cost and architecture of the proposed business model would help to plan financially the financial business model. I think the business unit for my venture would be a service contract between the school and my firm because we will not only offer our time but also share our knowledge and skill set.

• Forget the "Proven" team: I strongly agree with the author on this one. As I have notice my family firm when executives having lot of experience who have worked with fortune 500 firms have been hired , they tend to have certain limitations at the kind of work they can do. Sometimes the best employees are the most unexpected - students have the passion and drive to perform well and go the extra mile to deliver results.

The question that I want to ask today is how do you know which business unit would be profitable for your business? Is it a good strategy to try out a few and then reach a conclusion?