Start Up Plan - Time your actions

As I mentioned in my previous post on start up that things start getting infinitely postponed once the unknown director is missing. So the first important thing in a start up is Start Up Plan. The Start Up plan requires setting up a Goal. As I have mentioned in my Entrepreneurship Basics post. Then the goal needs to be broken up into Long term, mid term and short term goals. Each short term goal has some characteristics. Find out more about them here. Having done this, now you need to map your goal to the actions. These actions will in turn be bound by plans. Now the factors that you should keep in mind for planning:
1. Your own capabilities. Do not over or underestimate yourself. Try keeping those tasks first in which you have some experience. Don’t hesitate from outsourcing or taking help from the right resources when you are not sure about something.
2. Keep flexible timelines in beginning. You can tighten up your schedule as you gain experience with the work.
3. Give time for letting learning curve develop. The better it gets the faster you become.
Now the things you will be required to do for getting a right Start Up in place:
1. As I mentioned set up a SMART goal. Chase the short term goal first. Modularize the goal into set of actions. Bind these actions into time frame, and stick to it.
2. Now comes the concept that gave birth to your start up. This needs to be effectively conveyed to masses. The media for this conveyance is your brand. Your brand represents the soul of your Start up. It’s your brand that actually needs to be promoted.
3. Know who you are selling your products or services to. Find out their purchasing capabilities, the disposable income they possess the requirement for your product or service. Armed with this fact, you can customise your product.
4. Further steps would require your budget in place. Once you have decided the upper limit, you may channelize the budgets proportionately.
5. It’s now the turn for advertisement. This part requires you to know the various media prevalent in the target audience region. You may choose any or all media based on your budget.
6. Now create the benchmarks for you progress. The parameters for success or failure of any step will be defined by these benchmarks as you go ahead
7. Create a plan keeping all the above factors in mind. But keep in mind the “Paralysis of Analysis” adage. Once the start up plan is in place, stick to it.
8. Once the modules start getting implemented, check its progress against the benchmarks you have set. Find out the variance of the actual from projected. This helps in further planning.
Last but not the least; Take all your time to put together the Start Up plan. But once outlined, stick to it against the heaviest of odds.
Note: The concept of the post is derived in parts from http://www.startups.co.uk/ site.