In Step 3 of "10 Steps to Open for Business," answering the “Defining Dozen” questions is vital to writing a good business plan. The Sloan brothers describe them in detail in StartupNation: Open for Business, their book. Here is the seventh of those questions, in a special book excerpt:
Who’s on your team? This is where thinking about your team members comes in. One of the key factors that’ll separate your business from the competition will be the people you choose to work with. Give serious review to the team you pick to start and run your business. Your success depends in large part on them.
Your business plan is the place to sort out your areas of expertise. Maybe you do have a great idea in a market you don’t know much about. If this is the case, hire someone who has expertise in that market. Or like Bill at Geneworks, who spent four years learning to be a vet, spend the time getting the expertise and credentials you need. In a formal business plan, investors will want to know that you and your team have a deep knowledge of the business.
If you won’t be hiring a lot of people right at first, we still suggest you write up a wish list of folks that you’d like to hire. We’ll talk more about this in Chapter Seven, but it really helps to have a dream team waiting in the wings. Finally, if you’re going it alone, don’t forget to write down how you plan to outsource work that you simply can’t do yourself.
Excerpted from StartupNation: Open for Business Copyright© 2005 by Jeff Sloan and Rich Sloan. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Learn more about the Sloan brothers’ secrets to business success – buy the book StartupNation: Open for Business now.
