Thread: JOURNAL of Opening a New Business

This journal will document my next fastlane business.

Expenses:
1. Office Lease - I'm thinking of starting with a virtual office where I can simply use a CLASS A meeting room daily to cut down on expenses and do some initial in-person interviews.
2. Legal/Accounting - paid/ready

Completed:
1. Banking/legal/accounting/US visa
2. Technology/fulfillment

Currently in Progress:

1. Moving
2. Finishing up some contracts with vendors
3. Research
4. Recruitment

Decisions:

1. Expanding through offline and online channels
2. Expansion strategy: I could go from 1 to XXX offices if properly executed
3. Management structure

Steps on Monday:
1) I'm going to make some calls to potential customers

Background: I'm moving to the US from CAN and currently selecting a city where I want to launch. In the meantime, I have other businesses running that don't require my active management. I'm under 25, graduated biz school and was running companies since graduating. I've had both decent success and some bumps in the road.

You can do it, well unless you are a pathetic loser.

Originally Posted by theBiz

Jack would you stop making it sound so easy....if it is just give me the secret already I'll actually implement it... And do not say "hard work" that's so cliche'

It has nothing to do with hard work (at the beginning at least.).. It is about making the right plan that you can run up.. That's it...

Originally Posted by m31ab

There is no secret. Become a salesman, hone your sales technique. You'll never be out of opportunities.

Truer words have never been written..

See it is that easy..

Updates:
1. On Sunday, I decided to not go with my preferred supplier because their contract was unfavorable. Things have to work the way I want because there is downside risk regardless of my optimism
2. Found alternative suppliers that are more reasonable and waiting for their bids/pricing
3. Offered to buy and received acceptance of my offer to buy a cool fast lane-worthy web software company. Cost? Sweat equity of getting them distribution using my experience; we're currently in contract review/signing phase
4. Collecting on some outstanding invoices from two parties

1. Signing an agreement with a new supplier on Monday
2. Software deal may fall apart in contract phase as the prospective partner and I aren't coming to terms on a certain issue

12 month revenue goal: $2,000,000

I have a solid list of items to execute and I'm comfortable with my plan.

- moved/happy here
- hiring and selecting the best team
- full backend is ready
- I've quickly tweaked the recruitment process to get precisely the candidates I want
- refined my plan to be more focused and compliant with laws
- the infrastructure is ready and just need to execute

Speed on!

Sounds like you're making great progress, good luck with this!

I'm having a hard time following though. Maybe you could give more details of what you do without giving away anything important

Any updates?! I love reading this stuff!
Tom

I found a great sales manager who was going to find the lease location/send me a proposal and I was going to lease it because he's done this before and knows the area well. He's ready to manage day to day operations and sold on the game plan. However, I don't like the speed/relying on someone else to select a location. It's been 1 week with no proposal yet.

So, to get things rolling faster, I'm going to immediately lease a location this week. I can always relocate staff as I'm in an area with abundant office space and can easily relocate to a larger office within 1 mile of my desired location.

Originally Posted by theBiz

yes this is good just get it done you can always move, you are the coordinator never, ever wait on someone else to do your job you should be working all day non stop like there's no tomorrow, no one else will push that hard to get it done.

I think it is time for a good long break. No need to push things when Success is Guaranteed.

Are you signing a month to month? What city did you decide on?

Good for you.

Just got an acceptance for a month to month (virtually no one offers it from the start). I put out like 20 offers in a desired area and someone bit. Also, I'll keep my coordinates private, at least for the time being, although I narrowed it to two states in a previous post.

1. I simplified the offer. I narrowed down 4 from products down to 1 that I'll start with based on what I think is a more sustainable business. I know this business very well so I have a unique edge in the market.

2. I also made a sales call to test out this new pricing yesterday. This buyer called me twice and the first time was within 15 minutes of seeing the offer.

3. The lease I'm interested in is going to be just under $2,000/mo all-inclusive. I'm trying to get utilities capped because currently its a price + utilities. I told the agent I'd visit the place today if they cap the utilities/lower the rate because they currently have a system where they divide up the monthly bill by the number of tenants. That's sketchy. It's a waste of time to show up without having everything I want in advance. Almost half of the places I asked for month to month were ok with it. This was not the case back home. However, only half of agents/landlords responded.

I just read this "Never show your work until it is finished. When people see the effort and time it takes
to make it, and if they witness a work-in-progress, the magic of the finished piece is
spoiled" and this makes sense to me.