Hit a wall in the start-up, need helpful advice!

[Daytraderz]

I'm starting a visor company called The Point. I have set up week by week markers during my R&D phase which is going to last 6 weeks. Here is what the structure looks like.

Week 1- personal and business logistics (the legalities of starting and running my business along with everything i'm thinking about it and self analysis. I figured if I focused on this information to being with, it would be easier for me in the long-run to get everything going once the business proposal was finalized.)

Week 2- Business development (this is the pillars to my business structure, why i'm starting it, what I want out of it, what my markets are)

Week 3- Product Development (since I know the style of visors i'm going to make, i did this after business development so that I can incorporate my mission statement and business philosophies into my products)

Week 4- Market development (this speaks for itself)

Week 5- Operational development (what running my business day to day will probably be like)

Week 6- Financial development (just planning all the finances and getting all the expenses figured out and finalized)

Week 7- Finalize all plans and put it together

So as of now, I am on week 2 and seem to be stuck with the target market portion. Maybe i'm thinking too much and too deeply about my target market but I just can't seem to find a way to tackle this. If anyone has any experience in this i'd greatly appreciate any feedback (good or bad) you're willing to give me. My main goal from starting this business isn't to get rich, hell that's not even on my goals list. My goal is just to learn as much as possible about starting and running a business while i'm 19 and still in college.

 

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[gostorm21]

I, too, have an obsession with "planning", probably to the point where it could be considered a disease. I've screwed up more business ideas more times than I can count because of it. So, having wasted lots of time and lots of money, my biggest piece of advice to you is:

Stop planning.

Seriously. It pains me to even write that, because of my aforementioned addiction. But the second I start rushing into things without plans is the second I feel infinitely better, and the second incredible things start happening. Meetings with executives, government contracts, wholesale deals...ZERO planning. Planning is convenient because you're tricking yourself into thinking you're doing real work. But, as I've unfortunately discovered...you're not.

There's only 2 things you should do before starting:

1) Identify a supplier and get product.
2) Set up a way for people to pay you.

Then sell. If you mean visors as in hats, hit up your local country club or golf course tomorrow and pitch to be placed in their pro shop. Hell, go to multiple courses and clubs! Sell to the ladies playing tennis and all the golfers. There's a million ways to go about this. The important thing is NOT how many of them you've laid out in your plans...it's how many you've actually DONE.

I'm a planaholic, just like you. But lucky for us, there's just two steps instead of twelve to break our addictions. Follow them, and start making money!

 

[ejames]

I, too, have an obsession with "planning", probably to the point where it could be considered a disease. I've screwed up more business ideas more times than I can count because of it. So, having wasted lots of time and lots of money, my biggest piece of advice to you is:

Stop planning.

Seriously. It pains me to even write that, because of my aforementioned addiction. But the second I start rushing into things without plans is the second I feel infinitely better, and the second incredible things start happening. Meetings with executives, government contracts, wholesale deals...ZERO planning. Planning is convenient because you're tricking yourself into thinking you're doing real work. But, as I've unfortunately discovered...you're not.

There's only 2 things you should do before starting:

1) Identify a supplier and get product.
2) Set up a way for people to pay you.

Then sell. If you mean visors as in hats, hit up your local country club or golf course tomorrow and pitch to be placed in their pro shop. Hell, go to multiple courses and clubs! Sell to the ladies playing tennis and all the golfers. There's a million ways to go about this. The important thing is NOT how many of them you've laid out in your plans...it's how many you've actually DONE.

I'm a planaholic, just like you. But lucky for us, there's just two steps instead of twelve to break our addictions. Follow them, and start making money!

LOL execute figure it out as you go. In the 'Book' business plans are valuable once you have a proven track record that you can execute.

 

[Jon L]

The problem with planning like this is that you don't have the experience to know what things you need to plan out, and what things are (by far) better left to seat-of-your-pants decision making. There are a ton of things that are simply unknowable right now. The only way to figure them out is to do them and see what works. Even if you were a large company making a plan for a large product release, the only way to figure certain things out is to do them and see how they work (the whole point of market research methodologies like focus groups, etc.). You don't have the luxury of hiring a focus group company, or anything like that, so just start doing things.

For a new product release, you do need to plan the following, in advance:

1) target market and what need(s) your product will address
2) design the product itself
3) supply chain - how will you meet initial orders (how many will you buy initially...keep this qty to a minimum), how will you receive, inspect, house, and ship the items to the end customers
4) finance - what money do you need to accomplish the above items, and at what point.
5) basic...emphasis on 'basic' plan for how you will increase selling and production capacity (this stuff won't matter if your product doesn't sell well)
6) marketing - how will people find out about this stuff ... plan out the whole sales funnel - from lead capture to order.

keep all of this stuff as basic as possible. Spend no more than a few hours on each item doing planning. Once you're done with that (3 days later), start doing things...building the product, building a website (or figuring out Amazon), setting up google adwords, etc.

 

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[snowbank]

Unless I'm misreading it seems like you're going to be wasting a lot of time. Spending a week on things like operations...?? there's nothing to operate yet

Step 1: how is your idea better than what's currently on the market?
Step 2: can you reach the market?

After these, proceed. If not, you don't have to waste 7 weeks you can find something that DOES pass those steps.

 

[Daytraderz]

Thank you guys, you're right, i'm planning too much. I get it from my mom I believe who always makes me plan things out before I do them so i'm prepared, but when it comes to this I need to just get in and figure it out as I go or else i'm going to get deterred and lose focus on the goal. I appreciate all of yall's comments and will be taking them into serious consideration.