Concept
The first-year plan
The first-year plan is the one page that BookYol's Start Your Business road ends with: a picture of the business at the end of year one, five lines on what you sell, to whom, at what price, how customers find you and how you get paid, and three commitments. It is short because it is read every week.
The plan combines ideas from several books. Chris Guillebeau's The $100 Startup argues for a business plan that fits on one page, and Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited has the owner start from a picture of the finished business and work backwards. The picture at the top is concrete: how many customers, what revenue, what the owner's week looks like, including the day off. The five lines beneath are the offer, the customer, the price, how customers find you and how you get paid, filled in with the numbers the first customers have taught you. The three commitments are a profit percentage taken from every deposit (the method of Mike Michalowicz's Profit First), one recurring process written down so that someone else could run it, and a standard for asking customers for referrals. The plan is a guess, as Rework's authors say every plan is, so it is reviewed weekly: the lines below the picture are rewritten as often as the numbers say, and the picture is kept.
A real-life example
A bicycle mechanic in Denizli writes his page in January. At the top: 300 regular customers by December and Saturdays off. Below: servicing and repairs, for commuters and club riders, at a fixed price per service, found through two cycling clubs, paid on collection. Commitments: five percent profit, a written checklist for the standard service, a referral card with every bike returned. In May he rewrites the price line and keeps the picture.
How to use it
- 1Write the picture of the end of year one first, including your week.
- 2Fill the five lines with the numbers your first customers taught you.
- 3Commit to three things: a profit percentage, one written process, one referral standard.