Made possible by

Step 1 - Entrepreneur Resources

In this part of the business plan you must:

• Find out if you as the entrepreneur has access to the right resources
• Convince the reader that you and your team can make the project fly

As an entrepreneur you seldom have a clear plan of how to reach your target because the target is somewhat dim. Oftentimes, you also lack financial resources.

Best entrepreneur resource - Bird in hand

A good place to start is to use whatever resources you have in your hand. The resources you have are:

1. Your personality, whether it is extrovert or introvert
2. You possess personal knowledge gained from education and life experience
3. People you know and meet on the way.

Using these three entrepreneur resources in a productive way you can become an succesful entrepreneur.

Business plan questions

Below you find the items about your personal resources that the business plan template asks questions about.

Family network

The closest people available to assist one in starting a business are family. Hopefully they share your dream of managing a business. Grandfather, parents, brothers and sisters, cousins and others may have a lot of contacts that can support you in making the business flourish.

Unfortunately, the same family members can also be a liability to your new business. If they feel they have the right to make business decisions for you, your business life could then get difficult. Maybe then you have to move?

What can you decide and what will the family decide?

Entrepreneur experience

It almost goes without saying that an entrepreneur should not start a business within a trade or area of experience that you are unfamiliar with. If you have to start out gaining basic knowledge about your service or product along with getting to grips with running a business it will soon become an almost impossible task.

However, some lines of trade are fairly easy to learn. Starting a cleaning company or selling pizzas can be done with very little knowledge about the trade.

What do you know best and what are you best at? Does that fit in with your new business?

Entrepreneur education

It is a great advantage if there is an educational foundation of the competencies in the company. If you can add several years’ practical experience within the field it will take the competencies to an even higher level.

Life experience and spare time activities are also important parameters to review when starting a business.

Which education do you - and maybe your team have?
How have you used this education in real life?

Economy

Very few of those starting their own business have a lot of money to invest in the company. Then again, very few companies require substantial financial resources to get started.

Usually, a consultancy or a software engineering company does not require huge start-up capital. Besides its knowledge pool, such a company usually needs only a phone, a computer, an internet connection and means of transportation.

It is the complete opposite for retailers in huge malls, and for development-intensive companies such as biotech, computer game development and manufacturing companies. If you are to start a small computer store, your capital requirements will quickly mount.

How much money are you able to raise?

Internal trade networks

Having the right connections within a trade is of great importance. But networks are also important within other aspects of business operations. Experience shows that many customer relations have been established because a friend of a businessman has told another friend about the businessman.

Which people do you know within your industry?

Entrepreneur Product/service knowledge

It is important to possess a profound knowledge of the service or product you want to market. An uncomplicated business such as selling fast food or cleaning can be handled on the basis of general skills and knowledge, and without prior experience.

However, starting a translation agency without a proper linguistic education would be very unwise. The more specialised the service, the more important it is to possess great knowledge of the topic.

Do you know enough about your product or service?

Work Tasks

The business owner must handle numerous work tasks. If there is only one person in the company, s/he must be managing director as well as sales/financial/marketing manager, office clerk and bellhop. However, often there will be key areas which the entrepreneur is particularly keen on.

Which areas are you particularly keen on working on? Can they be fulfilled in your new business?

Weak sides

You probably have a lot of strong sides that will benefit the business. But one person seldom has all the skills and personality that makes the perfect business.

You may have strong skills in selling and developing your product, but maybe not in completing paperwork and administration functions.

Do you have any weak sides? If so, how will you cover them?

Download business plan template

Go to Download Center and find the template in which you can write your own business plan.

Everything is hard, before it is easy
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman. Born 1775