Business Plan or Not?
So far, I had an idea (create cool products and uses for QR codes), tested and dabbled with the idea (created QR code T-shirts), and was now beginning to think that I should really take all of this excitement and pour it into a cool and functional website.
My “entrepreneurial” mentors and professors would tell me that the next and most important step is to formulate a business plan. Um… Well that doesn’t feel quite right so I’m just going to get to work on the product instead.
Skills and Talents = Speed
Looking at my last journal entry, this is why skills and talents are so important. If you take two entrepreneurs with the same idea, one with the skills to build the product, the other with the opinion to first focus on the business plan, and set them on “The Racetrack of Creation to Success”…it is my strong belief that the skilled entrepreneur will leave the other in the dust .
Sure there are lessons you can learn and hiccups you can avoid by working through a business plan. But those lessons learned and hiccups avoided are much more meaningful and quickly surpassed during the process of actually working on the product.
For me, the first step of “Get to Work” means design. It is my opinion that everything has the best way it could/should look and work. For example, the Adidas Copa Mundial is a perfect look for a soccer boot. Apple has created the perfect look for my computer and mobile devices. And I especially love what QWSTION has done to my luggage collection : ) So when beginning to work on a product or service, I visualize what it should ideally look like. I try to ask myself how it should ideally work. Both from a user and business point of view.
Work That Twerk That
As I visualize, I design out my ideas. I’ll sketch out a logo or put together a quick homepage. One idea was to create “QR Code Market”, a place where individuals could create personal QR codes and order them on T-shirts, stickers, and other products. Another idea was “Scan My Ad”, basically a platform for ad agencies and businesses to create and manage QR code marketing campaigns. Again, these were just ideas. But already I was off and working. In my mind, this puts me rounding the track at 200 meters while “business plan man” is still trying to decide which spikes to wear :)
