Setting Up Shop: The Entrepreneurial Project Manager

There are several hurdles to overcome in starting your own business, and like every project, a business starts as a twinkle in the eye of the latest entrepreneur, possibly you. Everything begins with turning that twinkle into a solid idea, which translates to developing a business plan. Perhaps you recall from school the practices of forming a group and developing a business plan. Of course, when you're out of school and gearing up to launch a business, you need to develop the plan with the thought of actually running the business after all planning is complete. Okay…planning is never complete! But you get the idea.

There are generally five sections of a business plan, depending on what business plan book you read, which include:

• Organizational   
• Strategic Position & Risk   
• Marketing   
• Operational   
• Financial

Organizational 
The Organizational section of the plan includes more of the strategic direction of the plan: the mission statement, vision statement, product and services description, competitive analysis, etc. This section of the plan tells potential investors the story of what direction your business will take over the course of the next several years. Based on experience, typically the newly appointed officers of the company (or maybe you’re a…