It's been my first year of webmastering, and I'm doing OK with my 1st website in terms of both revenue earned and the online community I've built from scratch. As a guy that works a full time job, my ultimate goal is to not need a day job to provide for myself and be able to independently earn money online. I'm thinking of starting up a 2nd site (don't know what yet), and it may very well be the big site that gets me into financial freedom. With big aspirations in mind, I'm thinking I'll need a serious business plan. This entails writing out a clear mission/business objective, writing all my short term and long term goals, how I'll go about achieving these goals, etc. I'll more than likely end up doing this, but to you big dogs -- did a serious business plan keep you committed and focused to building your online business from scratch? Would you attribute your online business' success from having a gameplan right from the start, and working hard in order to achieve your goals? I'd love to hear feedback from some real shotcallers on this. Thanks!
When you do a new business, it is important to have targets, a plan to achieve them and do a SWOT analysis. Personally I feel it doesn't always have to be a formally written business plan. the kind of business plan you would see on corporate world is for outsiders to study about the business - whether it is for investment, loans or whatever. Since yours is going to be a small business that doesn't require any outside finding or help, i don't know if you should be writing an elaborate plan as such. As long as you are clear about the goals and targets, it should be enough.