I’ve noticed there’s one piece of advice that’s common to almost any material aimed at the fledgling entrepreneur: “You must write a business plan.”

And it’s true, you should. But I get the sense that a lot of people look at them with a mixture of apprehension and consternation. It seems so foreign and daunting, such a big task for someone who is just starting out. If you’re in that boat, and I know I was, I’d like to make a couple of points that might help:

(1) Writing a plan will help get you in motion.

Starting a business, even a small one, is a pretty big undertaking. There are so many aspects to consider that, if you’re anything like me, you will have a hard time knowing how to begin. A business plan gives you structure, it tells you how to begin and what you need to research to get moving. It’s a great first step because it allows you to synthesize all those thoughts rattling around in your head into a concrete, actionable, straightforward plan of attack.

(2) A plan will remind you of your big dream.

It will also help you stay on the right track. If you have big dreams and goals for your business, you might feel there is no way you would ever waver from them. But when reality sets in, it’s easy to be deterred and lose sight. At that point, you need something to go back to, a reminder of what this was all about in the first place. A business plan can actually be that inspirational reminder.

(3) Your business plan can be whatever you want it to be.

When you think “business plan,” you might think of some dry, lengthy report with bar graphs, an executive summary, and all that jazz. That’s one format, and if you’re sharing your business plan in an attempt to, say, get a loan from a bank… then that’s probably the sort of business plan you’ll have to write. But if you’re writing it to flesh out the logistics for your own use, it can really be whatever is helpful for you.

SCORE has a helpful, downloadable template for writing a basic business plan. Content-wise, I wouldn’t suggest cutting out any of the information they recommend. After all, the fact that it’s forcing you to think about things like market size, competition, and strategy is really what makes it helpful. But you should feel free to change the format, make sections shorter or longer, include illustrations, and do whatever else is helpful for you. It’s your plan. My own business plan included a lot bulleted lists, and I added additional sections that I thought would be useful. I didn’t use much formal business language, and though I did a lot of research, I kept the plan pretty short so it would be easy for me to skim in the future to see if I’m on track.

So yes, write a business plan. But don’t think of it as a dry exercise that’s stopping you from diving into the creative work. Think of it as a challenging but creative exercise, and a living document of your dream that will be with you for years to come.

{image above: esquire9 from ondiraiduveau}

Last week, I mentioned a lot of the challenges in starting your own business. Now let’s talk about what I think is the single biggest reward: you get to design your dream business from the ground up.

How many other opportunities do you get in life to really take control of every element of how something works? It is a real blessing for anyone, but I think especially for the creative person. Because it really is an act of enormous creativity.

Before you start working on your business, before you start researching or developing products or even writing a business plan, I’d really encourage you to step back and think about what your dream business would be like. What qualities would it have? How would other people describe it? What aspects of it are most important? How is it different, and better, than all the other similar businesses? Really let your imagination run wild and consider what would make it perfect for you.

You can write these ideas down in a list format, or write a few paragraphs to create a thumbnail sketch of what your dream business is like.

Next, think about your own role in the business, and what you want to get from it. Think about yourself leading this business in five years, and what would make you happy. Your dream could be to have your own studio space and wonderful people working with you. Or it could be to have flexible time to spend with your family. Everyone is different, and we all have plenty of dreams other than “make enough money.”

Once you’ve spent some time brainstorming, it should be easy to distill these into two sets of goals: goals for your business, and goals for yourself. I find it important to separate these, because they’re two pretty different sets of goals that may or may not overlap. For example, my goals for my dream business were to have a pattern company that produced beautiful & flattering designs, were beautifully and thoughtfully packaged, had terrific instructions, and inspired people to sew. But my personal goals were to spend my time designing & creating, to have enough time and resources to travel more, to have flexible time so I can go for a bike ride or bake a cake when I feel like it, to be able to collaborate with other creative people, and to have a great workspace someday.

Because you’ve really allowed yourself to fantasize, your goals will probably be pretty ambitious, but they’ll also be the right goals for you, and that is what makes all the difference. You should hold on to these goals: They will be a great foundation for planning, but they’ll also be essential later on. When you’re working hard, feeling frustrated, or just unsure of yourself, it is incredibly satisfying to look back at your goals and see how far you’ve progressed.

{image above: blossom pattern by le suede}

Chances are pretty good that you’ve dreamed about starting your own business at some point in your life. Running your own show is attractive in so many ways, especially for us creative types. Maybe you want more control over how you spend your time; maybe you need more creative fulfillment in your career; maybe you see a huge gap in what’s out there, and you think you could fill it.

All three of those were true for me. When I decided to start Colette Patterns, I was working in what I thought would be my dream job. After I finished graduate school, I’d been hired by the company I most wanted to work for, a high-profile silicon valley company with a mission I believed in and a reputation for treating its employees very well. Not only that, I was doing work that had the potential to really help people in their day-to-day lives. It was great, and I learned a ton.

But after a few years, I realized that it wasn’t meeting all of my needs. I spent hours every day commuting. Most of my time at work was spent in meetings or writing reports. Worst of all for me, I felt like a lot of my talents were going to waste in the hustle and bustle of a large corporation. So I decided to try something else, something completely different.

Maybe you’re in a similar situation. My main impetus was the belief that life is too short to waste my time and abilities. I knew instinctively that I could do better and make myself happier, and that’s what I set out to do.

That said, you should probably take a good look at your motivations before investing too much, and think hard about the downsides to working for yourself. There are some obvious, practical challenges that probably spring to mind immediately. For example, you might wonder if you can make enough money to live on. Or if you’re in the US, you might have to think about buying your own health insurance. But there are other pitfalls you may not consider when painting a picture of your new venture. Here are some of the questions you might ask yourself (many of which I never thought about before starting this whole crazy small business thing):

• Are you able to manage heaps of small, mundane tasks?
• Can you deal effectively with incompetent or dishonest people that might crop up? If not, do you have someone who can help you? (I’ve had some doozies and I’m not very good at yelling at people, but luckily I have someone to help me manage hairy situations)
• Will thinking about work all the time be too taxing for you? Do you have ways you can cope with that?
• Are you willing to sometimes work long hours?
• Can you deal with feedback in a constructive, fair way?
• Are you excited enough about your business idea that you can imagine working on it every day for years to come?

None of this is meant to discourage you. I honestly think that if you’re interested in starting your own business, it’s something you should try at least once. Personally, it’s made me enormously happy, and I know it has that potential for a lot of people.

And if you’re not ready to make the commitment yet, don’t fret! That may mean that you just give yourself more time to plot and scheme, or it could mean you start with an ultra-small side project and don’t focus immediately on making it bigger. There’s no need to jump into it until you’re ready. Don’t pressure yourself.

With a passion for your business comes a big sense of responsibility, and that can be a lot to deal with. It’s great to be in control of every aspect, but it can also be tough. Later, I’ll write about some concrete strategies I have for dealing with that.

In the meantime: welcome to your own crazy adventure, it will be fun and you will learn more than you ever have. To paraphrase a friend of ours who works for himself, “I’m working harder than I ever have in my life, and I’m loving every minute of it.”

{image above: vintage sheet music by finsbry}

One of my resolutions for this year was to share some of my learnings about starting and running a small business. I am just wrapping up my first year of business at Colette Patterns, or at least of publicly doing business. I’d been scheming and planning for much longer than that.

I get a lot of email and questions on this topic. I realize that there is a wealth of information about starting a business, much of which is written by extremely knowledgeable and experienced entrepreneurs. With just a year under my belt, I do not count myself in that category (yet). But that first year of doing business is quite a ride, so I hope you’ll appreciate the perspective of someone still in that initial, tumultuous stage! It’s rough sometimes, but quite an amazing experience.

In this weekly series, we’ll start by exploring the planning stages. I spent a great deal of time in this stage and while much of this planning is done before you’ve even launched your business, it really sets the foundation and tone for the whole endeavor. It’s something you can return to again and again as you progress.

After that, we’ll take a look at day to day operations and the myriad aspects of maintaining a new business, from marketing to customer service to product development.

Finally, I’ll tell you a little bit about growth: what it means and how to do it in a responsible and sustainable way.

As you can probably tell from that description, this will be an ongoing series for quite some time. If there are particular topics or aspects that you’re interested in, do let me know and I’ll add them to the list of future posts!

Oh, and the name of the series is obviously a goofy Project Runway reference for those of you who watch it, but I thought it fitting since running a business can sometimes feel like a race to make a ballgown out of trashbags… in one hour.

{image above: vintage dust jacket from finsbry}

(I couldn’t resist posting that image, it’s hilarious.)