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Women want to start and lead their own businesses. They own their ideas and they work really hard. They have an analysis of our social situation and they are not really willing to lean in distinct structures to create something new. They want to create a new future where these systemic barriers don't exist.
They want support and guidance in doing that.
I work with women who want to start their own businesses. They are on fire to make them happen and willing to do whatever it takes to advance them. The women I work with want to create a new playing field rather than level the existing one.
I'm going to help you succeed and get more of what you love to do.
I am against having a tick-box Business Plan. A business plan isn’t simply something you present to get funding. A good business plan is a living strategy you can use to build your new venture and continue to guide you through the development in the future.
When you have an idea living inside of you, you want to get it off the ground.
Where to start?
First, get clarity on your idea. Try to write it down in one sentence such as the following,
I want to solve _______ by doing _______ so that ________
I want to help _______ by doing _______ so that ________
This exercise helps boil the details down to one tagline which you can use to speak to friends, family, potential business partners and investors. Those who are interested will ask you to tell them more about your idea. Based on the feedback, you can further develop it into a 30-second elevator pitch, 1-minute and 5-minute presentations. These various versions of content are essential for pitch contests (if this is what you are aiming for).
Next, understand who your target market is. This is an aggregated view of your future customers. How to define your target market? Start with the universe, and then narrow it down to a slice of market that you are best equipped to acquire. The following diagram illustrates the multiple levels of markets.
Take a simple example, if you have an educational program targeting 5-14 years old girls in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, there are 1.8 millions 5-14 years old girls residing in Canada. 1.8 million is your Total Addressable Market (TAM). Out of the 1.8 million, 0.7 million lives in Ontario. If you aim to provide your service to the girls living in Ontario and assume 1% of the population will make the purchase, then the Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is 7,000. You can further narrow down the market by territories, communities and competition to arrive on the Share of Market (SOM), which is the smallest circle in the diagram. This is the size of your target market. The final number may be much lower than 7,000.
Another key question to ask is how you can reach your target market, through online platforms such as websites and apps or brick and mortar stores. Whatever channel(s) you choose, you need to understand the cost of sales from marketing to complete purchase, end to end, for each channel. This effectively provides you with the insight into the cost of acquisition which is the key metric used to measure competitiveness among the peers in your industry.
Last but not least, talk to those in your defined target market about your idea and collect feedback from them. This helps validate your idea and truly understand whether the idea has the potential to become a profitable business. In my next blog, I will write about business model including the consideration of choosing between for-profit and not-for-profit.