Business Plan

We are attempting to write our first business plan.  And so far, we can see why people say it takes time - and boy can it be a pain if you're not entirely sure of what you're doing!  Neither of us majored in business (or even minored)...and boy, is it testing our brain power!  However, it is forcing us to think about all aspects of the business - from all points of view.  We are lucky in that out of our 4 parents, 3 of them have previously owned their own businesses, so we can get help.  But...we are head strong (perhaps hard headed is a better term) and want to do at least the rough (very rough) draft first, by ourselves, before we show it to anyone.  This way, it shows that we are indeed very serious about it, and that we have given a lot of thought to this.


We have contemplated several different types of business ideas, but this is the one that stuck.  The plan is, to start with an online store (currently we're set up with Ebay @ JnS's Coins and Collectibles, but want our own site soon), then move on to a true, brick-n-mortar shop.  Yes, we realize that we're probably going somewhat backwards on this - but we think it might actually work.  We think that if we can market and make a profit from the online store, we can use those profits to help start the physical shop, and then we can run both at the same time - using our online store as an extension of our physical shop.  Does this make sense to anyone else out there?  Or are we just totally wrong on our way of thinking?

The other reasons we're wanting to start out that way is because this is going to have to be a part time thing in the beginning for us.  We are hoping that it will go from being a part time gig to being full time for at least 1 of us, then being full time for the both of us.  Also, if we start out with an online store and work up from there, it will hopefully save us from having to exhaust our credit!  As naive as it may be, we want to be as debt free as possible, both in life and business.

So - have you ever written a business plan?  Do you have any tips or tricks?  Do you own your own business (physical or internet)?  What do you think about people that work for themselves?