Over the last few weeks I’ve been cooking up something quite interesting — motivated by a series of conversations and brainstorming sessions.
The question that has been on my mind for the last few weeks – honestly its been on my mind for years, decades even – is: “how to you build a business? “.
Now, that question cannot be answered in one blog post – or even 30 blog posts. That question has countless answers from countless sources. As a result, when I started thinking about the answer to that question, my mind immediately started to look for the answer that hasn’t been given. Or at least hasn’t been directly given.
So, the original question that was posted to me a few weeks back (and has been posed to me by just about anyone that I’m close to – including a few people after only knowing me for a few hours) was, “Do you want to start a business?”
Here is my answer to that question: yes.
Yes, I do want to build a business. I want to build several businesses. I want to build them to server specific and general purposes. I want to build them to make a difference and to make money. I to build businesses that are large and support countless people who are employed by them, and I want to build small ones that are intimate and manned by only a few.
I started organizing my thoughts, reading and re-reading books to gear up for this exciting sprint that I’ll be doing during the month of July. I’ve put my thoughts down in slides, in writing, and now on this site.
During the month of July, I’m going to build a profitable business in 30 days.
Now, anything that is worth something is measurable. Therefore, I’ve created 4 criteria that must be minimally met to determine if i have succeeded in building a profitable business in 30 days:
- The business must be Profitable:
- All costs are covered
- A living wage is provided by the business after costs are covered. A living wage is $5,000/mo or $60k/yr
- The business must be Sustainable
- Cannot be a 1-time event
- Cannot be seasonal (rare exceptions)
- The business must be Repeatable:
- Cannot be the result of exclusive access
- Must be a market opportunity – available to anyone
- The business must be Legal:
- All applicable taxes are paid
- All required licenses are obtained
- Does not break any laws
In order to achieve these 4 objectives, a massive amount of preparation and work needs to be done. The 30 day time limit is arbitrary, yes. However, making something time-bound always seems to light a fire. Knowing this principle to be true, I’ve broken the 30 day period into 7 milestones that must be hit on or before the specified day.
The 7 milestones that must be hit during the 30 day period are as follows:
- Day 1: Business Brainstorm – Narrow to 5 Testable Ideas
- Day 5: Market Research is Complete – Narrow to 1 testable Idea
- Day 10: Market Validation of Idea is complete (real market data from engagement/outreach)
- Day 15: Product Development Complete – (sellable MVP ready to be offered)
- Day 20: First Sales Made – (Pricing and value-ladder dialed in)
- Day 25: Break Even – Sales cover costs
- Day 30: Profitability Target Achieved – ($5k Net Profits)
- Day 31: Sustainability plan in place – Prepare for Next 30 days
Ok. You can admit that your first thought was that I’m crazy. And that creating a profitable business in 30 days simply isn’t possible. Well, maybe you’re right. But, maybe I’m right. And for the sake of all of us, I hope I am right. Because, once this is dialed in, refined, and optimized. I want to help others accomplish the exact same thing.
So, lets get pumped for a wild and crazy sprint to build a profitable business in 30 days!!