It’s never easy to leave a stable job to launch a startup. But sometimes circumstances align and a budding entrepreneur just knows that the time is right to make the leap.

Ben Lamson and Sulaiman Sanni, WeDidIt cofounders

Sulaiman Sanni and his partner Ben Lamson were both working  for Meltwater Group, a large, well known Software as a Service company, Su as a social media consultant and Ben as a sales manager. As Su says “We were both in good positions. We were doing well and we liked working there.” But at the same time, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding were getting attention as viable solutions for businesses, and Su was participating as a lender for some campaigns he found interesting. When one designer raised over $900,000 for his Kickstarter project, Su says,  “Seeing that, it was sort of like a light bulb moment. We said, we should be doing this for nonprofits.” And that’s how WeDidIt was born.

“I realized that nonprofits were struggling with fund raising due to the economic downturn, and they needed a more diversified portfolio for their fundraising. Crowdfunding appeared to fit that need, so we decided to give it a go,” says Su. Now, WeDidIt “helps nonprofits launch online fundraising campaigns. Any organization can visit our site and launch a one-off campaign,” he explains, or subscribe to WeDidIt for unlimited campaigns and premium features like consultation and customized software. “The way we differentiate ourselves is that we’re much more than a platform. We actually consult with each client, and tend to become an extension of their marketing team or development office.”

Su and Ben started plotting their new venture in April of 2011, and were ready to leave their jobs by June. “It was kind of scary, but we really felt the need to do something on our own and put our futures in our own hands.” By August they had filed their incorporation paperwork and started marketing their new business.

For these LivePlan users, the big break came in March when they finished in the top 5 of  the 2012 Miller Coors Urban Entrepreneurs Series, a national business plan competition that has awarded over $1.7 million in grants to emerging businesses since 1999. In addition to the $25,000 they won on the strength of their business plan, they benefited from the experience of pitching and learning from a panel of well-respected judges. “We got to be in front of really quality folks who could vet our business plan and give us some strong feedback.”

The competition did more than educate and  put money in the bank for this otherwise bootstrapped startup. “Since winning the competition, things have almost exploded for us. We got the grant, and since then we’ve gained enough exposure to lead us to paying clients before even launching the 1.0 version, and talking to an advisory board and seed round investors already.”

WeDidIt is poised for growth, with plans for the software to come out of beta soon and for additional tools to be added in the next few months. Beyond that, says Su, “We’re trying to build a company that nonprofits can trust to be there as a source of online funding. For now, we’ve chosen crowdfunding as our foot in the door, but we may end up rolling out other products or services that make the whole fundraising experience easy for organizations and more engaging for the donors.”

The founders of WeDidIt saw an opportunity and a need, and put aside the fears everyone who’s ever struck out on their own faces. And they’re happy they did it. “The move was a bit scary and very uncertain,” says Su, adding “but we got comfortable with that. I think as an entrepreneur you have to get comfortable with not knowing what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

Every business needs to differentiate itself, to find a way to show the world how it’s unique and different. If you were to ask the owners of 10 hair salons which products or service they sell or provide, most would probably start with “hair styling and coloring” or something along those lines. And you wouldn’t have any clue what made them special, would you?

But if you asked Business Plan Pro user and hair salon owner Michael Helene Phillips the same question, her answer would be “customer service and relaxation.” And you’d have a clear picture of what sets her apart from the crowd.

At Michael Helene Salon Gallery, customers can unwind with a glass of wine, enjoy the work of local artists and artisans, and of course get hair cuts, styles, highlighting and advanced hair techniques and treatments, as well as manicures, pedicures, and even massages. The focus on the whole customer is unique. Special services at the salon include everything from personalized shampoo formulations to a “Celebrity Room” where clients, ranging from nursing moms to cancer survivors, can have a private room for their appointment. Michael considers “personal therapist” to be one of the roles she and her staff fill for their clients. “I believe that hair is the ultimate accessory. It can be the deciding factor between a good day and a bad day in many of our lives; my job is to make you many more good days” she says.

Michael opened her hair salon in 2011, relying on her credit cards and a loan from a client turned business partner. And while it’s the first business she’s started, she says it won’t be the last. She calls her current salon her “flagship,” and says “I want to develop the store into a training facility, start a product company starting with amazing conditioners for all hair types, and open at least one more salon in the area or either franchise or grow into a national chain.” Not one to leave such big plans to chance, Michael  has been laying the groundwork by developing relationships with her local banks. “I figure if they know the salon is doing well before I need money, I might have a better chance of getting a loan to expand,” she says. She also revisits her business plan to make sure she’s on track to meet her goals. “I still use it to make sure my vision stays where I wanted it. It’s a great tool for keeping me focused.”

With such a unique, customer-focused approach to business, Michael says staffing isn’t easy. “It is hard to find motivated, hard-working team members that understand your mission,” she says, though she now has 13 employees who do just that. “I’m training my team to understand all aspects of the industry so that no one can compete with what we offer,” Michael says. It’s all part of her differentiation plan, with the ultimate goal being “to be known not only as  the best salon, but to have the best staff and customer service available.”

Michael had been in the hair care industry for over 13 years before starting her salon, having worked behind the chair as well as behind the camera, doing hair for film and television. Starting her own business was a lot of work, she acknowledges. She said one thing she didn’t anticipate about being a business owner was just how much time it takes to get things done. But she’s not complaining! “I love looking at the sign outside, honestly. The hard work and dedication I put into it, and seeing the payoff, it’s amazing and it makes it all worth it.”

]]> http://upandrunning.bplans.com/2012/04/12/how-to-use-customer-service-to-differentiate-your-business-small-business-spotlight/feed/ 0 http://upandrunning.bplans.com/2012/04/05/create-your-niche/ http://upandrunning.bplans.com/2012/04/05/create-your-niche/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:00:41 +0000 Jay Snider http://upandrunning.bplans.com/?p=8710

How many times have you thought “somebody should make…” or “why doesn’t anybody sell…”? Palo Alto Software customer Kelly Chaney had a moment like that, but instead of just wondering why nobody was making cake mix for dogs, she decided to solve the problem by becoming the somebody who does. And so Puppy Cake, innovative and gourmet treats for dogs, was born.

“People, myself included, love their dogs. I imagined that many dog owners would want to provide their dog with a cake. I wanted to create a cake mix that was close to cake mix for people”  she explains, but with ingredients that were dog friendly, like carob in place of chocolate. The mixes are professionally packaged and like regular cake mix, require just an egg, oil, and water to create a finished cake or batch of cupcakes. They even include a yogurt frosting mix so you can top your dog’s treat just like a traditional cake.

If Puppy Cake sounds familiar, it may be because you recently saw Kelly on the T.V. show Shark Tank. Kelly says she had been a fan of the show for years, adding “I have used the advice they give other entrepreneurs to help my own business. Auditioning for the show was a no brainer.”  While she didn’t get funding for her business, she did get national television exposure which was a boon for her business. “Appearing on the show was huge for Puppy Cake. We are still cashing in on the free publicity.” In fact, Kelly recently used the business plan she created with Business Plan Pro to pitch to a major investor who found her after seeing the show.

Kelly found that her biggest challenge in getting her business off the ground was her own inexperience. She started the company at the ripe old age of 21, and says “I thought I could do anything and that I knew enough to start a business. In some ways I was right – I could do anything and I did know enough to start a business, but definitely not enough to know how to run a business well.” For instance, she was able to secure a line of credit to finance the company fairly easily, and she found it was just as easy to burn through the money, primarily on inefficient advertising campaigns.

“I had no idea how difficult it was to make a dollar,” Kelly notes. “Perhaps it was my youthful naivete fueled by the American dream, but I really thought I would have $1,000,000 in sales in the first year. But it takes time to build a brand and reputation.”

Kelly was quick to learn from her mistakes. “I got creative in advertising my business. I require all of my advertising campaigns to have 100% ROI and I have sophisticated ways of calculating the ROI before I make the ad spend.” Social media plays a big role in her efforts, she says, noting “It’s an excellent way to connect with my customers and fans of Puppy Cake.”

Puppy Cake has already seen great growth (sales jumped 250% from year one to two!) and Kelly’s future plans include getting her mixes into more retail locations. “I have no doubt in my mind that in five years, Puppy Cake products will be in every major retailer that sells pet products.”

Learn more about Puppy Cake, healthy and satisfying treats for dogs.

With colleges receiving record numbers of applications each year, any edge students can get helps increase the chances of getting in to their chosen schools. And that’s where The Edge in College Prep comes in.

Started in late 2005 by Palo Alto Software customer Jessica Brondo, The Edge in College Prep provides in-person and online admissions counseling and tutoring for standardized tests, test prep boot camps for schools, and online SAT courses.

Brondo got her start as a tutor in high school and continued helping other students throughout her college days at Princeton. She then went to work for an SAT prep company before deciding to launch her own business, which she says “has a much more customized and global focus than other companies.”

Recently, the 24-person company expanded to cover six international cities and grew revenues by a whopping 500%. “I never expected to go international so soon. We hit Europe and Latin America very quickly!” With some big names in the same space as competition, Brondo’s company has benefited from the same kind of edge that students get when they use her service.

In this case, the edge is a creative approach to problem solving, which has played a major role in the company’s success and growth. Brondo says one of the biggest challenges she’s faced in her business has been “finding quality, standardized test instructors who have the perfect balance of intellect and charisma, especially in smaller cities.”

The solution was not to be dependent on local talent to get her services where they were needed. “Over the last six years, online seems to be the direction a lot of students are going,” Brondo notes. So the Edge shifted focus. “We developed an innovative online learning platform, as well as Skype tutoring. We also recently launched our first online course for the SAT which gives students 24/7 access to nearly 700 questions and 1,000 instructional videos.”

A lot of people dream of making a similar transition, and according to Jessica, confidence is the key.  “A lot of times, it can be overwhelming to think about competing with some of the larger companies, and some entrepreneurs get frustrated about trying to accomplish too many  things. I often think that people are too focused on what other companies are doing and less focused on just doing what they do really well. In yoga, teachers will tell you to focus on what is going on your mat and not look around at what others are doing and I think that holds true as an entrepreneur.”

The Edge in College Prep is a growing business. Within five years, says Brondo, they expect to employ 100 people. “We hope to continue the expansion of additional online course products, and hope to create a network of Edge-certified tutors throughout the world for students looking to supplement their courses with in-person or online tutoring.”

A few years ago, LivePlan customer Caroline Cummings considered herself an “entrepreneur in recovery.” After her first tech startup dissolved in 2009 (costing her a significant amount of money), she knew she needed some time to figure out what her next venture would be. “I’m an entrepreneur at heart, so I knew I’d eventually jump back onto the start-up saddle, but I needed some time in-between to sort things out.”

Two years later, armed with the kind of knowledge only past experience can provide, she was ready to take another shot at entrepreneurship. That’s when Chad Barczak and Jeff Kast came along and asked if she’d like to join them in starting RealLead, a mobile marketing lead capture tool and lead marketplace for buying and selling real estate leads. “The timing was perfect,” she says, and now she’s CEO of a new tech company and enjoying the startup experience once again.

“My favorite part of owning my own business is being able to build and lead a team that works together to build great products that are solving problems in the marketplace. I believe that if you’re not learning something new everyday then something is wrong. Complacency is death to any organization. This is why I love the startup environment – there’s always something new to address and it keeps me and my team on our toes”

One of the biggest challenges the team at RealLead faced during start up was recruiting skilled programmers, a growing problem in Eugene, Oregon where RealLead is based. “Finding the caliber of software programmers we needed early in the startup process” wasn’t easy, Cummings noted.  They were able to recruit a top-notch programmer, who got their core mobile product developed quickly. “We had customers using our mobile marketing tools only five and a half months after starting the company. That was fantastic because it helped us attract other quality developers to join our team.”

Cummings also comments on the importance of “having the right extended team in place” to help handle the tax and legal intricacies involved with starting and running a business. “It can get overwhelming,” she says, so the lawyers, accountants, bankers, and other professionals you surround yourself with are as important as your on-staff team.

Early on, RealLead was able to raise enough capital to start and grow their company for a full year. After only nine and half months, they had a live beta product launched, and they currently have Realtor customers from across the United States using their tools. “It’s wonderful to see our business plan come to life and validate our market in such a short amount of time,” she notes.

Speaking of business plans, Caroline says “Our business plan has been the compass for the ship we’re building. We didn’t even start building the ship until we had our compass fine-tuned. I believe you can build the best sea-worthy ship, but it isn’t worth much if you can’t put people in it, decide on a direction, and have tools that help you reach that destination successfully.”

Short term goals for the company are to raise another round of financing this summer and to hire more staff to accommodate their fast growth. Longer range goals include growing their team to 40+ members, expanding their tools into international markets, and becoming known as “the go-to for how to generate and respond to real leads.”

In between her two startup gigs, Cummings worked for both the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, creating programs to support emerging companies and developing and training networks of angel investors. So you can pretty much trust her advice when she says “There are no shortage of ideas in the world – it’s getting the product to market that is challenging. If you believe in your idea, your market and in yourself, you’re half-way there.” She is a strong believer in the importance of mentors, adding “Starting your own business is not all peaches and cream – there’s a fair amount of sour patches along the way – and having a solid base of mentors can help you make it over those intense waves that will most certainly come your way.”

Learn more about RealLead mobile marketing tools for Realtors.

RealLead uses LivePlan, the online business planning tool, to plan and manage their business, as well as the email management tool Email Center Pro to handle their customer support.

Two years ago we introduced our readers to Business Plan Pro user Sarah Lanphier of Nuts About Granola. She was a young entrepreneur who turned a one-time fundraiser into a successful business.

Today, the small business Sarah started with her mother, Gayle, is growing beyond what anyone, except maybe Sarah, might have imagined. In the fall, they closed not one, but two big deals that are taking Nuts About Granola to a whole new level.

First came a co-packing agreement with Alpina Foods. Apina was looking for a company to produce granola to accompany their new line of Revive Greek yogurt, when they “stumbled upon” Nuts About Granola. As Sarah says it wasn’t just a lucky coincidence. “The reason they found me is because I worked very hard so I could be found. You have to prepare yourself for the moment when an opportunity arises.”

Preparing for success

Part of the preparation that led to the partnership with Alpina was carefully managing her online presence, which includes a website, Facebook page, Twitter, and LinkedIn. “I manage all of them, update them regularly, make sure they all work together and have the same message.” Sarah says that played a big part in how Alpina found her and why they wanted to work with her company.

Before the Alpina deal came along, Nuts about Granola was working out of a commercial kitchen with an attached 2,000 square foot storage facility. With Alpina needing 10,000 pounds of granola a month, Sarah knew they’d need to expand, which lead to the next big development – a partnership with the Susquehanna Association for the Blind and Vision Impaired (SABVI) and Shiloh Farms to utilize the SABVI’s 19,000 square foot manufacturing facility. “Partnering with SABVI means we’re truly going to be a food manufacturing facility. So we can do the Aplina account, and take on other accounts as well.”

Sarah started her business with a mission of supporting local businesses and farmers. Now her desire to give back to her community has broadened. “That was the point of partnering with the blind center: to create jobs for the vision impaired.  It’s awesome,” she says.

“I always knew that I wanted to get to this point. So I did things along the way that prepared me to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities that came along,” says Sarah. She calls herself a planner by nature, so she planned for success from the very beginning. She says this includes doing endless amounts of research, and “always having a contact who knows a lot more about what you’re doing than you do.”

Growth isn’t without its challenges, Sarah notes. “The hardest part of expanding is logistics. With every increment of growth, you have a new set of problems. And they don’t scale; sometimes they just pile on top of each other.”

But Sarah doesn’t let the challenges get in her way. She’s still running marathons and racing triathlons and still loving what she does. “This industry is very in line with my lifestyle. A lot of the races I do, our business sponsors. It overlaps, and because it’s integrated it’s a lot of fun. It may be a business function, but I’d be doing it anyway. I think that’s really the key to making it not seem like I’m working all the time.”

Nuts About Granola has been featured on the Rachael Ray show and has found its way into the gift bags at two Emmy® Awards. Soon you’ll be able to find it on your local grocery store shelves, sitting atop cups of Greek yogurt. With Sarah Lanphier’s drive, determination, and planning skills, who knows where Nuts About Granola will turn up next.

Bonus Recipe: PB&J Pumpkin Pancakes

Sarah was kind enough to share this recipe with us. Created by her blog manager Lauren Podolsky, it includes peanut butter and jelly flavored granola to make delicious-looking pancakes.

photo by Lauren Podolsky

Ingredients
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup skim milk (or almond, soy or rice milk)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
2 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 C College Staple Granola (divided)

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, pumpkin puree, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract, mixing well until smooth.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing with a spatula until just combined.
4. Stir in half of the granola and mix to combine.
5. Heat a frying pan or griddle over medium heat.
6. Lightly spray the pan with cooking spray, and, in 1/4-cup increments, cook each pancake until lightly browned on each side, about 1 minute per side.
7.  Repeat with the remaining batter.
8.  Top with remaining granola, sliced banana, and maple syrup.

Enjoy!

You can follow Sarah and her growing success on Twitter: @granola_grl and @nutsaboutgranola

Darshaun McAway is a young man with big ideas. He was in his early 20s when he made a choice that takes many people decades more to make, and he’s been building a successful business based on that choice for the last six years.

“I was extremely tired of working for other people, and having them make this large profit off of me. And me being nowhere near happy with the work I was doing,” remembers Darshaun.

So he decided to pave his own way and start a company, Darshaun.com. He now makes his living as an author, poet, voice-over artist and motivational speaker. He started his own publishing company, Dmac Poetry House, to publish his poetry, and is currently working on a series of self-help books called “The City of Heartbreak.” It’s quite a change for somebody who had previously worked as a truck driver, baker, and forklift operator. But it wasn’t such a difficult shift, he says. “Starting a business isn’t hard. It’s believing that you can do it — now that’s the hard part.”

Based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Darshaun.com employs four people, and has an unusual business model. “What makes my business unique is that everything is controlled, viewed, and even shipped from my mobile device. Whereas before, everything in the original business plan was a brick and mortar location and [there was] lots of on-hand shipping.”

Darshaun wrote that business plan using Business Plan Pro. “I used Business Plan Pro to get the foundation and education to properly seal the deal with the bank,” he says. And it worked — he got $15,000 in loans and investment and was able to fund his business.

“Business Plan Pro made it easier by guiding me step by step, giving me the luxury of working at my own pace, and teaching me to stay focused on the plan.” One thing the process taught him was the importance of the Executive Summary. “[It] has to really impress whomever you’re trying to do business with,” he comments. And like most entrepreneurs, he notes that getting the financial projections right was the hardest part of doing the business plan.

Being the man in charge isn’t always easy, either. “When it comes to running the business, the difficult part is, if you slack, the company slacks, and of course you get nowhere. All the pressure is on you,” Darshaun says.

But he clearly finds the pressure is worth it. “The most exciting part of being an entrepreneur is seeing your vision come to life and living what many people think is a dream. If I’m dreaming, then don’t wake me up.”

Like a lot of entrepreneurs, Michael Turner started his own company after growing disillusioned with working for somebody else. As he remembers: “There were meetings galore, lots of PowerPoint slide shows, big buzzwords that meant nothing—all resulting in very little productivity, but costing millions of dollars.” After 10 years, Turner decided to head out on his own.

In 2006, he started Marketing Max, with the goal of providing companies with marketing, PR, and design services. With business plan in hand, he and his wife relocated from Atlanta to Jacksonville, Florida, hired an employee, and landed several large clients.

Despite his strong belief in the power of a planning, says Michael, “nothing prepared us for what happened a few years later. In 2009, when the U.S. economy tanked like most of us have never seen, every one of our larger clients almost instantly laid people off and cut back on marketing spend.”

This had a tremendous effect on Marketing Max’s business. “I knew I needed to target more small businesses that, while also affected by the economy, still needed pros to help them market their businesses to survive.” So, rather than cutting back like so many others were doing, Michael instead changed gears.

“Later that year, I revived an old name that I had used for a popular small business community website back in the early 1990s called CriticalBiz. I shifted focus a bit and extended the services that we offered at Marketing Max, but on a much more simplified level with very clear terms. Instead of the intimidating “big marketing firm” persona that was Marketing Max, I decided to get more personal.”

Starting over

CriticalBiznow offers services ranging from document creation, employee recruiting, graphic design and copywriting, to sales, public relations, and even Web design and development. Michael brings more than 20 years of business experience to the table, and enlists a team of consultants who are experts in a variety of fields to assist. The idea behind CriticalBiz is that they can provide services that go beyond typical “virtual assistant” tasks but that aren’t needed often enough to justify hiring a full-time employee. As the website says, “working with CriticalBiz means you can focus on other things that may be more important to your business.”

Before he ever struck out on his own, Michael armed himself with a plan. “Before leaving [his previous position]… I put a ton of time and energy into writing the business plan for Marketing Max. I utilized Business Plan Pro, as it forced me to stay on track and organized. I was not seeking outside capital, but did enlist a former colleague to review the plan. This forced me to write as if I were in fact presenting the plan—it helps to keep things honest and realistic.” That planning helped him weather the economic downturn, and helped him figure out what the next logical steps for his business should be.

Michael is a true believer in planning. He feels that a business plan is not just a static document that you write up and stick in a drawer. “I believe that a business plan is a living document that needs to act as a guide to success,” he says, rather than a document created as part of a one-time process that a business owner goes through.

photo by flickr user JMRosenfeld

Think like a football coach

Michael sets aside a full day every quarter to review and refine both his marketing plan and his business plan. “Far too many of those that do create business plans, simply do so by going through the motions,” says Michael. “Once it’s written, it goes into a file cabinet, never to be seen again. If more people would use their business plans like a football coach uses his playbook — to strategically manage the game — fewer businesses would fail.”

In fact, according to Michael, some of the biggest mistakes made by entrepreneurs are caused by a failure to plan. “I would be willing to bet that most small-business owners spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning for their businesses,” he says, noting “if more small businesses would stop to create a detailed business plan, including all of the market research and number crunching that they should be doing,” they would be better off.

Speaking of crunching numbers, Michael echoes what a lot of folks say when asked about the toughest part of writing a business plan. “The hardest part is the financials. This section of the plan requires you to be completely honest with yourself. Business Plan Pro made the number crunching much easier for me because it forced me to answer the tough questions. The math doesn’t lie, and making sure you put all of the right numbers in is critical. You have to keep things real!”

As Michael sees it, the value of the plan is lost if you don’t remember that you’re not fantasizing or imagining best-case scenarios. You’re doing your best to project into the future. “Those who do plan, and are honest with themselves throughout the process, will be able to cope with critical issues much, much easier when they do arise… and they will. Planning ahead of time always makes for a more predictable, successful outcome,” he says.

Camille Rose believes in the power of positive thinking. After starting and running several successful businesses, she says she’s learned how to reframe the thinking that dooms many would-be entrepreneurs. “When you start down the path of striking out on your own, [you need to] realize that you’re your own worst enemy. Your fear will feed your negative thoughts. You must stop those thoughts in their tracks and replace them with positive thoughts of success,” the Lafayette, California entrepreneur says. As she launches her newest venture, Get a Gofer, this month, it’s clear she’s taking her own advice.

The business plan for Get a Gofer was not her first, says Camille, who estimates she’s written around 20 of them, both for herself and for other people. “I have an idea and I immediately want to start writing a business plan. Not all the businesses I’ve written plans for have come to fruition obviously,” she notes. Get a Gofer, with it’s catchy slogan “Spend more time with your little angels,” she says, clearly wasn’t one of those “no-goes.”

“Errand services nowadays are mostly provided by work-at-home individuals or large companies who market their services to other large companies. We are filling an enormous gap in the market by creating an easy-to-use, affordable service for busy, elderly, and disabled individuals.”

Rose has successfully launched several other businesses, including a wine exporting business and a kebab lounge. And for each of them, she used Business Plan Pro to put together the plan. In fact, she’s raised more than $1 million — both from investors and from SBA loans –  for her ventures, thanks in no small part, she says, to the business plans she wrote.

According to Camille, the organization Business Plan Pro provides makes the process of writing the business plan easier. “My challenge is always keeping my business ideas documented. When I’m in the start-up phase, I do a ton of research.  I use Business Plan Pro’s tasks to capture my research in any given area.  I write my initial thoughts, paste URLs to blogs, statistics, links to articles and more, under the various tasks in the software (e.g., Market Analysis, Sales Strategy, etc.)  Then when I’m ready to start writing I have my initial thoughts and all my research already organized for me under each task, so the writing process is so much easier.”

Writing a business plan is a real learning experience, according to Camille. She says she always discovers something about her business through writing the plan, “which is why I didn’t launch some of the businesses I wrote plans for.” Seeing the cash or work-flow pitfalls before investing time and energy into a bad business idea is one advantage of good business planning.

In addition to Get a Gofer, Rose also owns and runs Pink Purse Ventures, which has been providing consulting services to women-owned businesses for more three years. She’s now putting all that she’s learned about business planning to work, and growing Pink Purse Ventures at the same time. Starting in May, she’ll be holding business-planning seminars for women, where she’ll encourage them to push past their fears to make their business dreams reality. And she’ll be using Business Plan Pro to lead them through the planning process.

What is a full service animation studio doing in a quiet Northern Virginia neighborhood?

Producing animation for “the big screen, the small screen, and all the screens in between,” says its founder, Charlotte Rinderknecht.

Studio Kinate is a “concept to completion” studio whose artists use traditional hand-drawn animation to create its projects.

But it’s not just its unusual location and old-school style that set Kinate apart from other animation studios. “It is our process that makes us stand out. I believe in apprenticeship. The animations we produce rely on interns and apprentices working alongside veteran and senior animators,” Rinderknecht says.

Rinderknecht feels this is an important part of what makes her company special. “Our films not only engage audiences, they inspire a new generation of animators. Each and every Studio Kinate project includes the work of student, intern, and junior animators.” This, she says, is the key to creating relevant and progressive storytelling that resonates with young audiences.

While she had been involved in other businesses, it wasn’t until she decided to seek funding for Studio Kinate that she embarked upon writing her first business plan. “When I was looking for help, it was the reviews that made me turn to Business Plan Pro, because I had no idea where else to turn.”

“My business model is unusual, so people who were advising me had a hard time seeing the possibilities outside the norm,” Charlotte notes. Then she discovered the Business Success Coaching service, and found a coach who supported her vision and helped her achieve it. “My coach, Paul Gibson, was amazing. He helped me keep on goal and helped me with questions that were related more to my industry, that helped me understand how to write my plans. For instance, since my company produces animation for feature distribution, I need to build a plan for each of those projects. Paul was amazing and encouraging.”

Charlotte Rinderknecht

Charlotte considers any business plan a work in progress. “The business plan is a living document and should be revisited to help keep track of where you are going. I feel it is like a map, and you don’t just look at the map when you begin a journey. You need to review and plan new routes as you travel.” On her planning journey, she’s found the most challenging part to be crunching the numbers. “It takes considerable research and planning to develop the funding requirements of the studio. Business Plan Pro helps me get organized and walks me through the process. It also provides additional resources,” she says, which provided valuable assistance in finding the data she needed to complete her plan.

Studio Kinate is not just a business. Its productions include both traditional hand drawing techniques and innovative digital technology, says Charlotte, “because we believe the warmth and artistry of hand drawn animation is an art worth preserving for the next generation.” And since the animations are created by young animators sitting alongside seasoned professionals, viewers and creators alike benefit from the process.

And so does Charlotte. “I love watching people come together on a project. Working with young people and introducing them to veterans in the industry has been priceless. I love watching them work together to produce something that audiences will love. Don’t get me wrong, this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done, but it is also the most rewarding.”