Pre-Launch Doodlepad

There is a lot to think about before you write a business plan or start a business…

The Pre-Launch Doodlepad is a playful non-threatening way to discover if you are the sort of person who would be happy as a business owner.

It is designed to enable you to benefit from each lesson, whether you write, doodle, color, journal, or simply read through the pages.

While the process overall is an opportunity to assess yourself and determine if your business idea is feasible, each activity stands alone.

Though I have arranged the pages in a way that I consider to be helpful to start-up entrepreneurs, understand that it is nothing like the order in which the lessons came to me.

Life tends to dole out learning on its own terms and timelines, cuffing me on the ear when I need to pay attention, elbowing me out of the way of looming threats, smacking me with a previously undetected, but necessary, realization when I am ready to receive the message.

The point is that these lessons have cruised into my life in a truly random way and so it seems entirely appropriate that you do the activities in the order that they call to you and add to them as you are moved to do so.

As you doodle your way through this process, you will:

- Recognize and appreciate your skills, preferences, and achievements.

- Assess your suitability to own a business.

- Write, sketch, or record your vision.

- Consider one or more business opportunities.

- Envision your business development team.

- Assess your financial readiness for business.

- Learn about your industry.

- Dispel your assumptions: separate facts from fiction.

- Clarify your understanding of your customers.

- Gather intel about your competitors.

- Determine whether your business idea is viable.

- Estimate start-up costs.

- Set your business start-up goals.