“When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
This is one of the oldest quotes around. I’m sure that you’re sick of seeing it. The reality is that it holds true in every area of life. A little planning ahead of time can save you lots of time, money and stress down the road. Planning how you’ll approach your next business venture is no different.
As I continue reading Escape From Cubical Nation, more and more great ideas hit me. I just finished reading the piece on breaking down the components of your business model. What’s your next business model made up of?
- What do you do?
- Why do you do it?
- How do you do it?
- Where do you do it?
- Whom do you do it with?
I wanted to share this with you guys because I was hoping that you could answer these questions for a future business venture or even a current project that you happen to be working on.
I will start off by answering these questions myself:
What do you do?
This one is always challenging to figure out. It seems like an easy enough question to answer but for some reason it’s not. At the end of the day what I want to do is help young people make the best decisions about their money. I know that this may seem a bit too vague, but it allows me to jump into many different areas related to personal finance. One day I can talk about cutting back on expenses and then the next day I can feature a guest piece on passing your first job interview.
Why do you do it?
This one’s easy. I’ve always wanted to help others and managing money is something that I feel I can discuss non-stop. I’ve never had the patience to be a teacher that has to deal with bratty kids. This is why I love working with mature 20-somethings that want to get more out of their life and their money.
How do you do it?
At the moment I do it through this blog and by email. I write posts and feature guest articles on Studenomics in hopes that some of you will at least pick up one new idea from every piece that goes up here. When it comes to email I have an exclusive newsletter where I share tips and respond to all emails. I also respond to everyone that emails me through my contact page. Well, unless you’re trying to sell me on some get rich quick scheme.
Moving forward I would love to offer more help over the phone, in person, and through print. I’m still working on building a large enough audience to get to that level.
Where do you do it?
The beauty is that I can do it from anywhere. Realistically I eventually need to turn a room into an office. On the other hand, I find myself to be much more productive when I go into Starbucks with my laptop. I’m forced to concentrate on getting my work done so that I can get out of there ASAP. When I work from home it takes me forever to get anything done because of all of the distractions.
Whom do you do it with?
This is a bit tricky to answer. I work with advertisers to ensure that there’s some money coming in to cover the costs of running a blog. I work with my blogging peers to help each other gain more readers. I work with my readers to see what their needs are and how I can help them. I guess you could say that I work with many people to grow Studenomics.
I gave it my best shot, now it’s your turn. I would love to see you guys answer all or some of these questions for any business that you’re working on.