I went to school for Business Administration, I\’m a filmmaker now, and in the future I dream of being a farmer. One of my college classes at University of Louisiana was all about writing a business plan and I had a lot of fun with it. I recall it was a restaurant called Rock N\’ Rolls where every food item was an eggroll and it was a live music venue. Pretty neat huh? Well, I lost that business plan somewhere in the past but I didn\’t lose the skills of business plan writing.
I wrote a number of plans including some for businesses I ran successfully for many years. One important aspect of business plan writing, if not the most important aspect I want to convey is that a plan is just a plan. You can change it as much as you want and you should! I think the real point is that you\’ve thought of as many interconnected parts of your business as possible before beginning and revising as you go. Also, id doesn\’t have to be perfect!
People have different purposes for business plans. Often it\’s about raising money to start a business. It\’s proof to investors that you\’ve thought of just about everything and there are some financials in there that allow you to model the profits (and/or loss) and how that tracks out over a year and much longer. It becomes a great reference as you begin and something you can go back to for reference.
Up until a couple of years ago, I had the notion of starting a farm on some family land but times change, challenges arise, people move and my family ended up moving to an entirely new climate a thousand miles away. The piece of property sold. I don\’t regret any of the work I put into this 136 page business plan. Especially now that I\’m making it available to any of you who might want an example or a place to start on your own project!
I admit, it\’s not the greatest or most beautiful plan in the world, but I think it\’s also a pretty good example of regenerative agriculture planning. How can we merge farming and ecological restoration? And… how can we set ourselves up for success by merging intuition with modeling and research?
Even if you want to start an eco-friendly product company or a restaurant or any sort of business, this at least has the structure to get you thinking and help get you organized. I hope that many of my readers are able to utilize this as a tool and inspiration! Enjoy!
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