After day 4 of living in the office, I’ve come to a few conclusions:
- Even a free crappy twin mattress from craigslist beats a camping pad and blankets for padding
- Getting a real shower at the gym beats a spit-shower at home anyday
- I feel like I’m camping
So far so good. I’ve got a few days of house sitting lined up this week, so that will keep me out of the office a few days.
Business StuffÂ
Running my business right now is so frusterating. Things are going very, very well, but very, very slow mostly due to lack of capital. I’m on such a razor thin budget at the moment that launching two new projects is very tough. I got our first client in my “Plan B” project last week. That was great, but now I need to nail down all our processes before we scale to add new clients. Some of this requires cash, cash that I don’t have the moment.
frusteration.
My “Plan A” project is coming along nicely. It will be ready for a beta test in about a month. This is really the potential bread and butter for my company. Depending on how its received it will either be a huge flop, or an enourmous success. Obviously I’m hoping for the latter.
Our current business continues to hover at around 7K a month. Although I’m now putting one of my employees (who is working full time this summer) in charge of ramping that number up to 10K in the next two months before the “Plan A” project launches.
Best Case Scenario EverÂ
Current business ramps up to 10K/mo in revenue (by Sept 1)
Plan A launches in the next few months, generates 15K/mo within 3 months in revenue (by Dec 1)
Plan B rolls out in the next few months, slowing reaching 10-20K in monthly revenue, aprox 50% margins. (by Dec 1)
Dang, that all looks great. Now I just need to execute! Some parts of my plan are out of my control, but most I can influence, so I need to focus on those parts.
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Mind getting athlete’s foot or weird fungal things at the gym. Invest in shower shoes, but yes, there is nothing like a real shower (hot water + lasting more than 5 minutes).
the house sitting is a good idea…
I would try to get out of that office as much as possible and kudos for attempting the side gigs for some apartment cash.
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hey,
you’re not letting Casey stay with you in your office are you???
apparantly he’s in Seattle right now.
Really?
Oh heavens no. Casey isn’t here (at least at my office). I have enough drama in my life at the moment. He’s always been encouraging to me in a few e-mail he’s sent, but I wouldn’t offer him a place to stay. I mean, I don’t even have a place myself!
I know, just kidding there..
I’m keeping a look out for him down in tacoma here…
I know it’s your “Best Case Scenario Ever”, but it looks unlikely since you appear to have been stuck around the $7K/mo revenue mark since Jan, despite having a target of hitting $10K/mo by June back in Jan…
So how realistic is a goal of $45K/mo revenue by Dec 1?
Having a “stretch goal” is great, but I hope you’ve done some financial projections based on more likely outcomes.
Just doing a back of an envelope calculation based on estimated probabilities is often helpful. For example, perhaps there is a:
10% chance that current business drops to $5K/mo and plans A+B don’t pan out
30% chance that current business stays at $7K/mo and plans A+B don’t pan out
30% chance that current business stays at $7K/mo, plan A adds another $3K/mo and plan B doesn’t work out
20% chance that current business grows to $10K/mo, plan A adds $5K/mo and plan B adds another $5K/mo
10% that you achieve the “best case” scenario
You can plug in whatever relative probabilities these outcomes have (in your view) and see what the weighted average revenue would be.
Once you’ve done that you can do a sensitivity analysis by varying the probabilities within plausible ranges. This often will yield a pretty good estimate of what can realistically be achieved, even when you’re starting with ball-park guestimates. It will do your self-esteem a lot more good to set achievable targets and meet them, than to “aim for the stars” and set yourself up for disappointment, even if things work out reasonably well.
Regards
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