WHAT a GIRLPRENEUR!!!

This is our classmate, HeatherJean, who posted here but has a FANTASTIC new blog set up to mark the birth of Proxy - her company. YAY HEATHERJEAN!!!!

All that WORK!

d'oh! We found out last night in class that, despite all that work on our business plans, no one reads them anymore. It's all about how you pitch your business and the Powerpoint presentation you present. Before she told us this last night (our business plans were due the night before by 12pm midnight) our professor said she was glad we didn't have any tomatoes to throw at her...and then she shared that little bit of reality with us. 27 pages and a few Excel spreadsheets later, it's kind of hard to know how to process that....

business planning gets personal

So, creating a business is obviously a deeply personal endeavor . . . but I didn't realize how personal writing a business plan would feel. It's a dry and boring document on its face, but really putting your personal vision for the world you want to create - through a business or a social venture - is an emotional experience I think I wasn't quite aware of. It's funny how all of the coursework in business school tends to be dry and boring, and an entrepreneurial venture is built  on all of that accounting, finance, operations, etc. knowledge . . . but as soon as you add your personal passion to it the numbers and the plans gain an emotional weight they never quite had before. This process makes me really appreciate what my dad and mom's dad went through early on in their careers when they developed businesses on which their whole work lives have since been based.  There's some intense courage that goes into this whole process. 

A dime a dozen

Why is it that everyone I talk to about my plan has a business concept of their own - and wants me to give them feedback? And I suspect investors are probably all frustrated entrepreneurs and mostly have a hard time backing off and letting the founder run with it.

But I probably won't have that problem - so far, most people seem a little baffled and can't see how I'm going to make money. Maybe I should be writing a book, not a business plan!
-Jen