Day 2: Developing Focus

I am enjoying the opportunity to brainstorm about my own business.  I thought this would be a once and done activity, boy was I naive.  I was able to capture a lot of ideas in the attached mind map and it was apparent that I need to do a lot of research.  I have decided that I will break each of the major activities up and focus in on one or two.

I have found that working from home is a little to distracting and so I have decided to rent some space in downtown Seattle.  I called a couple of places and went to visit a Regus facility on fifth avenue.  The space was nice and they offer many amenities for the small business (which technically I am not sure if mine actually qualifies as a small business).  I will take a day to think about it and discuss it with David before taking the plunge.

Here is my first cut at the activities and things I need to be doing.  Since I am financing this on my own I will need to be careful and not overspend while I am getting things off the ground.  This exercise was helpful in gathering my thoughts together in one place.  It helped me think about marketing, branding, research, and other activities that will be necessary for me to launch this business.  I will continue to post updates as I make them.

Business MindMap

I also find it helpful to brainstorm on my whiteboard.  So I took some time to think of what I might want to name my company, what my brand will be, and some images that reflect my mission.  Here is what resulted from that session.

The first cut at my mission statement is "To prepare tomorrow's leaders to be effective, build relationships of mutual respect, and communicate the organizations shared purpose to create an engaged workforce."