Writing a Business Plan
When I started The Pet Wiki, a little over a year ago, it was nothing more than a hobby. I didn’t really set any specific goals. I was just out there to have fun. I took the two things that I loved, creating content and animals, and put them together. All was good.
Things are still good, but now it’s time to get serious. When I left my job to become an entrepreneur, I had some vague ideas on how to make the venture work and how to make it profitable. Now it’s time to put them on paper.
The web is a funny thing. The entry bar for anyone who wants to create a website is very low. It’s a bit higher if you want to create a MediaWiki site, and it’s even higher if you want to customize that wiki site. That said, I don’t have the need for outside funding. I am writing this business plan in order to be able to set goals for myself and for my business. I now have enough data collected that I can try to make more accurate projections.
These are the things that I’m looking for:
- Number of visitors
- Number of contributors
- Number of page views per visit
- Number of pages indexed by Google
- Number of links to The Pet Wiki Pages
- Projected revenue
These are all things that are measurable. These are all things that allow me to set goals. These are all things that are really dull. They may be a lot less fun than actually programming or tinkering with the site in other ways, but they are all necessary.
A personal business plan is not something that needs to be 10 pages long. A couple of pages will do. It’s also not something that is set in stone. Modifications can be made as needed. I think of it as a start of a living document. It’s like mapping out your path on a trip. I know where I’m going.
Now that I have my milestones, it’s time to hit them.
December 10, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
I would love to see a site created from a mashup of platforms(with smooth integration) to truly engage the user.Something like wiki+drupal+forum(smf).Integrations with openid/facebook ,IM integrations (irc,etc) .Videos and photo integration (either with external sites or if you have good programmers and lots of space and bandwidth onsite)
I know too many feature would spoil the broth but maybe they can be added or removed as the project moves forward.
I dont know if this works just looking from a surfers perspective .
December 11, 2009 @ 9:43 am
Hey DellTechie! The Pet Wiki is currently using MediaWiki, Worpress and I’m in the process of trying to integrate Gallery. We aren’t using SMF, but we do have a forum. (Check it out here: http://thepetwiki.com/wiki/Special:AWCforum/) which I connected to the SocialProfile extenison.
Gallery is very important to me. I know that a lot of pet owners like to share pictures of their pets with other people. If I get it integrated well, it should be really great.
I tried to get FBConnect up and running, but I haven’t been able to get it working. I think I might have someone that can give me a hand with it.
It’s hard to know when you are adding too much stuff. So far, I think that the balance of new features is OK and no one is getting overwhelmed. If I go too far, please let me know 🙂