The Success Story Format

1. Today’s readers only want to read about 1000 words, the beginning is 15% of the story, or about 150 words. It starts by defining the challenge or problem the customer was facing.
2. The middle accounts for 25% of the story, or about 250 words. It describes the solution.
3. The last section is a whopping 60% and is about 600 words – and professional story crafters say this is the part most often left out. It completes the article by demonstrating the benefits that the customer experienced. Customer benefits should showcase how your solution saved the customer time or money, or made the customer money. If possible, avoid vague benefits such as faster or easier. Benefits should be targeted at the intended reader of the story. For example, a hospital radiologist would have a different idea of worthwhile benefits than would the hospital administrator.

Any quotes from the customer should reinforce the value of your solution and help elevate your marketing messages.

The format of the case study has changed over the past decades. In the 1980’s, case studies were printed, then in the 1990’s, case studies transitioned into HTML and PDF. The next big change is taking place now. The rapid rise of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, and readers’ preferences for these devices are demanding these formats.

Another change taking place alongside this is the length. Way back when, the success story was in long-form of 4,000 words, then it transitioned to the short-form of 1,000 words, and now readers want it shorter yet.

Readers have become accustomed to the short content through blog posts and tweets. They want succinct and rapid consumption of information. However, the problem is for many B2B case studies, the story needs to convey complex information which really can’t be shortened. One current approach is to hook the reader with the opening so they will read further.

Many consider success stories to be for companies offering business products such as enterprise software that have direct sales forces. The simple reason is people don’t find them from an Internet search.

Getting Your Success Stories

If you’re a start-up, you want case studies, but how do you get them? Honestly, you have to ask. Better yet, ask during the sales process. As a start-up, prospects may ask for a discount because your product doesn’t have enough proven use in the marketplace –sometimes you can’t avoid the discount. But always get something in return for it – like a case study or success story or testimonial.

Your sales people are a great source for selection. They know what marketing messages attract prospects the most, so ask them what type of success story would benefit them the most.

Selecting the Customer for the Case Study

Who is featured in your success story matters because like it or not, companies want to be like their peers. Prospects want to buy products or services that have solved the problems of others like them.

If you can get a major industry player to use your product and provide a case study, then the other companies will want it to. There is a drawback to landing a success story from a major player though. The approval process can be long. The bigger the company, the more approval levels are needed to release the case study into the public eye and even the legal department will need to give its approval. A mid-sized company often works better – enough revenue to impress your other prospective customers, but not so much as to have an overly drawn out approval process.

So, there you have it, the quick way to write an effective success story for marketing.

Recently, I had a marketing firm review my marketing materials. I applaud the firm’s bluntness and honesty. Their findings after review and results after conducting focus groups showed my marketing messages were inconsistent and unclear. In their opinion, spreading more of these messages would not achieve my goals. Wow! Now I hire many PR and marketing firms, and many of the firms created their own view of my messages. So it appears I am having an identity crisis.

Let’s get back to the basics. Why do we have marketing messages?

It’s about branding. Politicians are masters at it. They deliver the same set of messages over and over and over again, until the candidates become synonymous with their messages. Hear the message; the candidate’s name is top of mind. If someone said the word, “fast food restaurant” or “hamburgers”, I bet McDonalds would be one of the first thoughts in your mind. If I asked a group of people, “Who is Martha Stewart?” or “Who is Seth Godin?” everyone would come up with a response that’s one of their marketing messages.

Marketing messages are short, only around 15 seconds. They can be taglines or slogans. They can be a series of sound bites. Marketing messages convey who, what, why, and maybe even where and when in a few words – and the best ones have some sort of emotional or psychological element to them.

Marketing messages aren’t meant to be a string of labels. I did a survey of famous professional people; almost all tagged themselves as author, speaker, blogger, entrepreneur, blah…blah… expert plus one other phrase that associated them with their industry. How does this differentiate them for the thousands of other professionals that do the same thing? It doesn’t. The message should convey the value you bring to the customer or conversation.

Unless you are highly creative, to have a truly great set of marketing messages, one has to find talent to craft them. But every start-up or professional should try and define their marketing messages because only you know what you want to say to the world.

Here some initial questions to answer. They may seem obvious, but you have to convey all this information in 15 seconds or less, that’s one or two sentences. Ideas stick when they are presented as simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and emotional. No one is going to remember your new product if you message is it’s faster, cheaper and more robust.

• What do you want to be known as?
• What are your customers’ or audience’s problems? How do they feel about them? What are their pains and frustrations? Don’t answer by judging their thoughts or feelings, just how they feel. How do they want to feel? This will help with the emotional aspect of the message.
• What’s your solution? Demonstrate an understanding of the customer problem and your ability to solve it now. Does it have one clear and exciting benefit? What value does your solution have to the customer?
• Who is target audience? Be specific, don’t be general. What results have been achieved by customers who are the same as those in your target audience? If you have no customers or results yet, you may just want to skip this question.
• What makes you or your solution unique? What makes you different than the competition?

Now think about whether you can condense a portion of this information by …

• Creating a phrase, twisting a cliché, or providing an analogy
• Revealing an eye-opening or interesting fact
• Using an anecdote
• De-bunking a common belief
• Asking a griping question
• Providing a contrast by using opposites

Once you determine what you want your marketing messages to say, then you can whittle them down or hire that creative writing talent to polish them up and give them that professional touch.

Profiling … it’s a politically incorrect term, but it’s is used throughout the start-up community to judge aspiring entrepreneurs.  Like it or not, entrepreneurs need to understand how this works for them or against them.

Consider the job market. Companies release job ads that focus on what the job is, and then they wait to see who applies. But somewhere in the company is a human resource person with a profile of the ideal candidate, which is not publicly disclosed in the job ad at all.

For example, there may be a position for a business consultant. The HR checklist may be an undergraduate degree in technology from a top 30 college, an M.B.A. degree from an Ivy League,  between 5 to 7 years of experience working for one of the big 5 firms, and direct experience working with a select group of  Fortune 500 companies.  If the applicant does not fit that profile, they are rejected.

Profiling happens with every corporation after it has become an established company.  Investors in start-ups do the same. The venture capital industry and angel investment groups are now well established, and they are selective about what profile of entrepreneur they want to engage with.

I once met with a venture capitalist who told me that his top-tier firm only invests in start-ups with founders having  Ph.Ds in technology or executive-level experience.  Another venture capitalist is fond of saying, “I invest in young entrepreneurs who are my vision of what I had wanted my kids to become, but didn’t”. Yet another prominent venture capitalist says, “If you are over 40 years old, it’s all over, you’re too stuck in your ways”.   Even franchises profile their applicants. Franchisors give their most successful franchisees a profiling test and then they create a profile of a successful franchisee, all new applicants are compared against this profile for selection.

I’ll be honest, the bulk of the funded entrepreneurs are 20-somethings with few financial obligations or distractions. They are capable of working 80 hour weeks for a few years. Their parents or their spouse are the ones paying for their living expenses.  In Silicon Valley, they are referred to as ‘Ramen Noodle’ entrepreneurs. It’s also more common than not to find those funded either already having generated revenue with their start-up, or having been entrepreneurs before – perhaps creating a website with a few million in revenue.

I meet many entrepreneurs who don’t fit the typical profile for investors. They hope to land funding. Yet, I know it’s very unlikely. My heart goes out to them.  I’ve seen mid-career professionals drain their savings, inheritances,  and retirement accounts, in hopes that the investors will come on board once they see how committed they are to the start-up. I’ve seen mompreneurs unable to dedicate their complete time to the start-up project.  Physicians seem to be looking for funding a lot these days – unwilling to leave their lucrative practices, but wanting funding to pursue a start-up on the side.  My point is that if you don’t fit the investors’ profile, then you need to have a plan to self-fund or bootstrap the company until it can sustain itself.  Once your start-up has lots of revenue and a clear promise for growth, then investors will fund it at the later stage regardless of whether you fit their profile or not.

This will be the first of a series of posts on how to bootstrap.  Like it or not, most aspiring entrepreneurs will be bootstrapping their start-ups, if only for a short while.

Every entrepreneur starts a new business with high hopes and every one of them wants exactly the same thing. They want a successful business. Let’s face it, that’s a vague goal. They really don’t want the four hour work week. They want a new business they enjoy so work doesn’t seem like work, and one that allows them to have their perfect lifestyle.

Deep down, few entrepreneurs start by thinking they will become the next Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg. No one starts a new business with the desire for the business to be marginal, or for them to slave away at the business 80 hours per week, only to scrape by with enough to pay their bills. They don’t want to just survive and exist; they want to flourish and thrive. Yet, most entrepreneurs end up just surviving.

Where do they go wrong?

Strike One …

First, they neglect the business of the product initially and focus on product development. They think they’ll figure out the business aspects later. They justify this by telling themselves they need the product first and the product prototype is a must – no, it’s not. The truth is they don’t want to be the person ‘out there’, they don’t want to be the person connecting with the potential customers and partners, and they don’t want to be in the public eye. The business of the product is foreign to them, it’s outside their comfort zone, and so they are hoping that they’ll find those people who can handle it for them. The catch-22 is that unless they get out and about, they will never find these people.

Strike Two …

Second, they become immersed in the detailed and tangible work so much that there isn’t anyone guiding the company or planning the overall strategy. The ship is adrift! It’s easy to find people to do the mechanics like writing a sales letter, coding the software, entering the drawing into a CAD system, or creating an ad. What you can’t easily find is someone who can see the big picture, tell those mechanics what to do, or someone who has so much passion for the product that it’s contagious. Typically, only the founder is that person.

Strike Three …

Third, many entrepreneurs should be on the do-it-yourself network. They try to do everything themselves. CEO does not start for Chief-Everything-Officer. They become overwhelmed with all the tasks, and nothing gets done well. They slave away at menial tasks. They don’t ask themselves is this really the best use of their time. Entrepreneurs need to be able to hire, manage, and fire workers.

The only way to achieve their initial hope of a successful business and lifestyle dream is to realize that they need to work themselves out of a job. They need to create and build a new business that can run without them. That takes on a life of its own. Bill Gates left Microsoft and the company continues on. If Mark Zuckerberg left Facebook, it too would continue. Many entrepreneurs stop building their companies too soon, they want to feel as if they are critically important.

…. and They’re Out

It’s very easy to lose sight of a dream and vision by generating a heavy fog caused by a to-do list, which is nothing more than a list of tasks that need to be done soon. Since the to-do’s are immediate, the future gets put off. Entrepreneurs should ask themselves everyday whether what they are doing today is moving them closer to their vision.

In the words of Shakespeare, “I wasted time, and now time doth waste me”.

It happened to car dealerships a long time ago. Dealerships are resellers, what they offer isn’t unique to them, many other dealerships offer the same product. Customers were able to find out what the dealership paid for a car from the manufacturer, and started to demand less of a mark-up and better pricing. If one dealership wouldn’t give the customer their desired price, they simple went to another.

DirectBuy is a recent start-up that does the same thing with household appliances or any big ticket item purchased for a home. They have showrooms and customers buy items at deep discounts.

It’s obvious with these items because they are expensive and are only purchased once every few years or decade, but Target sells common, everyday, low-priced products.

Traditionally, the bulk of profits from products have been enjoyed by the designers and the sellers, and manufacturing had the lowest margins. Will sellers have the same margins as manufacturers in the future?

There is a wave a foot in the start-up community with companies developing products that will make it easier for consumers to find the best price for an item. Consumers will even be able to check out where the product is available locally for the best price – all from just standing in front of a retail shelf and looking up the item on their mobile device.

This creates a huge problem for retailers. It’s as if every store on the planet is located in the palm of a consumer’s hand. I would never have guessed Target would be so concerned. I can see customers researching the price of things like cars; it’s a major purchase, but toothpaste, toys, and bath towels! Yes, I know there are always some customers concerned about the price of a can of tuna, but I had no idea that so many would be so concerned that it would cause Target to take note.

I am involved with an online retailer and I can tell you that 80% of the purchases come from small towns where products are simply not available in local stores. This start-up discovered the same as Amazon, the real profits for an online retailer come from carrying products that always seem to be “out of stock” at the best price, or specialty products with high margins and mid-sized volumes. The bottom line is stay away from the true high volume commodities and stay away from the unique, low volume products. In addition, the major source of web traffic comes from review and price comparison websites.

In this past year, I bought several items from Chinese retailers. Even with shipping costs, the items were less expensive to get from China than buy in the US. It did, however, take very long time to get the items.

Ok, so what does all this mean? I can tell you there seems to be a growing interest in retail in the start-up community – and where there is funding, there is usually progress. A common approach to developing a new product is to take that which is beneficial at the high-end of the market and eventually move it down to the low-end of the market, i.e. mainframe computers to personal computers, transparency on pricing on cars to common, everyday items found at Target.

The music industry tried to halt a trend when $25 albums went to mass sales of the single, digital version of songs at $0.99. They whined and complained. They tried to put up a blockade. It didn’t work.

The developers of these new products are 20-something year olds. They have no reverence for old ways. They understand computers and the digital culture well. There are no barriers to the developers combining web crawlers and mobile technology to provide this functionality to consumers.

In fact, I had a conversation with an entrepreneur whose start-up was doing exactly this. I mentioned that retailers weren’t going to like this. It would make their current business model very difficult. His response was that it was great for the consumer.

The tsunami is coming and it’s not stoppable, so these older retailers need to assume it’s here and find a new business model that works. If not, some investor will fund the next wave of new retailers, just like they did with Amazon and eBay.

As Target’s CEO implied, this is a major game-changing disruption in business. Its consequences can no longer be ignored, it’s not going away. If they don’t solve the problem, then some new retailer will.

YourSports recently launched a private beta version. It’s a social network for local sports–or a new communications network for sports content and conversations to flow through. They’re in their 2nd inning of product development, but moving rapidly and adding content and features daily. Their aim is for every game to be live online – and monetized by the teams, schools, and leagues playing in it. The focus of their private beta is to map the relationships a sports fan has with the various people, teams, and things in sports first.

Now, my kids are seriously into sports so this start-up is near and dear to my heart. So let’s get to an interview I had with Chris about the process of creating a start-up company.

Cynthia: How did you get the idea for the company? What was the spark of inspiration?

Chris: I grew up in a town where local sports was the ultimate social network. It was the glue that connected the community. In college, after seeing the early rise of Facebook, I knew that could be recreated for sports. So I set out to do that.

Cynthia: What were the first steps in going from the idea to actually starting the company?

Chris: Being a user of lots of other web products helped me learn core user-experiences that could be applied to problem sets and user goals for the sports vertical. I trained to become a really good web and mobile product person, basically.

Cynthia: Did you devise any business experiments to test out your product and business model?

Chris: Yes, many. We experimented with live streaming of games, syndication of those games onto local newspaper websites, crowdfunding the media rights of games before producing them, crowdfunding games in conjunction with a local business sponsor, social networking at the team-only level, selling sponsorships for local sports to national brand advertisers like NIKE, etc.

I peeled the onion back on many layers of the sports industry, got “technical”, then rebuilt my leanings of how the industry works around social data a.k.a. social networking. That represents the new YourSports.com.

Cynthia: What have you learned so far from the experience of beginning a start-up that you didn’t know before?

Chris: Faith in your faith and perseverance make all the difference.

Cynthia: How did you plan the trajectory of your start-up for the next few years? And what are some goals you have for the company?

Chris: Build a great product and the trajectory move upwards and to the right. Goals are to build a great company with even greater people. It all starts with a great product though, so that is our laser focus.

Cynthia: What was the biggest, unexpected surprise or issue when dealing with investors?

Chris: There’s a tremendous amount of dollars in the capital markets looking to go to work in promising, growing products and companies. Build something great and investors will take notice.

So, you’ve got a great product for a new business idea. You start developing it. But most entrepreneurs consider marketing to be post-development activity. It’s only after they’ve put in all those long hours that they discover if their product is viable.

This isn’t the way to do it. Not only are you likely to end up with a market dud, but it’s takes a toll on your psyche and outlook.

Here’s one way to avoid this issue.

I work with lots of marketing people. It’s fairly inexpensive (less than $100) to find a freelance copywriter that specializes in writing enticing product descriptions for online ads, landing pages, marketing brochures, and so on. These professionals work with numerous products and services. They know what it takes to create interest and demand. It’s easy to locate these copywriters, they offer their services on websites such as fiverr, elance, freelance and guru.

There is nothing as enlightening as when they send you their questionnaire for your product. After you complete it, you can expect a conversation to follow to clarify matters and gather more information.
At this point, there may be several outcomes.

First, the most devastating, the copywriter drops you. They review all the information and decide they can’t help. They just don’t see how they can make your product stand out from the crowd. It’s difficult to accept this, but it’s well worth whatever you paid to find this our now instead of later. In fact, I had this happen a few times, and many copywriters will return their fee.

Second is another disappointing result. The copywriter sends you a draft and it’s nothing like what you thought it would be. You thought that the benefits and advantages of your wonderful product were obvious to anyone, but apparently not. Wow! You tried to make something crystal clear and you confused the copywriter. This too is very instructive. Your product might hit the mark, but the way you described it to customers is not. One thing I’ve learned about customers over the years is you have to be direct with them – a confused mind never buys! They don’t want to read in-between the lines to figure out your product, and you can’t hint or imply either.

The third is the copy is just what you expected. Great! Now, conduct a survey. Ask people to read and then ask a series of questions about it. Did they read it the way you thought? Did it convey the information you thought it would communicate? This is simple enough to do. You can do this as a requester on Amazon Mechanical Turk.

After doing this for many products, I’ve learned that products are the easiest for copywriters to wrap their skills around. Services are difficult because they have to convey the trust needed so the customer believes you will deliver on what you’re promising. The hardest is always personal branding where they have to sell YOU as an expert or wise sage.
Launches of new products and service are harder than established ones because they always want testimonials from previous customers. Remember, no one says the testimonials have to be from paying customers. The truth is you can buy testimonials and reviews. Or offer your product to some people for free just to get their feedback.

(This is why I personally don’t believe in testimonials or references. You can always buy them somehow. And with enough customers, there is always a few that are thrilled with your product even if 99.9% don’t like it!)
As always, start your marketing A.S.A.P. and not when the product is near fully developed.

This is a question many entrepreneurs often have. Entrepreneurs are inventors and worry someone else will steal their brilliant ideas. And so they rush to patent their product ideas as soon as possible, sometimes even when the product is just a pie-in-the-sky or half-baked idea. Entrepreneurs may then go and seek funding, believing their patents fulfill the barriers to entry requirement of investors.

So let’s take a quick look at patents and discuss some pros and cons.

What are the different types of patents and provisions available?

Design patents protect your intellectual property rights for 14 years. It covers any reproducible changes in the appearance, configuration, ornamental design or shape of an item.

Plant patents protect your property rights for a period of 20 years. These types of patents apply to a new and original species of plant that can be reproduced.

Utility patents are the most common and provide protection for a period of 20 years. Utility patents are applicable to a wide range of intellectual property including new methods of doing business, a new manufacturing process, a new useful apparatus or machine, computer programs, and mathematical algorithms used in software.

Provisional patent applications, referred to as PPAs, are a relatively new option. It’s a more straightforward application concerning how to make or use an idea. This is the “Patent Pending” indication so often seen on products. These only apply to ideas that would fall under the utility patent category and only protect the idea for a period of 12 months. At which time, the entrepreneur can elect to apply for a more traditional patent.

Many ideas may be protected by a combination of these patents.

How much does a patent cost?

Well, there’s the filing fees and there’s the maintenance (renewal fees), and of course, there’s the big uplift in costs from attorney fees. It’s rare for a patent to be accepted on its initial application. The patent examiner and patent applicant will typically go through two or more rounds of questions and requests before the patent is granted. Ca-ching! Many new products require more than one patent and hence, the costs skyrocket quickly. Ca-ching! I see start-ups hiring their own full-time, in-house attorneys because it’s more cost effective than paying on a per patent basis for an outsider. A simple product can easily cost $30,000 or more.

How long does it take?

Provisional Patent Applications are the quickest. The traditional patent application can take three or four years.

Pros and Cons

If the entrepreneur files for a patent early in the product development cycle, they may find their patents need to be changed as the product is refined and honed. The start-up can be going in circles, continually filing patents for ideas they will never use. This is a gold mine for the patent attorney. Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

For complex products, there is the concept of a “wall of protection”. This is when a product requires numerous patents. If a company is willing to spend to put up a wall of protection then this warns potential patent violators that you are serious about protecting your rights – and that you have the financial resources needed to protect your property.

A general counsel for a technology company recently told me that it costs their company a minimum of $2.5 million to fight any patent battle. This is the reason patent trolling is so lucrative. Patent trolls buy the patents from defunct start-ups, only to file suit against established companies. At such a high cost to fight any patent battle, the trolls hope the company will settle out of court. They will also file infringement against a group of companies at one time – all competitors. The larger companies in the suit will settle because the settlement isn’t a large amount to them and they know that the smaller companies may be driven out of business by their settlement costs.

Another issue to consider is whether it’s easy to determine infringement. If it is, then it might be worthwhile to obtain protection for your right. If it’s not, then you’ll never be able to pin the violators down.
Too many entrepreneurs wait for their patent filings before going to market. In industries with short product lifecycles, it may simply be better to get into the market as soon as possible and not miss the window of opportunity for the product.

Yet, another consideration is when entrepreneurs seek funding from investors. Many list their patent application numbers on their executive summaries. Once investors have these numbers, it’s easy for them to find a subject matter expert and have them weigh-in on the potential of your product. A conceptual description is usually best for the initial investor meeting. It keeps the details of the product hidden. Second a start-up risks the investors believing they were foolish for filing too early. That you don’t know how to effectively control expenses. If your intention with patents is to impress investors, don’t do it. There are better, more effective ways to impress them.

Some final thoughts

A feature race occurs in the market place when competitors match each other upgrades or releases, feature by feature. All products seem to have the same or similar sets of options – just look at smartphones or cars. It’s easy to copy product features. It’s very hard to copy intangibles such that warm fuzzy feeling customers have when they contact your company, or the audience you have. Today, it’s easy to produce a mobile application. iTunes has a gazillion apps on it. There are usually many app choices for the same thing, yet only one may have a huge audience or following. The reason the Freemium model is loved by investor-backed companies, it is gets the start-up a big audience and it’s the audience (not easily copied) that creates the value for the start-up.

Studies have shown that any advantage from innovation is eroded away by the competition within 15 years. Many companies design around patents just to avoid infringement, yet manage to produce very similar products.

Entrepreneurs would be wise to careful consider those patents. Cash and funding in any start-up is a precious resource. The question should always be asked, “Would that money better serve the success of the company if it were directed elsewhere?”

Meet Craig Bloem, the founder of a new start-up named Free Logo Services (www.freelogoservices.com) in Boston, MA. He spoke with me about what it is like to go from just a pie in the sky idea to beginning a new business. I am an advocate of start-ups conducting experiments and getting an understanding of their customers before they dive into product development and commit to building a company. I went to their website and gave their service a try. It’s easy to use and companies will be able to create a logo quickly.

Cynthia: How did you get the idea for the company? What was the spark of inspiration?

Craig: Entrepreneurs have a lot to accomplish when first going into business – and a sharp logo is a cornerstone of both brand identity and a “face to the world”. Not all entrepreneurs have the resources for high-end logo design. In addition, businesses need to focus on what they do best, which is providing the best product or service. I saw the need for professional logo design that was inexpensive, easy to obtain, and with designer quality. From that, Free Logo Services began to take shape.

Cynthia: What were the first steps in going from the idea to actually starting the company?

Craig: Originally, we started out just testing the market with targeted Google Ad Words campaigns, before there was even a logo design app to offer. With the information we gathered, we determined what kind of logo design service small business owners were looking for, and planned our strategy accordingly.

Cynthia: Did you devise any business experiments to test out your product and business model?

Craig: During our Google Ad Words campaigns and customer interviews, we gathered a lot of rich data about the type of business owner we could best serve. We started with a few basic logos and color schemes, worked diligently to perfect our product, and have ended up with a very sophisticated, designer quality logo creation app on our site that’s also a breeze for customers to use. Free Logo Services is all about a culture of experimentation and testing of ideas. We understand many of the challenges of small business owners because we have to practice the philosophy of nimbleness and adaptation every day.

Cynthia: What have you learned so far from the experience of beginning a start-up that you didn’t know before?

Craig: I’ve actually been an innovator for a while, involved in other start-ups, so it’s always a learning process, every day. Some things you can plan for and some you can’t. But that’s the beauty of being a start-up – it’s never boring and you learn something new all the time. I am pretty careful about metrics and measurement – knowing which strategies have paid off, and where we need to adjust. It’s important to have specific goals and gauge the success of each strategy as you go.

Cynthia: How did you plan the trajectory of your start-up for the next few years? And what are some goals you have for the company?

Craig: Well, it’s kind of like this: I can foresee a trajectory for the next 3 months, maybe 6, of continuing to perfect our product, promote it effectively, and plan for future growth. One of the huge challenges for any start-up like Free Logo Services is to overcome adversity – finding your way up, over, around, or through any obstacle. It’s a constant process. Being a start-up I think is more about being in the moment and looking to the next few months, maybe a year, but the more “out there” the future is, the more fuzzy it looks because you can’t predict all the determining variables. We have big plans, but we want to grow smart, not necessarily too fast. We want to be the destination on the web for entrepreneurs of all kinds to go to create a killer logo for free, and be able to use it for basically the price of a nice dinner out. And with the reaction we’ve gotten so far, we are well on our way.

Conventional wisdom tells the entrepreneurs that they should always write a business plan before a new venture. When isn’t this a good measure of advice?

I went to the local library and did a survey of all the how to write a business plan books. This is what I found in these books.

Entrepreneurs must develop a business strategy with backward integration, horizontal integration, and forward integration plans. Plans should also have market-intensive strategies, diversification strategies, adaptive strategies and defensive strategies – not to mention the assessment of diversification, retrenchment, joint ventures and partnerships. For each strategic approach entrepreneurs should consider return on investment, growth potential, stability of earnings and employment, corporate ownership, social responsibility, and its effects on branding campaigns and our market traction trends. They need to examine whether their planned channels are expensive, unreliable, inadequate, or experiencing scare supply. They must have an operational management plan. They must identify linkages and critical paths and perform capacity planning. They should flow chart every aspect of our business. They must produce financial projections and estimates for the next three to five years. They must identify risk in each area and have contingencies plans. They must employ the state-of-the-art project management techniques.

No wonder entrepreneurs dread writing a business plan. When you just have a product idea, this is all meaningless dribble. The result is the business plan becomes a work of fiction and its opening statement should be …

Once upon a time …