Choosing your business

From businessplan to revenues.. and back again

Every succesfull bussiness once started out as a businessplan., as we all know.

As it happens the world is absolutely filled with people who have bright ideas for yet another promising business. But the actual numbers that make it in to real, thriving companies are very thin on the ground.

In some cases it’s obvious, one only has to listen to the overwhelming amount of plans, poured out at starter meetings, to see that a large contingent of would be entrepreneurs is not exactly in touch with economic reality.

To be more specific, my eyes fell up on a businessplan in wich the entrepreneur forcasted sales of over 500 bicycles in his local Dutch shop over the first two months, while similar sales for the sector never exceeded 500 a year. Despite this discrepancy he was totally convinced all would work out fine and felt sure of a generous loan..

But the real sting is found in lots of other cases where the reasons to reject the businessplan are a lot less obvious. In many cases a sound plan is nonetheless rejected  on behalf of mere futile arguments. Especially the large financial institutions are very fond of their demand where one has to have a membership of a large branche organisation. ( like being a member of has a direct relation to the question wether a bussinessplan is economically viable or not). Except for the fact that the , mostly substantial, membership fee does have an effect on the financial result..

Also having a proven relation with a well known councellor with experience in the business is a must. Not having forementioned, will result in an early rejection of your businessplan. In a similar way it was made clear to me by some lady at the phonedesk of a large Dutch bank, that they weren’t even going to consider reading my plan because the accountant who had subjected his autograph ( a very capable firm, by the way), did not have certificate X at that time. A self implemented standard by the bank that was..

Due to this temporary lack of the certificate of my accountant, the bussinessplan itself was obviously rubbish and not even worth considering…

Indeed, bureucracy is killing us, and the legislators are far from finished..

To prevent all doubts, i decided to turn things upside down a bit. I was not going to get caught in the discussion concerning the viability of my forecasts, no that was not going to happen…

I would start from scratch, yes, absolutely zero. My goal would be to start a succesfull business without any capital. The ultimate “ American Dream” only this time it would be in Holland.

As i did not want to get back in to the financial services, it had tob e another branche.

The financial services sector is a typical example of a sector where the balance has totally shifted from a lack of regulation into  a total overkill in legislation wich prevents any normal entry to the marketplace, leaving only the large multinationals to dominate the market. Obviously the consumer is again not the winner he should have been..

No, the choice should be in a sector where there were at least some remains of the free market economy we once knew to be found. Another important term would be that the sector should not be extremely dependent on the economic climate.

Next blog entry i will discuss the actual arguments to back up my eventual choice..