Is It A Business?

If you're ready to get serious about turning that brilliant idea into a real business, there are a couple of things you need to do to make it official! Here are a few of the key first steps. (We'll be talking about others later, or if you can't wait, snoop around Idea Cafe to gather more meaty info now.)

Decide on a Business Entity! There are many different flavors of business. You'll need to chat with your friendly attorney and CPA to confirm which form of business will suit your enterprise best. But first bone up on this overview chart, so you can go in armed with intelligent questions to make best use of your biz advisers' (expensive) time.

Write a Business Plan! It sounds like a horrible task, but it's not that bad as you'll see -- just follow this anatomy and sample. What you're trying to do is "think through" what this business will do and how it'll do it on paper... who are the players, what's the game plan, what's the ante, and how big can the pot get, how fast. Where do you personally fit in? Think of yourself as one of those sports strategists/mamagers who watches reels of opponent footage and studies their stats, scribbles gameplans on clipboards, decides who to draft for what positions, how to get the most muscle from the budget, reels in contributions -- and puts yourself in the game to make the crucial plays! Whew! (But what an adrenaline rush!) So, dig in:
Anatomy of a Business Plan
Simulated Business Plan