Mind your map

I have been putting a lot of hours in my business plan over the last couple of days. I collected a lot of the information for it in Hong Kong and Singapore back in September, but then came a month of ICP with travel and intensive days in the dungeons, so I never had time to write it down. It would have been better if I had written it down earlier, though. You loose a lot of details when you have things in your head for too long, but at least I remember all the general principles.

I guess I am also starting to panic a little bit. The end of the year is drawing near. Just like everybody else is on the hunt for a job, then I need to create this job for myself. It is not really that different. I promised myself and a potential investor that I would have my business plan ready by mid November. I am glad that I made this commitment; it keeps me on my toes. I guess I also panic, because as I write, I realize what a monstrous task I have in front of me. There is such an endless amount of things to consider, when you want to start on your own: Where do you register the company, where do you find investors, who do you hire to help you, where do you find them, what are the risks, how do you mitigate them, etc, etc. I try to stick to the big picture, but it is not easy and I still get lost in the detail too often.

Luckily Johan Jansén-Storbacka (Sweden/Finland) showed me some mind-mapping techniques and tools the other day. That has been a huge help in getting the whole thing organized. Thanks, Johan! The perhaps greatest benefit of all is to get all this stuff out of your head and down on paper. That is the benefit of the writing process.

Well, I better get back to work!

Ciao!

Thorsten