As someone who has worked with a number of startup companies, I can tell you that one of the most terrifying things a newly minted entrepreneur will hear are the words “You need to write a business plan.” For someone who has never put one together, it’s daunting.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way. A company called Palo Alto Software has made this process easy with an online program called LivePlan.
My co-writer Rob Kay used this system for a business partnership he’s developing in Fiji and was impressed. The secret sauce is that LivePlan breaks down the process to its most basic parts while explaining the procedure in simple, nonintimidating English. Every facet of a business plan can be easily tackled and completed, hassle-free, with help from LivePlan.
It offers several templates that you can brand so your plan looks professional when the time comes to present to investors. LivePlan can even put together a slideshow which you’re also going to need to pitch your plan.
He also liked their well- produced video tutorials and access to completed business plans, so you have any number of reference points. “They have thought of about everything,” Kay said.
For example, you can enter your financial data manually or import it from accounting programs such as QuickBooks. LivePlan automatically will calculate your financial projections for up to five years and create charts to visually demonstrate your financials as well as import them into your business plan.
What he really found handy was the capability for virtual collaboration.
He was able to work on the plan with his colleague, located in Lautoka, Fiji, in real time while at home in Kaimuki. (Both of them were on Skype while tweaking the plan simultaneously.) He said, “This is a winner for entrepreneurship students at UH Manoa’s PACE or Chaminade’s Hogan Program.” You can buy LivePlan program for as little as $11.66 per month on an annual basis or at $19.95 monthly.
Whereas LivePlan is strictly for business plans, Scrivener, from a company called Literature and Latte, will help you produce a book.
Unlike a linear word-processing program such as Microsoft Word, Scrivener can be best described as a modular-based writing system. It allows writers to create “chunks” of text or scenes so you can work section by section on your masterpiece. Thus, you can work on your text in any order. If you get inspired for a future scene, you can peck away while the idea is fresh and then stash it until you’re ready.
You also can move text around quite easily in Scrivener’s “corkboard” mode, where each scene or chapter gets pinned to a virtual index card, which then can be labeled. In corkboard mode you can quickly reorganize and restructure chapters, or the whole book, by repositioning the index cards. Thinking of the corkboard as a staging area really helps get you organized and makes the process more productive.
There are other cool little features that allow you to track word count or make your document go full screen, so you can write distraction-free. There’s also a way to you can save your Scrivener work to DropBox to access your project from anywhere.
The only downside is that there is a learning curve of sorts. It’s not like college calculus, but it will sop some of your bandwidth until you get the hang of it.
Anyone working on a book should consider it. Price is $45.
Mike Meyer, formerly internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is now chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
