Throughout this series I’ve been looking into starting an online business. This quick post looks into what success means for me in this experiment.
Success can mean a variety of things to different people. It could mean being able to survive solely on the business, it could mean being in the top 5 companies for a particular product search on Google… or it could be just surviving the first year of business.
In the case of iLoveShirt (and in the context of this experiment) success will be measured against the following goals:
- Still being in business after 1 year
- Having a positive bank balance (any profit would be seen as a bonus)
- Being personally happy with the past year and wanting to continue trading for another year. This is perhaps the most important goal to me)
- >80% customer satisfaction. This is not to say I won’t strive for 100% but in life there are just some people that are never happy.
Of course, returning to the fact that this is an experiment, I shan’t (hopefully) be too unhinged by any failings that occur in the year’s trading. That is as long as the business learns from these events even if they are not bought on by something in our control. There is always room to mitigate any damages.
With these goals in mind and a lot more thoughts running through my head it’s time to turn my attention to the business plan. Perhaps this should have been completed sooner rather than later… but as long as it’s looked at then better late than never. This business plan should make up the next post in the series and perhaps will be a lengthy one.
Cash & Customers – The two most important things to create and keep in the first year. Looking forward to reading the plan…
Ah yes… but that’s not to say that that’s what success is. They are perhaps key if you want your business to keep running and be in a strong position.
The plan is coming along actually… though I have to say I think I’ve underestimated the amount of time and effort it takes to write it up and actually contain truthful and meaningful content.