Is Your Business Plan Ready for the Board?-Group 3-Session II

Hi Richard and Paul!

Just checking to see whether Paul is still unable to make it for our second meeting. I'd be open to holding the meeting by phone if this makes it easier for you both also - looking forward to it!

In the meantime here's a quick update - you both got me all fired up that day (thank you!!) and as soon as I completed the move-out August 1st (never-ending, it seemed!) I got straight to work on the refining the profile part of things.

Of course, it can always be improved and I'm sure there are embarrassing missteps in there in figuring this out, but getting the BimBionic character 'brand' out there as we'd discussed is a crucial first step - plenty of time to be perfect later - hehe!

So thanks to you, and Biznik's blitzkrieg of new ideas (thanks to everyone!) here is the latest:

1) New portfolio and profile seeking the recommendations we discussed, just posted in a women entrepreneurs community called Savor the Success, pretty impressive (happy accident! :)

2) Thanks to wonderful Chris Ely's Biznik workshop on WordPress, just started my first baby steps towards a blog. Since I'm not really a writer it's likely going to be more of an image blog, with a new "Sketch-a-Day" update once I get those hundreds of hand drawn characters registered with the U.S. Copyright Office this coming week.

Side note: Also going to put the challenge out there to whatever poor sap stumbles upon my not-yet-promoted site to brainstorm a business plan for each of us to raise $2.5m out of thin air by Christmas 2009. The idea being, hey, if we take the emotion out of it, that root of all evil stuff and whatever else for the moment and just make this a pure experiment, what specific steps would one need to take to build something like this...and if we had an actual deadline, what would the daily to-do list look like? How would leverage and momentum play into this once things got moving, and money began to atttract more money? Hmmmm. I'm hoping to read The Law of Attraction as soon as it comes in at the library, thanks to Jeffrey Shilling at Odyssey Spirits (also met in a Biznik workshop - thanks to you and Chelsea too!)

3) And of course there's the embarrassing new Facebook page that's still in shambles, but organizing portfolios by theme on this page since it allows for it.

4) LinkedIn allows through Google and SlideShare for us to create slideshows and online powerpoint presentations(without needing to buy the Powerpoint application to create it) so I experimented with a new marketing slideshow, we'll see if I can stop cringing on that too - just working on getting this out there and learning as I go (the alternative is to sit still and twiddle thumbs.. :)

Okay sorry to get into so much detail, just thought if any of these free tools can help you too with your stuff...I know most folks probably already know about this but I just discovered them myself over the weekend - haha!

I'm working on the other steps we talked about and hope to have more to report on that soon as well, just wanted to focus on getting this stuff up first to refer back to for the next steps.

Thank you so much for getting me kickstarted in the right direction! It was a bit of a slow start on my end (sorry!) while I was encumbered by the loveliness of a hideous move :) but excited to knit things back together and get focused on the next steps.

Please let me know how you'd like to handle Wednesday and if Paul's unable to make it, is there any chance Richard would be interested at meeting at Mosaic in Wallingford at noon/Wednesday for Chris Ely's WordPress continuation workshop, and perhaps we can check in beforehand/afterwards on the business plan progress as well until we can reconvene with Paul also?

Just a thought - thank you!

Hope each of your days are going nicely so far, and thank you again for keeping me motivated to get this far - I really appreciate it!

Best meantime, Michiko

Hi Paul and Richard!

Not sure if you've seen this, but since we mentioned videocameras and interviewing Paul for his website, Q&A on indexing and what makes his excellent :) just thought I'd pass this along. I know I'll see you tomorrow (Wednesday 10am) anyway, but just in case you're interested in signing up while there's room, etc. - here you go:

http://biznik.com/events/video-role-play-video-replay

Also, thanks to you guys, I followed a lead to http://www.zazzle.com/create

and was surprised to find they create print-on-demand (not just t-shirts and mugs!) for skateboards and Ked shoes and unusual other items I can be looking into for prototypes to approach future licensees to show them possible product types. Thanks so much!

And am I forgetting anything for tomorrow? When Richard asked me if I'm ready for our last meeting, I'm like, ULP! What specifically am I meant to be doing again, other than continuing with what we've started? haha! I'll keep working on it with this big gooey organic process....getting somewhere, just not sure where on the map I am but it feels much better than when we first started...and THANKS to you both for this!

Hope your day's going great meantime, see you soon! (Very soon. Be afraid. Very afraid. Oh wait, that's a movie poster- never mind! :)

Best, Michiko

Thank you Michiko and Richard, for a wonderful set of sessions! Now I'm off to deliver another yellow card, lol.