I ran my business plan by two Ph.D.'s and a 17-year-old.
I received the gentle feedback that I had forgotten to put an elevator pitch at the beginning of the executive summary. That was embarrassing.
My husband was out of town for the weekend at a triathlon and I was in seclusion on a business-plan-writing marathon.
Write, rewrite, write.
Let go.
On Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 11:01 AM EST, I sent my business plan to Jim Flowers, director of business acceleration center, VT KnowledgeWorks.
Imagining speed cooling my fried brain, I went for a run as part of my triathlon training.
I'm not a very fast runner.
It was hot.
My brain started sizzling with all the points I had forgotten to make.
When I checked my e-mail in the afternoon, there was a reply from Jim Flowers. I didn't read it at first.
I thought about all the business principles anyone in his or her right mind should understand before starting a business (What is the difference between a president and a CEO?), how insane it is to start a business at 49 and 1/2 years old, that I served icing for revenue, and who did I think I was anyway to think I could play on the VT KnowledgeWorks team?
I opened the e-mail.
"It’s going to take a while for me to digest all this; but I’ve started chewing on it, and it tastes good so far."
Jim likes icing!
"I’m concerned about the $$ value proposition..."
Oh. He noticed the icing layer was pretty thick.
"Can you dig up any data...?"
Oh boy. More ingredients for my cake.
But I was still on the team.
At dinner that night, I asked my triathlon-returned husband to join me in a toast to Jim Flowers, director of VT KnowledgeWorks, who knows just how to treat a novice who wants to create a prize-winning cake of a business.
The Accelerated Entrepreneur: The Saga of the First Year as a Member Company of VT KnowledgeWorks is sponsored by YOUR NAME HERE with text link. YOUR NAME HERE...specializes in your business description or tagline here.
Anne Giles Clelland is the founder of a member company of business acceleration center VT KnowledgeWorks, located in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg, Virginia.
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