Has anyone (particularly those of you who do this from home) done a business plan? Even if it is not long and formal, have you attempted it? My DH is having cows because I haven't done one (between us, I don't want to do one). He thinks it's important and while I can see his point I just feel like it is going overboard for doing this at home right now. I guess I just am more interested in creating at the moment. I was just wondering if anyone else had thoughts or experience with this. Thanks!

See my response to your other post about keeping things in order. I'm going to do mine from home also and haven't done a buisness plan and hadn't planned on it until I talked to my community college and signed up for one of their other business workshops. If you plan on doing any type of loan/financing for your business you will need one.

I too am doing this from home right now and do not plan to do a business plan until I am ready to open a retail bakery (hopefully in about 2 years). The current company I own provides business services to small businesses and non profits and in my opinion, unless you are going to try and get a loan a business plan is not necessary.

Don't get me wrong, you do need some kind of plan as to how you are going to market your product(s), who your primary market is going to be, and how you are going to reach that market.

You also need to be aware of your costs so you are sure you are charging enough to cover them and still make money.

A business plan goes into great detail about the cost of operation, your target market, sales expectations, expense/profit expectations, etc. and is really no more than an exercise in guessing to prove to a lender that you have done your homework.

The SBA has an outline of what goes into a business plan if you really want to embark on this project. Here is their link:

http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/writingplan.html

Thanks for your responses. I took a class on writing a business plan from SCORE. I feel the same way, I'm not looking for financing so it's not a priority for me right now. I hope to either have a shop or add onto our home in a few years to have a licensed kitchen but these things will come after I have established a clientele. Thanks again!