Joe Engle ⋅ Indianapolis, IN Electrical/Software Eng. + MBA ⋅ 30 years experience

Hello Henry. Many thanks for your service.
For starting a business, I strongly suggest you develop a business plan. It forces you to realistically look at your business and think through things like, revenue, expenses, competition, location, contacts needed, etc. It will take some time and effort, but it will also help you foresee issues sooner, and make plans sooner, rather than later! The more complete, and detailed, your business plan is…the better your chances of success and the fewer surprises. It is also needed if you need to get any business loans.
It will also be the blueprint and roadmap for your business the first few years. So you can use it as your ‘metric’ to compare the actual business against. For example, if the plan forecast $200,000 revenue the first year, and the actual revenue was considerably more or less, then you would want to look into why the difference. If the actual revenue was MORE, then ‘why?’, maybe some efforts were working extremely well, and those efforts need even more attention. Likewise, if revenue was less than the plan, then ‘why’. Maybe expenses were higher than expected….can they be reduced?

Here are some samples.

These guys have a good free example of a woodworking business plan ! ! Be sure to check it out at:
www.ogscapital.com/article/woodworking-business-plan-example/

Here is another good link for some thoughts on a woodworking business plan:
www.growthink.com/businessplan/help-center/woodworking-business-plan

These are free, and these guys will help you, for a fee. But you can do it all yourself. Entrepreneurs make them every day. There are also many more sites, but these will get you started!

Richard Byrne ⋅ Hillsborough, NJ Intel Corporation ⋅ 53 years experience

I've added links to information & videos under these sections of my EE webpage:

Veteran Owned Small Business:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#vosb

Funding:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#funding

Crowd-Funding:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#crowd

ie:
https://www.ycombinator.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_accelerator

Small Business Admin.:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#sba

Mentoring:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#mentoring

Also:

Score members (local retired professionals)
{Submit your zip code}
https://www.score.org/

https://www.bplans.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/bplans

Similar ventures:
https://montanawoodworks.com/montanawoodworksinfo.html
https://montanawoodworks.com/

https://grizzlytimberwoodworks.weebly.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@grizzlywoodworksus6481?app=desktop

https://www.facebook.com/freedomsedgewoodworking/

Veterans get 1 year FREE LinkedIn premium:
https://eehot.com/ee.html#networking

https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a518653/linkedin-for-veterans-free-premium-career-subscription-and-eligibility?lang=en

ACP AdvisorNet Staff ⋅ New York, NY ⋅ 10 years experience

Hi Henry,

Great question and best wishes in your woodworking business! If you haven't already, be sure to visit a small business development center near you, https://sbdc.mt.gov/Locations/Great-Falls and review http://articles.bplans.com/business-startup-checklist/ as well as https://www.gijobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/vob-resource-guide.pdf.

Best,