“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Note: tools are described in Tools and Techniques

Planning

Planning helps to

1. Set the right goals and expectations
2. Reduce Uncertainty
3. Eliminate wasteful and unnecessary activities
4. Promote the efficient use of resources
5. Encourage innovation and improves
6. Ensure for good decision making

Business Plan

There are many templates, videos and instructions on the internet on how draw up a business plan. The level of complexity and detail will depend on what is to be achieved e.g. applying to the bank for a loan will require more detail than a plan purely to work out what to do first.

Either way the following should be seen as a minimum:

• Mission/Vision - the reason for doing this and what is to be achieved, both short term (1 year) and long term (5+ years)
• Goals
  • Financial: revenue, profitability, time frame to break even
  • Personal: "I want to be self-sustaining/feed the local community/......."
  • Others: improve soil fertility, plant more trees,.....
• Parameters
  • Amount of investment capital: savings, loans, etc.
  • Cash flow of income vs expenditure for the first few years
  • Crops that will grow in your soil type and latitude, and their market value

Marketing Plan and strategy.

Probably one of the most neglected, but vitally important, aspects of starting a new business is the approach to marketing. Growing the vegetables is usually the easy bit, selling them usually requires a skill set that many growers struggle with.

What strategy is best suited to reaching the target market, and how will success be measured? What is to be the main sales channel(s)? Is it farmers markets, farm-gate sales, website sales, local stores, or a combination, or something else? These days a strong social media presence is important. What approach will be adopted?

Company name

A clear powerful name helps create a powerful brand that connects with customers. The right name can significantly affect success. The wrong name can not only fail to connect with customers it can result in insurmountable legal and business hurdles.

A good name is:

• simple to spell, catchy and memorable. This makes it easier to brand. Try and avoid a name that restricts you to a person or a place.
• available: not a registered company register - check the company register, not a trade name, and the high level domain name is available. A common mistake which must be avoided is to register as an internet provider (.net), or charity (.org). Try a startup company name generator such as NameMesh
• one where social media accounts are available. Even though you may not use them all straight away they are at least yours.
  • Google account to give gmail, google docs, and youtube
  • Facebook account to give a Facebook page and Instagram
  • Twitter, Pinterest
  • and any others particular to the region

If the name is in use then to avoid possible legal issues a different name must be used.

Stick with this name from now on - decide on the logo and print business cards to give away at every opportunity. Often the company where the domain name is registered will offer an email service for very little extra. It is worth having a company email from the get-go as every email serves to increase brand awareness.

Be aware marketing can take up a huge amount of time and this can clash with the time needed to build the infrastructure and plant the crops.

Farm or Operational Plan

Now the job is to convert the business plan and the marketing plan into concrete actions. There has to be a balance between building infrastructure and sowing crops.

In our case we had a simple JIT (just in time) plan which got us growing: 1. buy the seed and sow in trays - these were germinated in a cloche on the ground until we built the greenhouse 2. build and prepare the beds 4. water seedlings with watering can 3. transplant seedlings and water with hose 4. harvest 5. farmers market to build awareness and collect email addresses 6. send weekly email of produce available

Overall Design - based upon observation

• Determine crops and amounts to be grown taking into account climate, soil type, wind exposure, rainfall
• Design layout to maximise efficiency
• Design the infrastructure required now and outline what is needed for the future
• Determine sales strategy
• Identify regulations and licenses that need to be obtained

Detailed design - to get growing

• Plan the bed size(s) and orientation, see bed preparation and maintenance for details
• Select crops and plan plantings, see crop planning
• Outline processes for growing, harvesting and bed maintenance
• Apply for regulations and licenses
• List tools required
• Agree policy for maintaining a healthy work-life balance
• Create short, medium, and long term implementation plans
• Probably best to agree now on an approach to weeding and how to best reduce weed pressure over time

Implementation - getting growing

• Purchase seed
• Build the minimum of infrastructure required to support initial growing
• Prepare beds
• Keep daily diary of what has taken place - sowing, transplanting, weeds, fertiliser applied, observations, issues.......EVERYTHING