What I learned about planning after university
It’s been about a year since I walked the stage with MacEwan University’s Bachelor of Commerce class of 2015.
Since then, I’ve worked in a couple environments where I’ve learned about flourishing established businesses, worked with teams to develop new business plans, watched existing companies struggle, listened in to contract negotiations, ran events, and even did in-depth research on a completely new industry, amongst other things. It’s been rewarding, challenging, exciting, and monotonous throughout various periods of time.
Now in my current role at Frontech, we’re almost ready for the launch of our new product. The Frontech business itself has been around for nearly 20 years, but I’m part of a team that’s been working on a new software product for the oil and gas service and supply industry: FitPLM Service Pro.
It’s been a hell of a lot of effort, a hell of a lot of thinking, and probably a hell of a lot of time spent on things that won’t materialize as well.
The team at Frontech has taken a gamble. We’ve put attention and resources into our new product, but there’s no guarantee of success. We can only hope the effort we’ve put in to having a solid product and a clear value proposition will work out.
We’ve tried to be as efficient as possible in getting ourselves ready to go to market ASAP, but it’s still taken months for the project to get off the ground for a variety of reasons: building the product, doing research, assembling a team, creating marketing materials.
We’re almost ready for take-off and it’s left me with one (of many) impressions: planning needs to be flexible because there’s a good chance you won’t be right. It’s certainly a change coming from the rigid, planning-focused curriculum you’re taught in university.
By no means is having an idea of where you’re going, who you’re serving, what your value proposition is, etc. a total waste. But, overkill on the planning can have serious limitations in the “real world”. Right now, we’re about to meet our maker and hopefully we’ve got what it takes.
No matter what financial planning (guessing), targets, charts, and graphs you make, the market will be the only decider whether any of it matters.
At the current time, there’s a few takeaways I’ve drawn from being in the planning phase:
1. Get to the core of what you’re offering. Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, has an awesome quick read on this here.
2. Spend time learning about who’s going to be buying. What actually matters to them? You may not need to be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and everything else — especially if you’re just starting up. What’s really necessary for you to get from point A (zero $$$) to B (having something). It’s your job to effectively reach the people you’re trying to sell to.
3. Don’t get caught up in all the potential twists, turns, and eventualities of what could be. Pick a direction and go with it. It’s a best guess scenario. Taper expectations because it’s unlikely things will go 100% the way you hoped they would, for better or worse.
FitPLM Service Pro is the latest product from Frontech Solutions. It’s a better way to manage work orders, improve client communication, and keep track of what’s going on in your oil & gas service or supply company.
