Pebblestorm

One thing I know about myself: I like circles I draw them in my notebooks constantly, to frame or communicate different ideas. Maybe it’s related to Buddhism (“everything is interconnected”), or the circle of life, or…

As I mentioned before, I personally can’t do classic business plans, so I often find myself coming up with new templates or designs to make a business plan that I can use.

It ain’t pretty (yet)

…but I have a sketch for a “Visual Business Plan” that is actually circular, not linear:

Each pie piece is a major foundation of the business. For example, I mapped out on here four core PebbleStorm foundations: writing, community, business mashups and “practice” (the experiences, learning and results that come from actually living the system.)

One of the biggest differences in this plan, compared to a classic plan, is that there is no specific time line. I will add some rough time estimates in as rings (like tree rings). There is, more importantly, a logical progression of small projects and goals that lead to larger ones, like stepping stones.

The inspiration came to me during the first PebbleStorm dinner, when Alisa Chompupong suggested using a water drop pattern to map out a vision board, with yourself in the center and ever-expanding goals propagating outwards. Here’s one of the pictures she found:

I’m excited to play and explore with this idea and format!

UPDATE: Seen the new version of the visual business plan?

A Visual Business Plan v2.0 (Updated w/Video)

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