Sample Business Plan ?

[tenkan]

Ciao !

Just wondering if there's any goodman that could post (or send me) a sample business plan for a coral-farm business

I'm sure that most of the coral farmers did one before starting.

I'm in the process to build my own and would be gr8 to have a sample one as a start.

Obviously I don't need your real numbers, but just the excel template with formulas.

I will then reply with my BizPlan as soon as it's complete.
I'll try to do it as modular as I can, especially for the cost of materials that is very flexible by geography. For example, I live in Italy where glass is cheaper than acrylic, electrical power is 5 times more expensive than in the US and water is almost free.

Thanks a lot for your help
Roberto

 

[RicksReefs]

while not what you were looking for, you may find a lot
of other answers here. good luck

http://www.sba.gov/library/pubs.html#fm-10

 

[tenkan]

Thanks, it's a good source.
I'm now starting on the setup cost for the greenhouse.
From space rental, to cost of material (tanks and so on) and then to running cost per month. that means basically the raw cost for running the system, without counting the animals.

 

[raaden]

Tenkan,

Are you still looking, I have one I would be willing to send to you. It is mostly finished although some of my latest changes have not been put in as updates.

Raa

 

[vest0830]

could you send one to me? my email is in my profile.

 

[Ken668]

Raa, I too would be interested in checking it out.

Thanks!

 

[tenkan]

yes please !
send it to me

you can do it via email to

roberto AT mukiu.it

I will resendit back to you with my changes

thanks a lot
Roberto

 

[Stoney Mahony]

Check out GARF.ORG

 

[raaden]

tenkan,

That is a great place to start, the financials will usually be the make or break, especially the running costs. If you do the right research you will find things that you never even considered jumping out at you. As an example I have found that the best I can hope for is to break even from Nov-Mar, and then to make money throughout the rest of the months. Recently it is starting to look as though I will need some cooling at the height of summer so there goes another couple of months...

If you need any help or have questions I am more than happy to do what I can... hopefully I can learn something as well.

All,

Based on the number of responses both in the thread and PM there is far more interest in the plan than I thought, which makes me hesitant to send it out in the state that it is. I have some changes that I am working on now and want to finish these up before I post anything for a wide audience.

When it is done it will get a thread in the Coral Prop and AC forum and I will post a link here.

For now like Stoney said Garf is a good place to look around, and there are quite a few good resources if you look for some coastal island nations who have done studies on captive propagation.

 

[Stoney Mahony]

Good luck(and advise) Raaden! Ive been working on one as well for a while and like you said, things just keep jumping out. And the initial start up cost with all the backups you need is usually pretty outrageous. If I ever finish this thing, ill toss it up too. I wish everyone trying to get into this buisness good luck! It's a big undertaking but if you know what your getting yourself into, it won't be so bad.

 

[jake levi]

One thing that needs to be added to the one on garf, and most others is lists comparing costs on main items from several suppliers, three is often asked.

Also a breakdown of ongoing regular expenses and periodic expenses.

My suggestions lately have been to plan out an operation that will fill a 2 car garage, and then grow it from there. For coral props I'd also lean towards softs at first just for lower and therefore cheaper lighting needs.

 

[RedSonja]

Just a word of advice, once you start working on your business plan, save it several times in several different places. I was about 12 pages into mine and when I tried to open it to do some more work, it was "file not found." I had saved it multiple times on my laptop hard drive but each one got the same result.

Back to drawing board, at least I still have my notes so I can recreate it a bit faster than from scratch. This time I'm saving it on two computers and a network drive, and maybe emailing it to myself so I can access it away from home.

-Sonja

 

[Nammy]

raaden
PM sent

 

[raaden]

I second what Sonja said... I lost mine more than once along the way. Luckily I also was using paper notes as well. The best thing I have found is to get a gmail or hotmail account and at the end of a writing session save it to your hard drive then send it to yourself with a little description of what you did during that session. I really liked the archive copies and descriptions for when I got started again.

 

[raaden]

Just posted the plan

Just posted the plan

For all of those that sent me pms and those that are waiting, I just posted the business plan at the farm site and created a thread to put comments on it here So I hope to hear back both good and bad on what you all think.

Raa