Who is the biggest enemy you want to beat?

When building a business plan for your venture, finding the right enemies is typically not the most top of mind starting point. One might get advised to look for the most opportunity, the greenest field or somewhere you already have expertise. Patrick Bet-David, a successful serial entrepreneurs, takes a different view and asks you to consider defining your enemies as the very first thing. Why is this?

1. Enemies could become your great source of fuel to drive you forward, especially in the early lonely days in way an ally never can
2. As you defeat an enemy, you can choose to graduate to a bigger enemy to keep the excitement and commitment going

Beyond finding the right enemies to focus your passion and energy, the author dived down into unifying the emotional and logical aspects to craft an actionable business plan. Key emphasis is placed on making sure you marry both the emotional (passion, drive, fueled by enemies, the why) and logical (system, process that’s clear and well-organized, the how) to achieve the most success. The key components to a successful business plans he highlighted are (Left for emotion, right for logic.)

1. Enemy & Competition: Know who you want to beat to fire you up and know how to systematically choose enemies/competitors that will drive you, not diminish you.
2. Will & Skill: Know why you want to succeed and the skills needed to achieve this type of success.
3. Mission & Plan: Select the right problem/cause/crusade that inspires you (i.e. what you love, hate or are bothered by) and have a plan (SWOT analysis, scenarios) to achieve them.
4. Dreams & Systems: Find what you want for yourself/your family and have proper systems to gather data, build strategy and get there.
5. Culture & Team: Define the way of working that your team will want to run through walls for and recruit key people to form your team.
6. Vision & Capital: Define the core of your vision and non-negotiatables and how to articulate them to convince your audience.

There are of course multiple ways of doing a business plan but this book gives a nice framework on how to marry both the emotional and logical side so you’re both driven by the plan and have a realistic way to get there. What is your favourite business plan advice?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125094495-choose-your-enemies-wisely