wisdom snacks

snacking on personal finance to build wise wealth

The Wisdom Snacks Business Plan

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Business plans are awesome. 

Especially the early plans of companies that crushed it. They prove that even the biggest companies in the biggest markets all started with a simple plan. 

Wonder what inspired Reid Hoffman to go all in on LinkedIn? Find out on his Series B pitch deck.

Think it takes spectacular slides to build a billion dollar company? Not at first at least. Check out Uber’s original slides or Airbnb’s. They’re nothing fancy. 

Writing business plans is a skill we should all sharpen. When you write down your plans, ideas are crystalized and created. Creativity flows and you learn how to communicate your ideas  effectively. 

Plans draw a roadmap for success and benchmark to measure progress. They’ll probably be wrong and will change frequently, but they offer a good starting point to launch. 

Even if you’re not starting a company, you should have a plan for yourself. Life is like a business where the most successful ones planned ahead. You have goals to achieve for your finances, your health, your relationships. So put pen to paper and make a plan to maximize the value of You, Inc. 

They don’t have to be complicated, just use the Sequoia Capital template to start.

To get the ball rolling, here’s the Wisdom Snacks Business Plan…

Company Purpose

Wisdom Snacks exists to create personal finance content that engages readers, builds  community, and helps us make smarter decisions that accelerate the path to financial freedom.  

Our passions are personal finance and personal growth. We love exploring curiosity and learning new things that can improve our wealth, health, and happiness. Knowledge compounds like interest and leads to a better life.

The mission is to help readers achieve financial freedom through wisdom and wealth. 

Financial freedom means that you don’t worry about money anymore.

While you’re not quite Bezos, you sleep easy, order whatever you want at restaurants, and can weather the unexpected.

 In dollar terms, financial freedom is 25X how much you spend per year. If you burn $100K annually, having $2.5MM in safe liquid investments is your goal. 

Problem

Personal finance is really important. 

Yet most of us feel unprepared to manage our finances and are unsure where to turn. 

Somehow, personal finance is not required learning in high school or college despite it’s impact on our daily lives. 

Young professionals in particular face unique challenges. We’re saddled with historic levels of student debt ($1.4T), we’ve witnessed several major crises and recessions by young adulthood (9/11, GFC, COVID-19), and we’re operating in a rapidly changing workforce that makes our skills and jobs less secure for the long-term. 

We’re looking for resources we can trust to help us learn about personal finance and what we should do with our money. 

Solution

Getting smarter about personal finance will lead to better financial decisions. With wisdom comes wealth.

The goal is to build a daily learning habit. Commit to reading, writing, and learning about personal finance topics every day. 

Wisdom Snacks is a site readers can visit to get smarter about personal finance. Through the comment section, we will build a community that can help each other accelerate achievement of wisdom, wealth, and happiness.    

Market Potential

The global wealth management industry has $75 trillion in assets under management. This massive number reflects the fact that personal finance affects everyone.  

While 55% of Americans own stocks, Millennials seem to be more risk adverse and hold more cash and less in stocks than older cohorts. 

There are 72.1 million Millennials in the US and about 44 million of them are employed full time. Millennials are now the largest segment of the US workforce and, as of January 2020, they are expected to spend about $1.4 trillion this year. 

While personal finance affects everyone, there are sites that target different audiences. The Penny Hoarder for example targets the large percentage of American’s that don’t own stocks. On the other hand, The Financial Samurai targets those that do own stocks. 

Wisdom Snacks will write for a niche of Millennials who are curious about personal finance and anxious to learn more.   

But hopefully all will find value in the writing.

Business Model

Non-Monetary Value: The main benefits for blogging are non-monetary. By creating value and trying to help others, I’ll learn, get smarter myself, and will also have a tool to interact with other creators online. It’s been said that your network is your net worth.

Monetary Value: Below are a few models that can be used for monetization.

  1. Affiliate Links (Start with book recommendations, aim to cover site expenses)
  2. Advertising (Google Adsense, Direct/Sponsored Ads)
  3. Subscription model (e.g. Stratechery)
  4. Creating and selling digital products (e.g. Ramit Sethi)

In the short term (years 1-3), the goal is to build up portfolio of content and drive readership. Expenses are minimal (Bluehost and WordPress hosting charges) so experiment with affiliate links for recommended books to see if this will cover expenses. 

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be daily page views, monthly page views, and # of recurring readers. The KPIs should be built around having regular readers who started a habit of learning about personal finance daily. Reassess KPIs after 3 months of focused writing/posting. 

Distribution

Focus on channels where I can add value and answer questions for my target audience. Experiment with these three channels to see which drives the most engagement. Give away value and put in the work to build trust and traffic. Remember, with marketing, you can either outspend or you can out-teach. 

  1. Twitter – @wisdomsnacks
  2. Quora
  3. Reddit 

Voice and Differentiation

Wisdom Snacks is driven by curiosity and by a love a learning new things. A wide range of interests, knowledge, and experience can make learning about personal finance engaging. 

Storytelling and clear writing are tools. The best way to teach important concepts is through stories and I want to become the best writer and storyteller I can be to help myself and others achieve financial freedom. As has been said, the best way to learn something new is through something you already know.

Trust is an important factor in personal finance so I’ll take a leap and not write anonymously. I’ll hold off on advertising and will reassess long term. 

Vision

Make something 100 people love. Start with 1 and expand. 

Ultimately, help 1,000,000 readers consistently make better financial decisions and help 1,000 achieve financial freedom (25X annual expenses in liquid investments). 

Biggest Fear

Doing this publicly and failing. 

But just burn the boats, the worst case scenario isn’t that bad. 

Posts to Expect on Wisdom Snacks 

  • Personal Finance Categories
    • Saving Money
    • Investing 
      • Stocks, bonds, real estate
    • Make More Money
      • Income, career, side hustles, entrepreneurship
    • Money Mindset
      • Mental models, mindset, good ideas
  • Book Reviews
    • Books of all categories 
    • Sapiens, Machine Platform Crowd, The Intelligent Investor
  • Podcast Notes
    • Podcasts of all categories
    • The Tim Ferriss Show, Pivot, My First Million
  • Business and Finance Concepts
    • A CEO You Should Know
      • Profiles on CEOs like Brian Chesky, JB Straubel, Whitney Wolfe Herd.
    • Business Plans and Market Deep Dives
      • Sets and reps in analyzing markets and businesses to get better at idea generation, business plans, and building new value
      • Unbundling college, prescription non-adherence, wealth management.
    • Startups and Technology
    • Strategy Sessions (like Fred Wilson’s former MBA Mondays) 
      • Exploring ideas like the Innovators Dilemma, Porters 5 Forces, Lean Startup, etc. 
  • Newsletter
    • The Starting Line Up on Sunday Nights
    • Podcasts, articles, and things to learn for the upcoming week.

Great Sites to Cite for Inspiration

Thanks for reading!

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