Starting and running a small business takes desire, passion, skills, knowledge and talent. It also takes research and planning. While many small or start-up businesses can recover from early mistakes, many cannot. Every small business makes initial mistakes, but no small business can survive fatal missteps. So, planning is important.

Explore and evaluate your business and personal goals. Using those goals, craft a comprehensive and thoughtful business plan that will help you reach these goals. The process of creating a plan forces you to think about important issues that you might not think about without planning.