This past Saturday I was talking about business planning to a group of Oregon food business entrepreneurs when one of them asked:

But what if you do the business plan so well that it shatters your dream? What if you need more money than you can get? What if it just isn’t going to work?

First, rethink the plan. If it’s a good plan but takes more resources than you can muster, see if there’s a smaller piece of it you can do. Consider how you might team up to get more resources. Maybe you can’t do the full restaurant downtown, but you could get part of the way with a less-capital-intensive catering business. Look sideways to related areas. Maybe you can’t create an electric car all by yourself, but you can become a dealer.

And then, if it really isn’t going to work, if you can’t revise the plan smaller, or team up, drop it and be glad you did. The heartache of giving up the dream is nothing compared to the heartache of losing your job, your house, or your lifelong relationship over it. Thank God you figured that out in time.

Better a shattered dream than a lived nightmare.

(Image: AiMvBaEnR/Shutterstock)