After millions of pounds/dollars have been spent in development of an exciting new venture, a couple of years down line company has realised that gold mine they thought they were sitting on wasn't really a gold mine... it was a flop. Millions wasted.

They had hundreds of employees... millions in bank, plus enough venture capital to enable them to last a lifetime. But even with all of this support and monetary backing, they go bust and wind up in financial ruins.

So what went wrong? Is Internet to blame?

Not likely. The good news is there's a flip side to that coin. Individuals who are starting with less than a couple of hundred bucks are grossing PERSONAL incomes of $50,000 per month or MORE. How can this be possible?

It's all about using money wisely. The smart individuals learn required development skills themselves and save HUGELY on third-party working costs. Here's how...

The big businesses feel need to spend lots of money on every area of business, just to feel more secure. Example costs of a typical "big Internet startup" might be:

Office space: $200,000 Website development: $50,000 Employee wages: $500,000 Business/Legal expenses: $10,000 Marketing expenses: $500,000 Product related costs: $100,000

In first year it's likely that they'd have spent $1.5M or more. Each product they sell might produce a 200% mark-up at best. Now compare that to an entrepreneur running an automated web service that he sells for $20 per month:

Office space: NO cost (they work from home) Website development: $35 p/m for web hosting Employee wages: NO cost. It's fully automated. Business/Legal Expenses: Maybe $500 a year Marketing Expenses: $200 a month Product related costs: NONE

After a year, a little over $1000 is spent whilst product brings in a mark-up of over 10,000% or more.

I've always been a highly schedule-oriented individual. I need to have an organized list of tasks that direct me toward an ultimate goal. With that, I knew that if I was ever going to leave my full-time job, I had to sit down and map out my direction. Of course, I had no idea which direction I was going, so I had to figure that out as well.

This article provides an overview of steps I took in developing my plan of attack. I had to determine what I wanted, where I wanted to go, and how I had to get there.

* Prepare Your Plan The plan is most important part of starting out on your new endeavor. It is essential to map out your direction so to know how to get to where you want to go. The also plan helps you know when you get there. It can be used for motivation, direction, ideas, and helping to keep you on track when your brain starts down a tangent.

The plan itself is based on three important items:

* Mission, * Vision, and * your Goals.

The Mission is a short statement about your overall direction---what you plan to do. The Vision identifies where you might see yourself in five years---your long term objective and direction. The Goals identify short-term objectives---the stepping stones to achieve your Mission and reach your Vision.