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New Business Start-Up Assessment

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New Business Start-Up Program worksheet with four instructions and a ten-area radial chart.

New Business Start-Up Assessment

A new business review is most useful when it turns a broad ambition into a set of questions you can answer with evidence. The New Business Start-Up Assessment is a worksheet for that conversation. Its printed instructions set out four steps: answer the questions, color the associated graph blocks, print the progress view, and repeat the review quarterly.

Read the worksheet as a sequence

Start with the questions rather than the shape of the chart. Write the date and the period being reviewed, answer each prompt in your own words, and mark only what you can support. Color the corresponding blocks after the answers are written. The page can then be printed or saved as a dated checkpoint so the next quarterly review can compare decisions and evidence.

Work through the ten areas

  • Right Opportunity? Examine the opportunity, obligations and resources that would make the next step workable.
  • Business Skills List the skills already available and the ones that need practice, training or a partner.
  • The Plan and Strategy State the direction, sequence and assumptions behind the plan.
  • Sales Tools and Effort Identify the tools, conversations and recurring effort the plan requires.
  • Policies and Procedures Note the decisions that need a repeatable process and a clear owner.
  • Profit Focused Connect the work to the costs, revenue questions and measures you will review.
  • Long-Term Success Describe what would make the operating model durable over time.
  • The Specific Outcomes Write observable outcomes for the period instead of a general intention.
  • Personal Life Include the personal capacity and commitments that shape the plan.
  • Key Distinctions Name the difference between an assumption, a fact and a choice still to be made.

The radial chart is a way to see which questions still need attention. It is not a result by itself. Keep the answers, date and supporting notes with the colored page, then choose one change to test before the next quarterly review.

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