Business plan. What are my first steps?

[Brittany Goree]

My brother-in-law and I have been talking about starting up our real estate business for about a year now. He's been a sub contractor for years and is finally about to get his license and be in business for himself. He can basically build a house from the ground up. Awhile ago I proposed the idea to him of him fixing all the houses I invest in and I splitting the profits 50/50. The goal being us merging two businesses together and being equal partners. He's so knowledgeable on the repair side and I'm more interested on the real estate/business end so we thought partnering together could be a beautiful thing. I'm just not sure what the first step should be. I no we need to gain capital, but not sure where to start. Has anyone done anything similar to this and if so what advice can you give me on our first step. I'm such a passionate and ambitious person, and I never do things like this unless I'm dead serious about it. I'm willing to put the work, the time, and the commitment and once I take that first step I know I can start rolling.

[Joe Villeneuve]

Start with your plan.  Steps to take:

1 - Establish your set of financial goals.  Not short term...long term...with an actual number with a "$" in front.

2 - Work your way backwards (reverse engineer) from step #1 by breaking down Step #1 into smaller mini steps...I like to call them "achievable measurable milestones".

3 - Define the financial criteria, as in "how much profit" or  "cash flow" must you get at each of your Milestones.

4 - Go find the micro-markets where the property profiles align with each of the different criteria from Step #3...they will be different profiles since the criteria will be different.

5 - Decide on the best strategy, or strategies, that will achieve each Milestone.

6 - Run a practice/test using actual properties...as if you were doing it for real.

7 - Now...do it for real.