Brett_Harward_MugShotPlain-01

Brett is pretty-much what every young entrepreneur dreams about becoming. He's built several companies and sold one of them for big bucks. He spends his days being invited to tell people what's not working in their businesses (and often what's not working in their lives.) He's a guru with a capital "G."

Brett's published a widely-acclaimed business/life book "The 5 Laws That Determine All of Life's Outcomes." Trust me. It's a spectacular read.

When he's not scuba diving, fly fishing or bow hunting, Brett speaks to groups of small businesspeople and consults with scads of businesses. Since he sees lots and lots of businesses -- both succeeding and tanking -- Brett has a pretty good eye for what it takes for a startup to hit $10,000 in profits. Let's see how he does.

Brett Harward 1st Prediction

First of Three Predictions about Island Adventure Fitness

I know Steve Gelakoski personally from visiting Lana'i, so I think I have a bit of an advantage on this one.

First, let me make some caveats. I'm making an assumption that his $10K must come from someone other that Jayson Orvis paying him for adventures. JO could make Steve's profit number in just one trip with his buddies. I'm also assuming that we're talking about a real $10K profit using GAAP (Generally Applied Accounting) principles.

I would bet that Steve would easily confuse profits with revenues, and while $10K in revenue is probably doable within months, I think it is highly unlikely that he will achieve $10K in profit after deducting marketing, web design, food, mortgage and payroll for guides or instructors.

If this profit package includes profits from Steve's own bed and breakfast than it is slightly more likely that he'll make the $10K in six months. If it's just the fitness challenge then I would bet against it.

I think he'll be lucky to cover his startup, administrative, marketing and overhead costs for the first months. I would predict 18 months before the fitness business would make $10K in profit as a stand alone business.

Bottom line: I predict that Steve will fail to reach $10K in profits by August 15th, 2010.

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Brett Harward 2nd Prediction

Second of Three Predictions about Island Adventure Fitness

I also predict that word-of-mouth marketing will not make a significant impact on revenues until 2011. I predict 80% of revenues the first year will come from Steve re-booking past clients and from an aggressive mailing and calling campaign (which he probably won't start until June.) I think that Steve's focus on the Internet is an attempt to not have to get his hands dirty. He'll have to pick up the phone and start calling people before he experiences success.

I don't think there are enough people looking for what he's offering, so he has an education curve to get around that will make online work somewhat ineffective.

He probably won't even have his message figured out until late summer. I think his inability to explain his business, it's benefits, and his strategy puts him in serious jeopardy of zero revenue for the first two months. (Considering the caveats I mentioned previously.)

Bottom line: I predict that Steve will fail to achieve more than $3,000 in REVENUE before April 15th.

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Brett Harward 3rd Prediction

Third of Three Predictions about Island Adventure Fitness

I'm going to predict that before he's finished he's dropped the fitness section of his plan. His focus will move from fitness to pure adventure.

I'll bet he ends up doing much more water adventure, since he's in Hawaii and has so much competition for the standard hiking adventures and land activities (with less expense.)

I think he'll end up landing on extreme packages where people experience a barrage of intense, different activities over a compressed time. He'll attract people with attention deficeit disorder (ADD.)

Bottom line: I predict Steve will see his first REVENUE in May (excluding his B&B revenue as I mentioned previously.)

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Brett Harward 1st Prediction

Brett Harward 2nd Prediction

Brett Harward 3rd Prediction

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