Backcasting my Business
Are you familiar with the concept of backcasting? I first learned about it during my captivating journey through Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets—which, if I haven’t yet mentioned the genius of that book in a previous blog post, it will likely show up in others to come. Backcasting, according to my paraphrase, is the process of defining some positive future goal or outcome and working backward to analyze the steps necessary to reach it. If this term is new to you, you’ll likely recognize its opposing technique known as forecasting. Forecasting is defined as predicting or estimating a future event or trend, and “works best when you are on a trajectory and you want to stay on it” (Maples). Backcasting, then, allows us instead to imagine various future outcomes and define how we can get there.
For this blog post, I wanted to turn this knowledge into an exercise for my own business and share it with you. Backcasting will look different for everyone, but I think understanding how it works and creating accountability, even just to myself, can be transformative for where I imagine Exquis will go. So, here are the simplified steps in backcasting and how I intend to apply them to grow my business over time.
Define Success and Envision Your Desired Future.
To reach a state of financial independence that rewards me with the freedom to choose how to spend my day without the overwhelming fear of monetary repercussions is my definition of success. Importantly, I don’t wish to not work at all, since professional organizing is what I love to do. However, the freedom to choose to be present with family and friends, to travel, or just to paint for a few days is invaluable to me.
Create Awareness for What is Required to Get There.
Any finance guru will tell you that financial independence is achievable by investing, saving, creating passive income streams, reducing spending and debt, and increasing overall wealth. Simplified, these sound great and surmountable. In practice, however, all of these take time and incredible amounts of focus and discipline. They also require a certain level of understanding that can be attained through education. As a result, part of my daily “to-dos” involves reading or listening to podcasts and asking questions to learn not only about personal finances but also about sales, economics, entrepreneurship, and much more. Obviously, finding clients to work with is a central task in growing my business, so advertising, door-knocking, social media, and networking are high on my list. Pricing a variety of projects and writing different contracts for each client is also very important. Eventually, the goal is to grow Exquis to the point where hiring a team will become necessary, which will require turning my business into an LLC and studying the countless implications of becoming an employer. Researching the software to help schedule projects and assign team members to each and finding a CPA to manage the business’ bookkeeping. Will I need an office space? What about storage space to keep an inventory of organizing accessories? These and so many more are the steps that will bring me to that state of financial independence defined in step one.
Decide Which of the Above are Priorities.
My current priorities are finding new clients, saving, investing, and learning. Each of these requires its individual steps and priorities.
Analyze Your Current State.
Exquis is in its very early stages which means so much still has to be accomplished before I can reach my desired future. But, in the same vein, Exquis has progressed immensely since the idea was first born.
I wanted to invite you into my journey with Exquis and share this process with you to help myself in backcasting for my business, and, hopefully, help you to do the same with your own entrepreneurial goals. Thank you for your support in helping me get to where I am today, I’m so grateful to share in this growth and learning with you.
Becque, Renilde. “Backcasting: A Roadmap to Transformational Change.” Sustainable Brands, 16 Jan. 2015, https://sustainablebrands.com/read/new-metrics/backcasting-a-roadmap-to-transformational-change.
Duke, Annie. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. Portfolio/Penguin, 2019.
Maples, Mike. “How to Build a Breakthrough.” Medium, Medium, 29 Apr. 2020, https://medium.com/@m2jr/how-to-build-a-breakthrough-3071b6415b06.
