I have a business plan and I am getting ready to send in my application for my 07 to ATF

I wanted to look at a few successful Business plans of those who have been approved

I would appreciate your help

please email it to my email [email protected] or pdf attached it

Thanks to all of you for your support and help

ITAR FEE is a KILLER

Do you mean to suggest the business plan needs to be approved? Approved by who? Your lender? Your wife? Yourself? I don't believe the ATF cares about your business plan.

I'm a huge believer in writing a real business plan, but primarily as a thinking exercise for yourself. It forces you to work through all the "what-ifs" and really sort through whether you're onto something that could actually succeed or are just jerking off.

https://www.sba.gov/writing-business-plan

Instead of asking to see other people's business plans, how about you post a section of yours for hive review. Maybe you could share the part where you discuss your competition and how you intend to differentiate your business from all the others vying for your potential customers' money.



As a Type 02 FFL, I don't deal with ITAR, but I can tell you that a good business plan would spell out exactly how the proposed business would address this expense. It would view it as just another cost of doing business and have conservative/realistic numbers that showed that it wasa  manageable expense, supported by sales volume.

A proper business plan represents a steely-eyed analysis of business prospects. It does not express fear or trepidation about an essential element of the business. You might as well say rent is a killer, insurance is a killer, labor is a killer, etc . . . The numbers are either there are they aren't. The point of the business plan is to sort that out.


Bottom line: the act of writing a real business plan is a dream killer for most people. That's a good thing. They're a pain in the ass to do but wouldn't you rather discover you've got unrealistic expectations through a paper exercise than realizing this fact after you've pissed away your life savings?

I read in your other thread that you want to assemble ARs and AKs. Sorry, brother, but every neckbeard with a pin punch can do that. It's going to take a hell of lot more than knowledge of guns to make it in business. It's none of my business but I strongly suggest you take the business plan phase of growing a business very seriously. It will save you lots of heartache and help head off financial ruin, divorce, loss of friends, reputation, etc.

Read the above again.   The firearm business is extremely difficult to make a decent living doing.

Just to start asking a few questions.

1.  What do you anticipate your monthly business expenses to be.  

2   What is your family monthly expenses?

3   how many guns will you have to sell at $40 margin to cover those expenses?

4.  How many $20 transfers will you have to do a month?   The guys that do transfer almost never buy anything else

5.  Are you selling other accessories?  Great, but you will have to sell at or below cost to match internet pricing.

I am closing my shop next month after 4.5 years.   If I did not also do pawns, I would have been out of business 4 years ago.   there is another gunshop in town that sells new guns for 12% over cost.  He sells 300- 400 guns a month.  If you have one of these guys in town you will never compete on price.

Most guns guys are cheap and will not pay more for "great service"  They all claim they will, but never come through.  They finger fuck your guns and then order from Bud's.


My recommendation is forget about opening a gunshop.   Unless you can do it out of your garage with no overhead and mostly plan to do transfers.

I don't think the OP is talking about opening a gunshop. He posted this in his ITAR thread:

There will likely be less margin in those, fewer local customers, unless in bigger population center.  

Takes a lot of sales and guns on the market to establish a reputation that will bring a price above budget prices.

It is hard to compete with PSA on price point and quality.

Yep. With all due respect to the OP, I suspect he has not thought this through sufficiently.

BTW, a once talked to a guy at the range who had a sure fire business idea: He was going to buy AR-15 parts in bulk and sell lower parts kits cheaper than anyone else. I asked him how he was going to market his kits. He explained that he could get a GoDaddy web page cheap. He was a bit taken back when I told him what I spend each month on Google Adwords (to market my shop in a very limited area). He had no idea businesses paid for web exposure.

I am familiar with all the above, I am not just some red neck that knows to push a few pins and assemble something.  I have been in charge of a firearms training unit for a PD for the past 12 years teaching tactics, fixing guns buying guns dealing with local reps such as surefire, glock and etc.  

I also have my own training company but I wanted to do more and sell quality firearms vs your average DPMS, RR or bushmaster.

What exactly do I need to start this ?
1. Business plan
2. location
3. budget
4. rules and regulations
5. policies
6. licenses with ATF city and state
7. Insurance
8. lawyers
9. ?



what else do I need