Courses / Plan for Growth

Course Content

Year in Review: Qualitative Analysis
Reflect: What Actually Happened? Customer Feedback
Year in Review: Quantitative Analysis
Do the Math Revenue Cost of Goods Sold Margin
Set Goals For the Coming Year
Increase Quantity Increase Quality
Scaling & Diversifying
How to Scale? Make a Production Plan
Resources & Tools
Processing + Markets Forum
Kelp Seed Sourcing: US Hatchery Directory (2022)
Download file
Ocean Farm Sales Analysis Template
Download file
Lesson 1 Year in Review: Qualitative Analysis

Back to: Plan for Growth

Reflect: What Actually Happened?

The first step to making a plan for the coming year is getting a clear picture of what happened the previous year, and how that compares with what you set out to do. We’ll get to crunching the numbers during a quantitative analysis in the next lesson, but for now, we’re looking for qualitative reflection. 

Plan on spending at least a few hours on this. We strongly recommend writing down your thoughts and findings so that you can refer back to them in later seasons. Digital tools like Google Documents can come in especially handy because of the ability to organize files into folders (e.g., “End-of-Season Reflections”) and search for file names and keywords.

First, think about the events of the past several months. 

Ask Yourself

  • What went well this season? Think about farm design, people, processes, and equipment that were within your control. 

  • What didn’t go well?

  • What things happened that were outside of your knowledge or control, but that you could develop contingency plans for in the future?

  • What lessons did you learn this year that you want to carry through to next year? Make sure to include both “things to continue” and “things to do differently”.

If you had a written plan headed into the last season, pull that up and give it a read. 

Ask Yourself

  • How closely did what actually happened the past season align with your plan?

  • Which parts of your plan were realistic and helpful to have in advance? Which were unrealistic or unhelpful?

  • Were there any parts of your plan that you scrapped completely? Which and why?

  • Were there any things you ended up doing that you hadn’t planned for? What and why?

  • How often did you refer back to your plan throughout the season? Are there ways you could make your plan more practically useful this coming year?