The problem with business plans, in the most traditional sense of the term, is that they are static; A window into, or snapshot of, your business at a very specific moment in time. You write one, or many - everyone seems to have their own required standard template - and then they just sit there and stagnate.
As a start-up, your business is changing exponentially every day. New obstacles and data have a way of making themselves known constantly and your strategy needs to shift to keep up. Unless you are updating your business plan constantly - and I do mean constantly- your business plan is never going to reflect the up-to-date state of the market or your business. Who really has time for that? If you have the resources for this great! As a start-up we certainly don't.
Writing a business plan can be very time consuming. Some of these monsters can get upwards of 100 pages. A tedious, repetitive document (and from the ones I've read often badly written). I find myself wondering if anyone (other than me) actually reads these in their entirety. If you are a VC or accelerator reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Unfortunately, many start-ups seem to be using the argument against the business plan as a way of avoiding the labour intensive stage of getting to know the market inside and out. This is not at all the argument that I am making. I think that proper market research is an imperative step for any company, start-up or not. Without doing a SWOT analysis, how can you properly position yourself to compete with incumbents and create barriers to entry for newcomers? How will you be able to recognize market events that are negative or positive game changers for your industry. What about TAM? Many entrepreneurs shy away from talking money especially in a social innovation start-up like ours where the passion to change the world is thought to be enough. Without revenues down the road, and knowing the size of your market, how will you pay your employees and be able to enact any change at all?
A more dynamic way of doing things is necessary. I am definitely in favour of weekly progress meetings. Everyone sits around and summarizes some of the changes or new expressions of interest that they have seen in their area, what that means for the company and we brainstorm, if needed, some of the things we need to do to keep on top of things. Is any of this reflected in our business plan? No.
Do we have a business plan? Absolutely. We wrote our first business plan when applying for a grant. The particular organization that we were 'writing' our plan for had a standard template. In truth, it drove me crazy. As a veteran of the sell-side, I am no slouch when it comes to writing readable, business documents. I'm also highly adverse to repeating any piece of information and well aware that it is the rare individual who reads beyond the first page of any report. Once all was said and done, our "business plan" took weeks to get into the right format and was a painful, Quasimodo-like document. I would be reticent to share this document with anyone that I didn't wish painful torture upon.
Am I anti-business plan? Not at all. I'm sure I'll be asked to write many more business plans in the future (hopefully in a more efficient template or one of my own choosing).
In my opinion, a well written two page executive summary, demonstrating that you know your market and are willing to talk about relevant areas in greater detail would be a far more effective endeavor.
What do you think about business plans? Good, bad, indifferent?
As a start-up, your business is changing exponentially every day. New obstacles and data have a way of making themselves known constantly and your strategy needs to shift to keep up. Unless you are updating your business plan constantly - and I do mean constantly- your business plan is never going to reflect the up-to-date state of the market or your business. Who really has time for that? If you have the resources for this great! As a start-up we certainly don't.
Writing a business plan can be very time consuming. Some of these monsters can get upwards of 100 pages. A tedious, repetitive document (and from the ones I've read often badly written). I find myself wondering if anyone (other than me) actually reads these in their entirety. If you are a VC or accelerator reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.Unfortunately, many start-ups seem to be using the argument against the business plan as a way of avoiding the labour intensive stage of getting to know the market inside and out. This is not at all the argument that I am making. I think that proper market research is an imperative step for any company, start-up or not. Without doing a SWOT analysis, how can you properly position yourself to compete with incumbents and create barriers to entry for newcomers? How will you be able to recognize market events that are negative or positive game changers for your industry. What about TAM? Many entrepreneurs shy away from talking money especially in a social innovation start-up like ours where the passion to change the world is thought to be enough. Without revenues down the road, and knowing the size of your market, how will you pay your employees and be able to enact any change at all?
A more dynamic way of doing things is necessary. I am definitely in favour of weekly progress meetings. Everyone sits around and summarizes some of the changes or new expressions of interest that they have seen in their area, what that means for the company and we brainstorm, if needed, some of the things we need to do to keep on top of things. Is any of this reflected in our business plan? No.
Do we have a business plan? Absolutely. We wrote our first business plan when applying for a grant. The particular organization that we were 'writing' our plan for had a standard template. In truth, it drove me crazy. As a veteran of the sell-side, I am no slouch when it comes to writing readable, business documents. I'm also highly adverse to repeating any piece of information and well aware that it is the rare individual who reads beyond the first page of any report. Once all was said and done, our "business plan" took weeks to get into the right format and was a painful, Quasimodo-like document. I would be reticent to share this document with anyone that I didn't wish painful torture upon.
Am I anti-business plan? Not at all. I'm sure I'll be asked to write many more business plans in the future (hopefully in a more efficient template or one of my own choosing).
In my opinion, a well written two page executive summary, demonstrating that you know your market and are willing to talk about relevant areas in greater detail would be a far more effective endeavor.
What do you think about business plans? Good, bad, indifferent?
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