Biz Tip: To Business plan, Or Not To Business Plan?
You have an idea for a business. What’s the next thing you should do? Write a business plan?
According to Kevin Ryan, ex-CEO of DoubleClick and founder of six start-ups, the answer is a resounding “no.” Kevin’s advice is that writing a business plan – while helpful – won’t be as useful as putting together some seed money and starting the business. Kevin also advises not to work with an investor if he is going over the details of your financial model too closely: it’s a sign that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Watch the man say it himself below!
I agree with Kevin for the most part! Sometimes, however, it’s useful to put together a plan of action, rather than a full-fledged business plan. Doing so will make the entrepreneur think of certain details that s/he has not yet thought of, and allow for making decisions in a proactive, rather than in a reactive matter.
Posted in Biz Tip, Business, Decisions, Start-ups
3 comments to “Biz Tip: To Business plan, Or Not To Business Plan?”
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31. July 2009 at 8:47 pm :
The important thing about the business plan, in the early stages, is to make sure you have answers to important questions, like:
- Will it ever be profitable? How?
- How will I sell it and to whom? Does anybody want this thing?
It's too easy to think "gee, wouldn't it be cool to have a website that does X" and making the site without figuring out if and when anyone would ever spend any time or money there…
31. July 2009 at 10:54 pm :
Exactly! I think what people should be writing are more along the lines of executive summaries rather than spending all that time putting together full-fledged biz plans.
2. August 2009 at 5:49 am :
It's one thing to decide not to spend your time writing a business plan. It's quite another thing not to do so because you don't know how to write a business plan, or what goes into it. Whether or not you actually write a business plan, any person thinking about investing their own time and dollars would benefit from a disciplined, strategic approach to starting a business.