I love this post from Guy Kawasaki: Is a Business Plan Necessary?
For all but the most incremental of innovation efforts, a comprehensive business plan is shot in the dark. You’re guaranteed to be 100% wrong. So why try to be 100% right and successful in planning a business venture, when what the humans who will make or break you really only care about something which is 70% "good" execution? Don’t get me wrong — a business plan is really valuable as an exercise in logical thinking. But to mistake it for an exercise in producing a tangible reality is to build castles in the air.
Don’t waste your time. Build to think. Just do it.
Replace the words “business plan” with “design” and you’ll see how ridiculous this statement is.
Dan, I’m not sure which statement you’re referencing.
Thanks for the blog. It inspires new ideas in me on a regular basis.
This post reminds me of a quote I recently saw on “Quotes of the Day” on my Google homepage:
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
Writing a business plan is a critical exercise as an entrepreneur designs a business venture. It is effective for helping him/her to recognize and prepare to cope with potential blind spots. No one in their right mind expects a new venture to execute exactly according to plan, but that doesn’t mean a b-plan is unnecessary.
Plus, except for entrepreneurial prodigies, a business plan is usually necessary to get through the front door of anyone capable of funding the concept.