23 Jan Why You Should Never Start with a Business Plan

One of the major mistakes startups make is externalizing, delegating, and subcontracting the entire process of crafting their business plan.

They pay thousands of dollars to freelancers or consultants to write a business plan that is supposed to guide the company from INCEPTION to SCALING in the next 3 – 5 years.

Many startups do this because they’re required by lenders and investors.

Such a business plan doesn’t create any emotional attachment toward the founders and team members.

Such business plans will eat dust, even if they may get them the funding they’re looking for…

The best approach, which can also meet the requirements of investors and lenders and at the same time translate the plan into results, is to take ownership.

How? My advice is to come up with two important artifacts before crafting their business plan:

1. Vision Impartation Document (To learn more about what VID is and why you should consider having one, click here and check a blog I recently wrote).
2. Strategic Plan.

If you have the resources, you can hire consultants like us to help you come up with comprehensive outlines and then facilitate the brainstorming sessions that lead to the production of these foundational documents.

By first creating these products, you accomplish the following:

1. Instill SENSE of Belonging and OWNERSHIP among team members.
2. Invoke positive emotions and in turn inspire actions to translate the plan into RESULTS.

Once you come up with these FOUNDATIONAL artifacts, then, you can give these to consultants/freelancers to write the business plan according to the requirements of lenders and investors.

They can use these documents as inputs. Can you see the difference?

When you take these steps, you’re not externalizing, delegating, and subcontracting one of the most important artifacts that guide the formation, launch, and scaling of your company in the next 3 – 5 years.

This approach kills two birds using one stone:

1. You and your team own the final product. It doesn’t eat dust. You don’t come back after a few months or years to look back and wonder what happened to our business plan. You execute the plan with passion and also full knowledge because you came up with the most important foundations of the business plan.
2. You convince stakeholders that your business is viable and investable. Remember, savvy lenders and investors don’t buy into what is written on paper alone. They may ask for a sit-down with the Founders and key team members to feel whether there is buy-in and whether the team can interpret, defend, and ultimately execute the plan. They can smell from a mile away if the plan is cooked by freelancers/consultants alone without your input…

If you’re planning to form or relaunch a company, reach out. We can help you through the process of preparing, forming, launching, stabilizing, and launching your company. Click here and check this page for our other Organizational Consulting services