No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers – Business Plans versus Business Models – Steve Blank.

* There are no facts inside your building, so get outside and get some.
* Draw and test the Business Model first, the Business Plan then follows.
* Few if any investors read your business plan to see if they’re interested in your business
* They’re a lot more interested in what you learned

http://steveblank.com/2010/04/08/no-plan-survives-first-contact-with-customers-%E2%80%93-business-plans-versus-business-models/

BTW I came across this site http://www.planhq.com/ last year and always meant to go back to see how it has changed. Some nice ideas/concepts about collaborative operational business planning. Don’t think it’s for me as we have too many online systems at the moment for our bread-and-butter work and adding/learning a new one just feels like a struggle. But it might interest others who read this.

Oh, and I also liked this online cashflow tool http://pulseapp.com/ for those who want to cut straight to the basics!

That’s exactly why I encourage people to think of keeping the BP skinny (with the what’s not the how’s) and immediately switching to operational mode, the moment funding is received. Its traction in the market that demonstrats progress. not planning.

My take on this topic is yes, you need a plan (call it what you will) so that investors have a basic understanding of what the company needs in terms of working capital but also sets out the anticipated outcomes that spending that money ought to deliver so the investor has a reference point to actually measure the end result against.

I am unaware of any start up venture business plan (in the traditional sense) delivering what it anticipated being able to IN THE MANNER predicted and for this reason I tend to look at investor warranties on business plans in this area as pretty pointless. If an investor is relying on a founder to warrant the basis upon which a business plan has been prepared or even worse the hoped for outcome, then I’d suggest that that investor should ask himself if he is satisfying the “only invest in what you know” golden rule!

This did remind me of how offer the words strategy and tactics are used and (almost as often) misunderstood.

They are military terms and when defined its very easy to see how they differ and how they apply to the business world:

“Strategy is the planning, coordination, and general direction of military operations to meet overall political and military objectives. Tactics implement strategy by short-term decisions on the movement of troops and employment of weapons on the field of battle.”

Also, if you’re an 80s-Wall-Street-The-Movie-type-a-guy you’ll like the Sun Tzu quote:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

BTW I came across this site http://www.planhq.com/ last year and always meant to go back to see how it has changed. Some nice ideas/concepts about collaborative operational business planning. Don’t think it’s for me as we have too many online systems at the moment for our bread-and-butter work and adding/learning a new one just feels like a struggle. But it might interest others who read this.

Oh, and I also liked this online cashflow tool http://pulseapp.com/ for those who want to cut straight to the basics!