I paid a guy to help me write a biz plan when I started in 2004 and it was ridiculous. It was like 40 pages long. I'm friends with my CPA and happened to show it to him once and he was laughing his head off at how stupid it is. All those pages and it didn't even really say anything.
My suggestion for a biz plan is to start at the end. Pick where you want to be in 3 to 5 years and write that down. Then work backwards from that future point to the present with a game plan on how to get there. It can be on a napkin. Does not have to be fancy. Honestly a large amount of hugely successful entrepreneurs have never made a true biz plan.
I would also highly highly highly suggest reading or listening to The E-Myth. There's an entire section that tells you exactly how to structure and plan a biz.
In summary a biz plan is really just an outline of hypothesized goals that chart your path to where you want to be. It can and should be flexible.
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This is exactly where I am at. The pre-business plan phase. I literally JUST sent an email request to the local SCORE outfit to find a mentor to walk me through this properly without getting off track and jacked in the process. What you wrote here was on point for me:
ReplyDelete"My suggestion for a biz plan is to start at the end. Pick where you want to be in 3 to 5 years and write that down. Then work backwards from that future point to the present with a game plan on how to get there. It can be on a napkin. Does not have to be fancy. Honestly a large amount of hugely successful entrepreneurs have never made a true biz plan."
Thanks for that!