Editor's Note

 

By Craig Bott

 

Ask anyone you meet along your path to entrepreneurship and they are sure to give you one common piece of advice, "Write a business plan." "Makes sense," you think. "Certainly I need to carefully plan my business, convey all the details of my plan in a well written document and get it in the hands of all interested parties."

There even is some comfort in writing a business plan, some implied benefit that good things will come from this effort; the belief that you will more likely be funded and that your business will more likely succeed.
In this issue of Launch, we decided to challenge these assumptions and ask, on your behalf, what really is the value of the business plan particularly in the process of obtaining outside investment.

Given the huge amount of time and effort you will spend on preparing a business plan, we wanted to know if it was really worth it. The reality is that thousands of plans are written every week by eager entrepreneurs who then send them, solicited and often times unsolicited, to potential investors. And we also know the reality that many of these carefully drafted plans are never opened and never read. They just simply pile up on investors' desks, are stacked in corners of their offices or spill over to side chairs.

We asked the question of whether the business plan simply has become more a "rite of passage" that all entrepreneurs need to go through, like completing a required term project just to get the final grade. And if it has become this, is there some other way, a better way for entrepreneurs to present their business to would-be investors and strategic partners.
We took these questions to those on the front line of the battle of the business plan — to entrepreneurs who recently raised funds for their business and to active investors who regularly review businesses. In a combined panel discussion we asked each to discuss the merits of the business plan and share advice with you, our reader, about preparing your plan.

You will be amazed with their conclusions and their advice will both save you time and redirect your thinking in ways that you never thought of. And you will be a bit surprised with their overall conclusion on the value of business planning. Consider it Business Planning for the 2.0 world — today's entrepreneurs persuasively presenting their business to today's savvy investors.

Enjoy the read.

T. Craig Bott
Grow Utah Ventures
President and CEO

 

Launch - May/June 2007

 

 

For the full "digital magazine" version of May/June 2007, visit: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/growutah/launch0507/