{"id":37,"date":"2008-07-30T12:13:48","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T16:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/?p=37"},"modified":"2025-03-28T10:51:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:51:53","slug":"business-plan-dont-be-bothered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/2008\/07\/30\/business-plan-dont-be-bothered\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Plan? Don’t Be Bothered."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

My Shameful Secret<\/h3>\n

I have something to admit. I never wrote a business plan for Elastic Mind. I never really saw the value in it for me. I started writing something resembling a business plan a few months back but it was only to appease the banks. I haven’t needed their money yet so the business plan sits in a folder, scribbled on, looking sad, in my filing cabinet.<\/p>\n

I really wanted to write one. But only because I thought I ‘should’ as I was told over and over in business school (Wilfrid Laurier University<\/a>) that business plans mattered. Plus, every entrepreneurial website (and I have been to a few) encourages you to write one and banks won’t talk to you if you don’t have one.<\/p>\n

Business Plans, Are They Your Friend?<\/h3>\n

But putting the need for a loan or line of credit aside, is there value in them? I’d say no, at least in the traditional sense. I never understood the point of spending countless hours planning something out that will only change and shift and likely never resemble the original plan in the first place. What I do understand is having a vision and goal for your company and following it.<\/p>\n

Create a Non-Traditional Business Plan<\/h3>\n

Since I usually feel alone in a lot of my views, I get happy when I find a like-minded individual. Wise Bread<\/a> argues that you can create the non-traditional business plan you need by answering 4 questions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What is your product or service?<\/li>\n
  2. Who are your customers?<\/li>\n
  3. When will things get done?<\/li>\n
  4. When are bills due and when do you get paid?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you can answer those questions, you’ve got all the ‘business plan’ you need. At least until you start knocking at the bank’s door. And even then, they should have a business plan template<\/a> that you can fill out. No need to spend money on business plan software or a business plan writer.<\/p>\n

    <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you aren’t approaching banks or venture capitalists, there is only 4 questions you need to ask yourself to complete your ‘business plan’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-an-innerpreneur","category-growing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11032,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/11032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}