Welcome to video Fridays from The Start Up Garage
A place where Tyler Jensen, The Startup Garage’s founder, answers questions directly from our viewers.
Key Take Aways From Video:
1. When starting a business you will almost always want a business plan.
2. Even if you do not need investors or a business partner, a business plan will help you answer critical questions.
3. Investors want and require documentation.
Complete Transcript below:
Question:
I’ve read that you really don’t need a business plan. Is this true?
Well, my short answer is no — it’s not true.
If you’re starting a company, there are a couple of main reasons why you’re almost always going to need a business plan.
The first one is that even if you don’t actually need the document of a business plan for an investor or business partner, going through that process of answering all the questions that a business plan will require you to answer is so critical early on. If you don’t do it early on it’s going to cost you a lot of time and money later on.
The second reason is that if you are raising money from anyone other than a close friend or family member, almost any serious investor is going to require that you have gone through the process of writing a business plan and they’re going to want to see that document.
Remember, “the worst business plan is one you never bother to write.”