Guy Kawasaki on Start-Ups and Business Planning
[Do not] fire up Word to write a business plan, launch PowerPoint to craft a pitch, or boot Excel to build a financial projection. Wrong, wrong, wrong!...What you should do is (a) rein in your…tendency to craft a document and (b) implement.
This means building a prototype, writing software, launching your Web site, or offering your services. The hardest thing about getting started is getting started. (This is as true for a writer as it is for an entrepreneur.) Remember: No one ever achieved success by planning for gold. You should always be selling—not strategizing about selling. Don’t test, test, test—that’s a game for big companies. Don’t worry about being embarrassed. Don’t wait to develop the perfect product or service. Good enough is good enough. There will be plenty of time for refinement later. It’s not how great you start—it’s how great you end up. The enemy of activation is cogitation, and at this stage, cogitating the “strategic” issues of research and development is a problem. Questions like, How far can we leap ahead? What if everyone doesn’t like what we do? and Should we design for a target customer or make what we would want to use? are beside the point when you’re getting a new venture off the ground.
- Guy Kawasaki, technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist
- October 3, 2007
- Business Planning