What is a "business plan"?

What is a "business plan"?

It's a road map, really to take you from where you are to where you want to go, where you want to end up. In my mind, it's an absolute requirement in every way, shape or form. I cannot visualize getting into a business without thinking through things because you know, in doing a business plan you can make all your mistakes on paper. To do them in real life takes time, effort, money, hurts people, hurts yourself, stress, everything else, so you want to minimize that to the maximum extent and you can, doing a business plan. And then, of course, if you're going to borrow money from someone or attract a venture capitalist or a bank or anybody else, or the Small Business Administration, a business plan is required. You're not going to get it without it. That's the first thing they ask for is let's see your business plan. So it's a very very important device. There's 1, other things you can do with it. Work out your strategy. You can use parts of it to brief new employees as you expand. Whenever you got a problem you run into you've already thought things through so you can look at your alternatives. You know what the money situation is on a daily basis. It's a great thing.