Guy Kawasaki's Article on Business Plans

As I stated in a previous blog entry on the blogs that I read, Guy Kawasaki always has interesting insights and thoughts on business. His most recent post, "Is a Business Plan Necessary", delves into the debate on whether or not a business plan is necessary in order to be successful. The post is his two cents in regards to the article in the Wall Street Journal discussing a recent study done by Babson College on the subject matter. The study analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated between 1985 and 2003. Comparing success measures such as annual revenue, employee numbers and net income, the study found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without them. Very interesting indeed, however, Guy makes the point that if it is your intent to raise funding (which these days a lot of people need), you will need to craft a business plan. He does offer hope though, that instead of it being a dissertation and taking you a year to produce, it should be no longer than 10-20 pages and should not take you more than a couple of weeks. For more details on Guy's approach to business plans, click here.