Fact: It doesn't matter how much time you spent working on it or how much you paid to get it done, your business plan is not perfect and will never be.
Here's why:
1. A business plan is based on assumptions. Assumptions are just that, assumptions, and they are often wrong.
2. Business plans change fast in real-world situations. When your business plan 'meets' customers, it will change.
3. No matter how much research you do, the success (or failure) of a startup business is unpredictable.
Instead of trusting in a business plan, consider developing a functional business model by following these steps:
1. Make business assumptions and use them to define how your business will create value (i.e your business model). Spending a lot of time on research and planning won't necessarily get you far. Move quickly.
2. Talk to potential customers about your entire business model, taking their feedback on features of your product or service, pricing and marketing. Even better, launch your product or service as quickly as possible and use feedback from your first set of customers to improve your offering. The customer knows what the customer wants. Listening to them will save you the cost of trial and error.
3. Improve your product or service in increments. As you receive feedback from customers, make small adjustments and ask for fresh feedback. Making major changes to your product or service based on your own assumptions is a risky thing to do. Remember that you're always working for the customer.
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