Business Plans aren’t easy to write. The process involves evolving an initial idea into a document that builds details around the idea. Many Solopreneurs get stuck in the process and just abandon theirs.
The biggest cause: they work through them in a purely linear way and don’t allow themselves to think of the complete whole at any one point except for the initial idea and if they get there, the final draft.
They pick up a business plan template and just start filling in the blanks, starting with the customer. Then competition. Then strategy. Then marketing. Then operations. Then financials. They don’t look at the big picture at any point.
The results are plans with a hyper-detailed target market section, a partial competitive analysis, and then…nothing. If writers try to perfect each individual section, they chance not seeing everything working together.
Those who have mastered creative processes will agree that detail alone doesn’t give clarity–big picture does. We want to see how things—in our case, the business—fit together. This is done by creating several complete ideas as one develops the idea into a finished solution.
Let’s take another creative process: architecture. When I design a house, I won’t start with a sketch, then simply add detail to the sketch until its done. I break the process into phases and have a set of drawings per phase. Each set of drawings are complete—the schematic drawings, the design development, the construction drawings—each phase giving a clearer set of instructions on how to construct the building. If you were left with the design development drawings and were asked to build the house, I would be able to. If you were given that initial sketch with parts of the house very detailed down to the brick while others parts weren’t even drawn, you will have a much more difficult time.
Think of evolution. Not a design process per se, but certainly an extended process from developing the ape to Homo Sapiens. At any step in that process, you will see a complete being, not one that is really developed in one area, and not developed at all in another.
A non-scientist view of evolution
The ape to human evolution happened over six million years, progressing in stages from ape to Homo Sapiens. 200,000 iterations separated my silverback ancestor and me if you assume each generation was 30 years. Over that time, the genetic code slowly evolved up to me. I’m not saying I’m a polished product by any stretch, but I can confidently say I am more developed than the 10,000th iteration or the 100,000th iteration where they weren’t even homo sapiens (my wife might argue this on football Sundays).
Each evolutionary step was a finished product in its own right. The ape was a fully functioning being, as was the Neanderthal and Homo Erectus. That Homo Sapiens happens to be the most superior being doesn’t mean that the prior evolutionary steps were incomplete—just not as relatively developed.
The Business Plan Evolution
For your business plan, you don’t want to go from your rough idea (your ape granddaddy) to the finished product in one step. Evolution didn’t work that way. Design processes don’t work that way.
You don’t want to start building out your idea in one document and not stop until you’re done filling in all the details. This is how you’ll get stuck. One detail will escape you and you might just give up on the entire business plan. Instead, break the evolution up into steps. Each step will be a living breathing solution. Think of three complete iterations, with increasing detail, leading up to the final startup plan.
Because each iteration will add a new layer of detail, if you stop writing after the third iteration, you still have a business plan—just not a very advanced one.
Write your first “business plan” on a small sheet of paper or napkin in the form of a feasibility study. Sure, it’s not a “real” business plan, but it holds some core elements of the final one. This consists of what your niche is, what your capabilities are, and why you’re passionate about the idea. Forcing it onto a napkin will force you to be concise. Congratulations, you are now a very hairy bipedal creature.
Once that is done, look at the next evolutionary step if you may. This one is slightly more developed. You can tell a story of who your customer is. List a few competitors and talk about what they compete on and what they are good and bad at. Take a stab at why you’ll be different from everyone else. List your primary marketing method (how will you reach your customers) and your key operational considerations (how will you serve them).
Even if you stop after with this step, you are in much better shape than only having completed a very detailed customer profile, competitive analysis, and industry overview. Your plan is complete albeit not too advanced. You are now a fully functioning Neanderthal. You have emotions. You can make a fire. You are thinking big picture.
You can then do this one more time. Add a timeline with some milestones. Create your startup budget. As you look at the plan in its entirety, refine other sections of your plan. Your rough draft is done.
For the last version, start building out your projected financial statements and if your numbers don’t look great, tweak a few sections. The final Solopreneur draft is finished here.
Other entrepreneurs might look at your plan and say: “that’s not a complete plan–there isn’t enough detail. For my prospective restaurant business, I have 30 pages…” They are writing a completely developed, “Homo Sapiens plan.” And they need to. They have to make sure it’s right because their kind of business is all-in where assumptions better be correct!
But Solos shouldn’t feel compelled to understand every in and out of the business before it’s started. With startup costs low, you will test your plan and it’s assumptions as soon as possible. The Homo Sapiens plan is just plain too much detail and too much time wrapped up in planning and not in the other equally important Everest Way activities.
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You’ll be in much better shape if you write their business plan this way rather than your Homo Sapiens and Ape-like brethren who over-write or don’t write at all their business plans. You’ll set into motion a evolutionary transformation of your simple idea into a usable business plan.
Saying goodbye to your ape idea and becoming a good Neanderthal business plan.
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