How To Prepare A Business Plan That Is Useful In Practice

If you have an innovative app idea, you should write a concise, high-level go to market plan. Here’s how to prepare a business plan that actually helps you in practice.GETTY

Have you ever seen one of those 50-page business plans that go into detail about every conceivable aspect of a still purely theoretical business? You probably have, since those business plans have been the industry standard for decades.

Yet, in a world where words like lean and agile are becoming the new norm for startups, 50-page business plans look a bit out of place, and with a good reason.

It’s a fact that creating a plan is very helpful for a new business. A study of more than 10 thousand businesses shows that ventures grow 30% faster on average if they create business plans.

However, another study indicates that innovative startups in more dynamic environments benefit from shorter planning. The reason is simply – innovative startups are less familiar with their business environment and more particularly – the exact needs of their customers. This means that the plan is likely to change often, and the more detailed the plan, the higher the chance it deviates from reality.

This claim is supported by the fact that business plans are more effective for existing companies rather than for new startups. A company with at least a few years of history is far more likely to have a deeper understanding of their customers, allowing for more accurate plans firmly based on reality.

So, simply put, if you have an innovative app idea, you should write a concise, high-level go to market plan. For the plan to be helpful in practice, it needs to be designed in a way that makes it easy for your startup team to be on the same page while at the same time being easy to update.

In the startup world, the so-called Lean Canvas is becoming very popular to satisfy this need. To a degree, it is replacing the traditional business plan. It is designed to fit all the necessary information in a single A4 sheet of paper, which makes it easy to share and update.

Read more: www.forbes.com