Experts espouse benefits of delaying business plans

Michigan residents who have ever started or attempted to fund their own businesses likely spend hours crafting and tweaking their business plans in the hope attracting the interest of investors and consumers. Many such individuals have found success by comprehensively detailing their goals, showing how their ideas could take advantage of a lucrative market and making financial projections. However, an increasing number of business experts are turning away from traditional business plans in favor of less conventional methods.

The advent of the Internet, mobile phones and other powerful technologies has drastically changed the nature of emerging businesses and those that have existed for several decades. This makes it critical for Michigan entrepreneurs to formulate and pitch their ideas in different ways. Recent years have seen the meteoric and largely unexpected rise of online businesses like Google, Amazon and Facebook. For many prospective business owners, a traditional business plan is too static for the ever-changing market.

Many experts now recommend that would-be entrepreneurs thoroughly consider a variety of important factors before drafting a business plan. Lacking a business plan allows owners to be more flexible, modifying the scope, focus and financial requirements of their projects without committing to risky or overly ambitious promises.

Rather than spending precious time on tooling complex plans, this method allows entrepreneurs to act immediately by testing and marketing their products or services on a small scale. A successful experiment of this nature can make a business far more attractive to financiers, as it shows real data and firsthand knowledge, whereas speculation is essentially theory, even when backed by substantial evidence.

Successfully launching a business idea calls for measures that differ dramatically from those of years and decades past. However, the legal aspect of forming a new company remains relatively unchanged, making it important for future business owners to ensure they understand how the complexities of state and federal laws affect their ideas.

Source: Entrepreneurr.com, "10 Reasons Not to Write a Business Plan" Martin Zwilling, Nov. 06, 2013