Pop quiz — how long should a business plan be?
A: <10 pages
B: 11-20 pages
C: 21-50 pages
D: Over 50 pages
The answer: all are correct!! And . . . all are wrong.
Welcome to Finch Walker LLC’s blog! We are business consultants (someone once told me the word “consultant” was an euphemism for “unemployed”; that’s not always true, and it’s certainly not true for us, but it’s kinda funny).
This is our first blog post and hopefully not our last. While we can’t promise to be consistent in our postings, we can promise to strive to make them somewhat interesting.
Now, regarding the business plan thing above, over the years I have consulted Entrepreneur magazine, the Small Business Administration, a business expert panel at MIT, dozens of business lawyers, angel investors and venture capitalists, not to mention a ton of blogs, websites and books.
They all tend to say different things when it comes to the length (and sometimes the content) of the ideal business plan.
I confess that this is a little unfair of me. A business plan, of course, should be just as long as it needs to be to get the message across and to entice the reader to act in a positive way.
If the person you’re targeting likes to read shorter plans, make it shorter. If he or she wants more detail, include it. I know that’s a little obvious and maybe more than a little simplistic, but it’s the truth. Believe me — I’ve been there. Many times.
It just ticks me off a little when people try to say the best plan is always X pages.
We’ll talk about stuff like this in the future, I hope. And we’ll talk about other things as well that might be of more interest.
I won’t be the only author (I’m sure you’re happy about that) and the specific subjects will vary. I think it will be interesting.
So, thank you for checking this thing out — we hope you’ll like what we say and enjoy the experience.
A: <10 pages
B: 11-20 pages
C: 21-50 pages
D: Over 50 pages
The answer: all are correct!! And . . . all are wrong.
Welcome to Finch Walker LLC’s blog! We are business consultants (someone once told me the word “consultant” was an euphemism for “unemployed”; that’s not always true, and it’s certainly not true for us, but it’s kinda funny).
This is our first blog post and hopefully not our last. While we can’t promise to be consistent in our postings, we can promise to strive to make them somewhat interesting.
Now, regarding the business plan thing above, over the years I have consulted Entrepreneur magazine, the Small Business Administration, a business expert panel at MIT, dozens of business lawyers, angel investors and venture capitalists, not to mention a ton of blogs, websites and books.
They all tend to say different things when it comes to the length (and sometimes the content) of the ideal business plan.
I confess that this is a little unfair of me. A business plan, of course, should be just as long as it needs to be to get the message across and to entice the reader to act in a positive way.
If the person you’re targeting likes to read shorter plans, make it shorter. If he or she wants more detail, include it. I know that’s a little obvious and maybe more than a little simplistic, but it’s the truth. Believe me — I’ve been there. Many times.
It just ticks me off a little when people try to say the best plan is always X pages.
We’ll talk about stuff like this in the future, I hope. And we’ll talk about other things as well that might be of more interest.
I won’t be the only author (I’m sure you’re happy about that) and the specific subjects will vary. I think it will be interesting.
So, thank you for checking this thing out — we hope you’ll like what we say and enjoy the experience.
