New Series: Practical Advice for writing a Business Plan

I started this over at Venture Files and I wanted to bring it over here so I should start from the beginning.

I have been thinking a lot about how many entrepreneur’s ask “should I write a business plan?” and regardless of what you think should go in one or what format it may take, the answer is essentially yes.

Then I started to look at all my previous business plans and those I have advised on and reviewed for feedback. Most were written for the purpose of presenting to investors with varying degrees of success. The others were operational and an exercise in strategy and vision to ensure that everyone understand where the company is going so there is proper execution.

Now there are many people that are WAY MORE knowledgeable about writing these types of documents and many have written good blog posts on “writing business plans“. What I would like to do is take a look at this document and provide all of my readers out there with some real practical lessons and how it should be written if it is an internal use document or one for investors.

I will post the first section post this week and I will do about a section a week. For those of you out there with experiences to share, comment away. For those of you who have written them I hope to make you laugh and I look forward to your perspective and anecdotes.