Founders go wrong when they start to believe their business plan will materialize as written. I advise entrepreneurs to burn their business plan - it's simply too dangerous to the health of your business.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's one thing I've learned about entrepreneurs' business plans. Every one is wrong.
Founders have continually struggled with and adapted the 'big business' tools, rules, and processes taught in business schools when startups failed to execute 'the plan,' never admitting to the entrepreneurs that no startup executes to its business plan.
For a lot of people, one of the reasons they don't like to work for founders of startups is that they can be sensitive and protective around what they've built. You have an emotional attachment to the early marketing and technology materials, and you don't want to hear that anything's wrong with them.
Most venture capitalists won't read a business plan unless the entrepreneur is introduced to them by a contact.
There's a lot of glorification of startups and being a founder. People brush the failures under the rug, but that's the worst thing you can do. You kind of have to face it head on.
All entrepreneurs make decisions. Some will go right, and some will not go that right.
Entrepreneurs always begin the journey believing that they have the next big idea. They dream of the fame and fortune that awaits them if only they had the funding to pursue it. But the reality is that as the product is built and shared with customers, flaws in their concept are discovered that - if not overcome - will kill the business.
Properly defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.
There is a long history of founders returning to companies and doing great things. Founders are able to set the vision for their companies with an authority no one else can.
What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is.