
Ask HN: Do I need a formal business plan for my side project? - erikschoster
I&#x27;m kicking off work on an exciting side project with a friend and I think we have a pretty solid idea of how the project can be priced and who our customer base could be at least to start.<p>We&#x27;re bootstrapping and don&#x27;t plan to seek any investors or take out loans -- right now the only expense is basically a server I already own.<p>In your experience is it still useful to formalize a business plan for a fairly informal side-project like this?<p>We hope it will become more than a side project, it&#x27;s in a space we both care about and have worked in for a long time but there&#x27;s no immediate expectation of growth. We aren&#x27;t setting any hard deadlines for quitting our dayjobs or anything. We&#x27;d just like to create it and share it and see if it catches on.<p>I don&#x27;t want to kill the momentum for actually building the thing in our spare time by self-imposing needless paperwork but a little voice inside me says it might be a useful exercise even if we&#x27;re the only ones who see it in the end.<p>What do you think?<p>Thank you!
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Pinbenterjamin
You definitely should. I remember when I started doing serious side projects,
how invaluable having a document was.

It should be living though. Start with something small, describe goals, and
outlook. Put a feature checklist on it. As you work through early problems and
refactors, treat it like a development blog. Include build notes.

You will probably put this down, and pick it up a few times on your journey.
Make sure you leave plenty of breadcrumbs for yourself so that you can be
productive each time you do.

And, should you decide to put it down for good, you'll have a nice little
project history for lessons the next time you try it.

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sharemywin
might want to checkout:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas#/media/File:Business_Model_Canvas.png)

A lot lighter weight but contains the right questions.

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erikschoster
That looks very helpful -- thank you!

