

$20 Business Plan wanted.  Nice. - goofygrin
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cpg/882554505.html

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fallentimes
Damn. I was going to offer to do it for $25 but _"The wage is not
negociable."_

TicketStumbler is my third business and I've never used a business plan unless
you count the YC application. I certainly understand their purpose for very
large projects but for the vast most startups...meh.

What does everyone else think?

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wheels
It's been on the to-do for ages. I think it's a good idea, but I think having
someone else do it for you completely defeats the purpose. Points in favor of
a business plan:

\- Makes you block out how much stuff will cost. How much will your offices
cost when you have 10 people? What about their salaries, insurance, etc.?

\- Vaguely, what does profitability look like for you? When do you want to try
to reach it?

\- Who are you competing with? How are you different?

\- How do you want to balance revenue and growth? Do you want to be profitable
as soon as possible, or throw as much money as it takes, as often as it takes
at growth?

\- What sort of company do you want to be?

\- In an ideal world, where are you at in three years? Don't worry about this
changing, just set something down and use it as a benchmark.

Those seem to be the good reasons to do a business plan -- it makes you ask,
and seriously consider some relevant questions. Blathering on about your
paradigm shifts is wankery. What are you going to build? Who are you going to
need? How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost? And how will
you make money?

The reason that ours isn't finished isn't because we don't think it's
important; it's that we know to reasonably answer the questions above we need
to do more research.

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yummyfajitas
This looks like a perfect thread to ask a real question that's been on my
mind:

How do you write a business plan? More specifically, what are the conventions
(format, language to use, etc) for writing one which will be shown to
potential investors?

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CFS
There are countless "business plan templates", $20 appears to be reasonably
price.

On sites such as elance or oDesk many people will give away work to get a
better ranking. So why not "MANAGEMENT"

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vaksel
this one also wants you to do market research etc

