A lot of people these days denigrate the business plan as an antiquated document. Instead, a “pitch deck” or powerpoint presentation is hailed as the only thing you need to build a startup (within a corporation or from scratch).
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Jeff Bezos is famous for banning PowerPoint and making its executives write detailed strategy memos. The reasoning to write a detailed memo is the same as it is for an executive summary.
Writing is a forcing function for your thought process. It is impossible to be superficial when writing a business plan. It is very possible to make a glossy PowerPoint presentation without being thoughtful at all.
Write a plan, or at least an executive summary. Yes, it may change as your innovation strategy changes as you go to market. But that’s not a good excuse why not to write one.
