When Should Entrepreneurs Write Their Business Plans?

It is said that “Entrepreneurs who write business plans are more likely to succeed”. But the real question is should one write the business plan in the beginning of a business or should first observe the things and then plan it out? Research says that writing a plan first is a bad idea. It is much better to wait and crucially synchronize the plan with other key startup activities.

A start-up business plan seems a good idea in the beginning as organization knows the answers such as where do we stand now? What are our goals and objectives and how we are going to achieve those goals and objectives? By knowing the details of target customers, suppliers and retailers, its competitors, operations, logistics, marketing, and sales. But the real key factor which plays an important role in the success of any organization is its flexibility and responsiveness towards opportunity.

Entrepreneurs have to shift the focus of their business once it become clear to them whether their target audience is the right audience or not or when they find that their product or service fits better in an alternate market. Because of these reasons, business plans written in at the start end up being dumped. And writing a plan takes time, time- that could be spent on evaluating opportunities. Time is required to properly evaluate opportunities which are there for business. With the help of research, it is found that those who wrote their business plan between six to twelve months after deciding to start a business are successful entrepreneurs. Writing a plan during this time framework increase the probability of success by 8%. It is also found out that the optimal time to spend on a business plan is of 3 months. This increased the chances of creating a feasible venture by 12%.It is been said that the right time for writing a plan was around the time when the entrepreneur is actually talk to the customer, getting their product ready for market and thinking through their promotional and marketing activities. Writing a plan to paper beside these activities increases a start-up’s chance of venture viability by 27%

For a plan to be effective, it is necessary to detail out what the opportunity is, who the customers and competitors are and how the company operates and makes money. Timing really does matter. Entrepreneurs should not write a plan to early, don’t spend too long on it and make sure that it is done alongside other activities to achieve successful business venture.