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A comment on Ask HN: How to write a business plan for an Internet startup?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: How to write a business plan for an Internet star... by mattmaroon on Thursday January 08, 2009 @11:43AM (#425141)
The purpose of part of the business plan is to show that you've given thought. A business plan is basically a collection of things that are pretty smart to think about and write down, plus a whole bunch of other crap you pulled out of your ass to try to impress investors. Smart investors have their own ass from which to pull numbers.

I know lots of people who got funding with no business plan, in fact few tech companies have them at all anymore. Giving thought to what you're doing does not necessitate a business plan.

Rather than making you waste days or weeks of your time writing one, smart investors simply ask you all of the key questions. Who are your competitors and how can you differentiate was asked in every meeting I've ever been to. I couldn't have raised funding once, let alone the multiple times we have, without having given thought to that and being able to answer.

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Re:Ask HN: How to write a business plan for an Internet star... by mseebach on Thursday January 08, 2009 @12:06PM (#425180)
> Giving thought to what you're doing does not necessitate a business plan.

No, it IS a business plan, just not written down. It's not a given that a business plan need to have 15 pages of black magic numbers pulled out of anyones ass.

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Re:Ask HN: How to write a business plan for an Internet star... by skmurphy on Thursday January 08, 2009 @02:07PM (#425433)
"I know lots of people who got funding with no business plan"

I don't dispute your experience but would caution that 2005-2008 may not be a guide for 2009-2012

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Re:Ask HN: How to write a business plan for an Internet star... by mattmaroon on Thursday January 08, 2009 @03:05PM (#425531)
Tech investors don't ask for business plans because they know they're worthless. In fact, they're worse than worthless, they're a possible negative indicator of success. If anything, they've been burned by the companies that did have them. Polished MBAs with great business plans start stuff like Pets.com and GovWorks. Nerds with no business plans start Google.
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