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Garrett Dimon: Steps to Becoming a Freelance Web Developer

“You can’t fool a business plan with projections and budgeting. Even If you’re not ever going to show it to anyone, you can gain good insight into your business by taking care of this.”  Full Article on GarrettDimon.com >>

When I started Boyink Interactive, I followed the “common” advice and started looking into business plans. 

I spent about an hour, then gave up.

Why?

The models I found seemed designed to present to someone while asking for money, and I wasn’t asking anyone for money.  It seemed that for me the business plan essentially boiled down to “be billable as much as possible”.  Anything past that was shooting arrows in the dark at targets that may not even exist.

It strikes me that, while I hear the “gotta have a business plan” mantra every time someone is talking about starting a new business, I’ve have never ever run across an existing business plan at an employer or client.  Even when doing in-depth business stakeholder interviews during the research phase of an internet revamp, where I ask questions about where the business is heading, no one has ever referenced or produced a business plan as an answer.

So what say you - have you done a business plan?  Found it to be helpful?  Have you seen a business plan for your employer?  For a client?

Or are business plans one of those things that sounds great when you talk about it, but in practice aren’t able to really have any effect in a business climate based on change and adaptability?

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Dave J. on October 27, 2005

   In my MBA classes we talked about how the end result is not often the desired (planned) outcome.

   Maybe this isn’t exactly true for a one-product/service company like yours, but then the biz-case is so obvious that it seems redundant to put it down. “Sell website services to business”. Wow, that was worth it.

2. Clay Clarkson on November 01, 2005

   I felt guilty when we were starting our ministry that I didn’t have a great “business plan” in place. Instead of us managing the ministry, the ministry very quickly began to manage us. A book took off, a seminar did well, a newsletter got going…business (and ministry) happens! In our case, as a revenue-funded non-profit with very little donor base, we had to minister with a business strategy, and we’re still doing it ten years later.

   I don’t have a formal business plan, but I do take time every year to create a ministry/business goals and strategy plan, which is like a business plan, but just without the copious spread sheets required by OCD bankers.  I also create an annual Cash Flow Projection, and update it monthly to see how I’m doing.  Beyond that, it’s all guerrilla-style business.

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