10- Uses and options of a Business Plan

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In this episode, we discuss the uses and options of a Business Plan for a startup or a small business venture by an entrepreneur.

As you will hear in this audio episode, the discussion is by Chris Benjamin. As a CFO for small and medium businesses, Chris has experience in creating a business plan. As he mentions, he can spot a shoddy or disjointed plan (usually written with the help of Business Plan software by an aspiring startup), and he also gives some advice on selecting the author of the plan. He also indicates why the CEO or a key partner in the small business would be best to write EVERYTHING about the venture on paper and then deliver it to the CFO who will read it, evaluate it and “smooth it out” (as Chris likes to say).

For the startup or aspiring small business owner, a Business Plan may be necessary if there one of the key objectives is to attract investors to help fund the company in its launch. But in many cases, the startup may not need additional funding (or may not be able to get any finances from the outside). And so a Business Plan may not be essential to get the company launched, but we suggest that you should still create a good business plan, as you may need it down the road to get additional funding — or mainly to have as a checkpoint document and update it as the business continues. It can serve as a good reference at different milestones of the path of your startup. As an entrepreneur, it is always a good idea to have a flexible business plan that is recent, for it always will indicate the reality of the state of the entrepreneurial venture.

Note: this episode was recorded in an area that had some extraneous noise outside, which happened to slightly affect the quality of the audio. We apologize for this inconvenience and we thank you for your understanding.