Unless you are a serial entrepreneur with a string of successes behind you, you need a business plan to convince investors that you can build a business out of the dream that has been driving your passion to change the world. Don’t believe that Silicon Valley myth that all you have to do is sketch your idea on the back of a napkin, and investors will line up to give you money.
Based on my experience as an angel investor and a mentor to dozens of entrepreneurs, having no business plan is the quickest way to define yourself as just a dreamer, or at best a hobbyist. Let me be quick to say that a plan doesn’t have be a book, and probably should start as a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen slides which cover all the right bases. The details can be added later.
