This one falls under the category of recently discovered. Bill Morrow, co-founder and Director of AngelsDen, a crowdfunding portal that has raised over £18 million for business believes “those who ask for business plans are doomed to fail”. Now Morrow is not just being glib. He has a track record to back up his opinion since over 90% of the companies funded on AngelsDen are still in operations. An enviable stat for early stage funding.
“There is only one thing worse than writing a business. It is getting someone else to write it for you”
In a TEDx presentation, Morrow states the obvious; creating a presenting business plan is not indicative of a viable business. He says that it shows that “you are incredibly good at using excel spread sheets” and you are “incredibly good at guesstimating what these numbers are.” He also notes that few Angel investors actually spend any time actually reading business plans. So while many accelerators and grant programs ask for them, in many respects it is a pointless exercise as team and concept are more important.
“Everyone of them is wrong”
Morrow is not alone in criticizing business plans as a bit of a waste – of both time and money. The video below is worth a watch for seed stage companies (and investors).