I used to spend about 3 days every year writing a business plan. Everyone used to tell me how much I need one to ensure the direction of the company is set.<p>It's 80% bollocks, if you'll pardon my french. What you need to do is ship, measure and respond. The numbers in a business plan never reflect reality and there's too many things that you wouldn't see coming that'll affect you.<p>Where business plans come in useful is in getting your idea down and making sure you've done everything to confirm that it's a viable startup. Once you're up and running you should be reviewing what you're doing on a regular basis - you don't need a business plan for that.
One obvious point - startupbritain is about general startups (there's no requirement for tech-only startups on their site). @jot's jfdibritain has a decidedly tech focus, it doesn't help with e.g. manufacturing (when someone wants to make something physical), retail (regular selling/buying like most of the country are used to) or other conventional routes.
Maybe the sites aren't trying to achieve the same thing?
I agree with the sentiment of JFDI Britain, however it depends how you "JFDI" ... if you can bootstrap and do it all yourself, then fine, JFDI. However if you want to attract finance from Angels, VCs or even get loans from banks you'll need some kind of justification and that requires a business plan.<p>I'm a firm believer that a business plan changes as soon as you get any money (and the earlier stage the business is, the more guesswork and unrelated to reality the business plan is). However by doing a business plan, it shows you've thought about how the business is going to work.<p>Building a business around technology and going "we'll build it and they will come" is in the most part, complete b*llocks. You need to show that you've at least thought about how revenues will be generated, if you haven't why are you running a business. Unless you're a charity (or a not for profit) your only reason for running a business is to generate shareholder value. That may sound corny, but that's why companies have shareholders!!!<p>So JFDI is fine, but prove it's fine and that it's not just tech for the sake of it.
Well said. Business plans suck time and energy. They are usually required by time wasters (investors you should avoid anyway) and waste valuable time (when you could be iterating).
Great response - if you want an in-depth look at what's inherently wrong with 'StartUp Britain', then look no further than this <a href="http://postdesk.com/debates/why-startup-britain-is-nothing-more-than-a-government-backed-link-farm/" rel="nofollow">http://postdesk.com/debates/why-startup-britain-is-nothing-m...</a>