The importance of having a plan | Hacker News Reader

The importance of having a plan

mathoda.com

19 pointsmathoda12 comments

This is all you need to know about planning, from two of the greatest military minds of the last century:

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. - George S. Patton

  No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

- Helmuth von Moltke

There is always a famous quote that supports your point of view, no matter how wrong you are.

Absolutely, although I'm struggling to find a good famous quote to support this point of view.

  Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
  And think they grow immortal as they quote.

And:

  The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

As an added plus the quote is badly taken out of context for this use.

All the old business advice books I read talked about the importance of having a plan. In the interviews I do with successful entrepreneurs, I don't see clear, detailed plans. I wonder what this means?

Most successful people don't know how they got to be successful. They'll attribute it to whatever they think got them there.

Luck is being prepared for an opportunity

Those who are not prepared, are unlucky. They let life push them in whatever random direction life pushes them in.

http://sithsigma.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/luck-is-being-prep...

The new entrepreneurs you're meeting are probably working in markets that aren't established; you can't plan for what you don't understand. The best you can do is make something that's good NOW, but be prepared to change your product if not your mission as the circumstances dictate.

There is a difference between not having a plan and having one that allows for experimenting. Just because you're trying different things doesn't mean you don't have a plan.

A plan is a good thing. It keeps you from losing focus, lets you set goals and helps you know if you're on track.

Create a plan, you'd be a fool not to, but make sure it allows you to experiment.

I've written a few business plans in my life (3 started companies, 2 sold, current one is Series A funded FWIW).

Every single time, the plans sat on the shelf. Every single time, I looked back at those plans and laughed/cringed at the assumptions I made in them and was amazed at how little my business resembled the picture I painted in those plans.

I think it's a great exercise to run through the sections that are common in biz plans (marketing, etc). Think about 'em, talk about 'em, maybe even through together a spreadsheet or two.

But don't make it formal and don't spend too much time on it-- the more you invest in it, the more it'll feel like a blueprint rather than an exercise.

Obviously a lot of ingredients go into being successful, and invariable few of them get highlighted more and few less in any advice or suggestion given by anyone.

A great plan will not take one anywhere without good execution. and a great plan executed well can fail if timing is not right or for thousand other reasons.

The bottomline is - there is no single silver bullet.

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