Not sure what should go in a business plan? Here’s an agile process to use

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In my previous article here on Tech in Asia, I wrote about why you need to go back and write your business plan. After gathering feedback from readers, I realized that there are two main issues that startup founders find difficult when creating business plans: first, is it’s too tedious and second, they’re not sure what to include in it.

Schools typically make a business plan sound like a feasibility study, which is time-consuming. While a business plan should ideally undergo a feasibility study to be more successful, this iterative process is not agile enough for startups.

Your business plan doesn’t have to be scholarly, but robust and sufficiently researched (trying to avoid the word “well-researched,” otherwise it’s going to sound like I’m asking you to do a feasibility study again!). Be creative, own it, and give each aspect careful thought.

Part 1: Identify the players

1. Founders and products

This step is the easiest because you might probably have decided already who your team is going to be and the product that you will sell before seriously considering starting a business.

The team that you’ll build your business with is your foundation, so make sure you choose the members well.

Your product can mean anything—tangible items, software, or services. It’s crucial to be clear about the high-level product that you plan to sell before creating your business plan.

2. Founder analysis

This is one of the crucial steps that friends-turned-founders usually miss because you just simply know each other too well. This step requires you to establish the key strengths of each founder which can be categorized into two: (1) product-specific strength and (2) qualitative strength.

Product-specific strengths mean the technical skills that each founder can contribute to the business. Most often this is clear to founders since you know each other, but identifying a list of strengths at the very start provides you a better idea on how you can better split the work. Qualitative strengths, on the other hand, are all other personal attributes that can be helpful in the business.

Hopefully, you’re seeing where I’m heading. Product-specific strengths fit into your individual role into developing the product while qualitative strengths would help determining the person fit for each position needed.

3. Founder-product link

The first two items above prepare you for this third step where you have to determine whether your team has the right fit for the product that you want to deliver to your customers. It’s not necessary that founders meet all the requirements, but they have to be fully knowledgeable about the product.

Part 2: Build the Story