Dan Shapiro has an excellent post up titled What to do when an investor asks you for your business plan. In it he addresses something we missed in Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.
In the section where we discuss business plans, we say:
“We haven’t read a business plan in over 20 years. Sure, we still get plenty of them, but it is not something we care about as we invest in areas we know well, and as a result we much prefer demos and live interactions…. However, realize that some VCs care a lot about seeing a business plan, regardless of the current view by many people that a business plan is an obsolete document.”
We go on to say:
“Regardless, you will occasionally be asked for a business plan. Be prepared for this and know how you plan to respond, along with what you will provide, if and when this comes up.”
As Dan rightly points out, we don’t tell you what to do. He does:
“Whenever an investor asks you for your business plan, send them the same damn packet you send to everyone else. In our case, that was a 3-page “executive summary” and a dozen slides giving an overview of the business with some screenshots of the product (it was mobile, and 2006, so there wasn’t any easy way to send them a demo). Don’t apologize and don’t mention the business plan.”
Dan – we completely agree. Well said – thanks for adding the paragraph we clearly left out.
