That is the question…. I read a post by Joe Lee on the uselessness of planning in an early stage (under 1M) company. He promoted the post later which leads me to think it was more of an attention grabber than a genuine thought – so congrats, you got my attention!
If I remember correctly, he’s talking about all projections at this stage being just wild guesses. He’s not entirely wrong here – but projection is not a plan as they are two very different things.
To be honest, even the plans are often useless on their own. What is critical, though, is the planning process. And, I sincerely doubt Joe did none of that in either of his, by all appearances, successful startups.
“He who aims at nothing hits it every single time.” – I heard that first from Greg Crabtree I believe. I may not be correct about the original source, but I love the quote.
Again, planning is not a projection. Planning is envisioning a future and working your way back from there. What needs to be true for this to have happened, from the future time stand point? Which activities are needed to get us there, and what of what we’re doing is a waste of time?
Is the environment going to change? Will you need to revisit your assumptions often as soon as you make them? Are you going to find out that your image of the future was off, perhaps changing your targets by orders of magnitude? You betcha. But that’s not the point. The point is that you develop a “thinking from the future” habit. You have a discipline of taking those inevitable changes into consideration and correcting the path. Make sure to work on the cohesion in your team so you are able to lean on each other during turbulent times.
All that competence comes from what we call planning cadence. Can you do without in an early stage company, and fly by the seat of your pants, relying on the founder’s intuition? Of course you can. Will you succeed? You might, even. However, you will not be ready for success even if it happens, you will lose valuable time building the skills and qualities needed for the next phase. Further, in my opinion, you will dramatically reduce the chance of success in the first place.
What do you think? To plan or not to plan?
