The Written Business Plan Died Sometime in the Last 5 Years

Today I was thinking about those pesky 20-30 page business plans startups used to be compelled to write. When we started AccelerEyes in 2007, the business plan was on the decline, but it was still prevalent enough that we had to write one, and rewrite, and rewrite. What a waste of time!

It started out as a class assignment, part of the TI:GER program. It morphed into being used for 2008-2009 competitions: Georgia Bowl, Moot Corp BPC, Georgia Tech BPC, and the TAG Business Launch. Strategic partners asked for it. Potential investors asked for it.

Now those written plans are dead. No one writes them. No one reads them. Things have changed rapidly these last 5 years.

They’ve been replaced by crisp slidedecks based in customer development and sound strategic thinking. And those slidedecks themselves have been demoted to merely supplementing live demos of working MVPs. Well, at least that’s how the top startups operate.

The death of the written business plan is part of a broader movement towards efficient entrepreneurship. Atlanta is especially good at efficient entrepreneurship and has a core competitive advantage there.

Have you noticed the written business plan die? What other signs have you seen of efficient entrepreneurship?

Related articles