The Three Page Business as Mission Start-up Plan
I have a confession to make. I don’t like formal business plans. In certain entrepreneurial academic circles, this is heresy. But over the years, I’ve seen the development of business plans as a major impediment to actually starting businesses. The people who are most entrepreneurial by nature are the most likely to freeze up when faced with the daunting task of formulating a business plan. And most of the successful entrepreneurs I know never had a business plan on paper when they started. They merely had an idea in their head and a personality wired for action. It’s my belief that too much start-up planning saps the potential energy from someone with an entrepreneurial nature. This is especially true for individuals starting faith ventures to employ individuals rebuilding lives from homelessness, addiction or prison. Faith venture initiators are even more likely to bog down with the added dimension of the double bottom line where they are seeking both business profits as well as