Great business planning has a lot of moving parts. The more you can nail down things like your value proposition, your business model, and your go-to-market strategy, the easier it will be to you to be successful. There’s even that all-important detail of how your business will actually manage to turn a profit. The idea behind a business plan is to answer all of these questions in a single, relatively easy to read document.

But is a narrative business plan really the best option? To answer that question, it helps to understand the audience. Who will be reading this business plan? Will it just be investors and lenders, or is this something you’ll be showing to potential co-founders or high-value employees? What kind of document will give those people the information they need, and in the easiest-to-digest form?

Is a longform business plan really the best document to use in all cases, or are there better options available? Continue reading →