What must an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan?

The business plan phase could be quite time consuming. I‘ve witnessed clients who did business plans in around six months. At one stage, one should wonder whether it‘s worth it to create a business plan in such a long time. However, if that‘s your plan, then no one could say anything about it. The real question comes in the phase after—what must an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan?

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What must an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan?

Stage 1: Implementation and Verification

Think of it this way, if you have been planning a trip for quite a long time, what do you do next? You go for it. But, it would be wiser to verify the temperature and the variables on that morning. Hence, this is what you should do.

You already have your business plan ready. Now let‘s verify your variables.

Let‘s start off with your market research. Is it telling you that now is the time to launch?

For instance, I launched a virtual reality product in 2015, and it failed. If I had launched it in 2022, it could‘ve had a chance. Thereby, is your market research pointing out that your product‘s need is now? This one of the most vital validations before jumping in the water. In other words, feel the temperature.

Finally, if you‘re working in the crypto industry for example, and you consumed six months in the business plan like that client of mine, you might want to re-check your market research. The FTX collapse happened a month ago or so. This affected the crypto world by the billions (including the second largest crypto exchange, Coinbase.)

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Stage 2: Prototype

Now it‘s time to get your hands dirty. There‘s nothing that shows a business more than a product. So, let‘s say your business plan was about a sock business. In this case, show yourself version alpha of that sock. Take your time doing that as this is the most important stage. You‘ll be able to see what you‘re delivering to the public.

Yet, what if your business plan is about a service?

Similarly, create portfolio element and possibly a landing page. You need to correctly envision the customer journey and experience the final product beforehand.

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Stage 3: Feedback

If you do have your product, you will be quite biased towards it, even if you don‘t think so. Your business is like your baby; you think it‘s the most beautiful baby in the world. The only way to validate this is to show it to others. When you do that, don‘t focus on people you know like your friends and family. Actually, don‘t pitch it as your own product as well because people tend to get sympathetic when you ask them about their opinions of something you did. They will want to be nice.

So maybe you should try telling them that it‘s a new product of your company and that you‘re assembling constructive feedback.

That‘s what an entrepreneur should do after creating a business plan in the final phases. Then comes the next big thing.

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Stage 4: Launch

Over-planning could be one of the worst things that happen to entrepreneurs. Many of the top entrepreneurs of the world started with no business plan. They started by immediately getting their hands dirty, practically. If you ask them, “What should an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan?“, they‘ll tell you that you do not need a business plan and that you need to start working.

Again, it‘s like having a child, no one is ever ready for it. You need to launch, and you do not need to put pressure on yourself. The problem with Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial world these days is that you might think of fast growth as your most important variable. Grow fast or die!

Truth is, Uber did grow fast, Airbnb as well. However, you do not need to get an investment in six months and transform into a unicorn in two years. There is no rush. There are companies who truly affected the world and became giants, like Apple, who took a lot longer than this.

Thereby, launch and fail. Learn from that an enhance your product. Create your beta and gamma versions. This is the actual entrepreneurial journey that every entrepreneur must do after creating a business plan.

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Step 5: So, what must you, an entrepreneur, do after creating a business plan? Learn!

Fail, fail, and fail more. The day you launch keep this mentality on your mind. Almost every entrepreneur you know had failure one day or another. Nonetheless, the world remembers the successes.

Many people in the world regard medicine as the most challenging profession as it requires constant learning. I personally think that entrepreneurship is more challenging. Yes, the world of medicine has diseases that are increasing annually and must be dealt with. However, the world is a single team fighting against diseases.

In business, if you‘re trying to solve a business problem, you are probably on your own.

• If a doctor tries to cure cancer, no one would stop in their way.
• If an entrepreneur decides to create a ride-hailing company like Uber, the taxi associations would stand against them.

Your learning curve must be non-stop. You need to constantly read the news and understand what is happening in the world of business. When this big entrepreneur acquires this company, you need to know why. When a company collapses, you certainly need to know why that happened.

So, before I leave you, when you think of what must an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan? Summarizing it is quite simple. Test, Launch, Fail, Repeat.

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