Let?s put it like this, the product design has been horrible for 3 months because no real designer has done anything with it. It has just been a surface for testing, basically. This Tuesday we decided to finally do something about it and of course its not completely ready by now. It?s not a major problem, but its annoying? annoying that one always tends to do things in the last minute. The business plan ? my responsibility ? is probably a worse example still; as I could have done it on my own (design takes more resources, some external) and sent it the others for reviewal weeks ago. I?ve been thinking for weeks that ?oh, that! It?s in my head, ill just have to put in on paper? and ?its just some updates from the old version of the BP?. Still, I sat here at 3 am this night (the others trying to resolve a login-issue that design-change had caused) realizing that a lot of the things I?ve written in the plan are nice to read if you?re really bored a Sunday afternoon, probably in the bathroom (and there is no other literature to be found). Maybe my mum would like it, but definitely not an investor.

After several last-minute changes the BP is being printed right now and I just committed the serious mistake of looking inside the document again (too late to change) and? for example (about my virtudes, as I (I!) see them):

I am curious about people and I think I understand people and I know that people trust me

I am curious about people? Is that good? I sneak around in other people?s document? I ask them every time they hang up the phone: "Who was that?"??

I know (know!) that people trust me!? I don?t know that. I have no idea. I hope they do. I don?t hear on a daily basis that they don?t, but I don?t KNOW anything.

And that?s the dilemma. In a Business Plan you should ? I guess ? write things you KNOW. When your business is such, that knowledge about its markets and arenas is scarce, and when the only real consumer-pain to be defined is based on personal opinions and preferences? then it gets hard to write a really boring Business Plan with lots of pretty graphs. And when that is the case, you might end up printing (and handing over, oh my ***) the accidental:

I have far-reaching visions and the ability to communicate them, internally and externally.

Of course I have! Or at least, Of course I THINK I have. Otherwise I wouldn?t be writing the document at all, would I?

And the problem is, when you start stating information that is non-relevant, non-differentiating and/or just "taken for granted basic expections" inside a selling document, you might loose your audience, maybe even risk your trustworthiness ? even worse ? you might come out as a complete ass-licker.

People who know me know I am not? but when I knock on your door and you?ve never seen me before and I?m dressed like one? and when later while reviewing the document I handed over it states that I am ?curious about people??

Anyway, the Business Plan is being printed right now and everyone in the office says that there is nothing I can help them with.

So calm came over me suddenly, and I enjoyed it blogging. Next blog will be about how poor the service-level is in this society, with a real-life example from Banco Santander the other day.

By the way ? to all our investors reading this ? its one hell of a Business Plan we will be handing out today! (Though there are always more darlings to kill...)

Now we are off for the meeting, have a great day!

Oskar