As web developer and graphic designer, I have a lot of entrepreneurs with limited marketing budgets come and ask for logo, website, business cards, etc. 9 out of 10 don’t even have the products or services ready to sell and haven’t even tried to find any customers yet.

I have personal experience in this as well. When I started my first business in college, I wanted to have a complete business plan with all the financial forecasts, sales and marketing strategies, executive summary… I spend countless hours designing logos, business cards, brochures, websites. I also worried a lot about getting a business phone number and a formal business address so that it doesn’t look like I’m working out of my mom’s house.

Long story short, the business didn’t work out, I wasted time and money on business plan, logo, business cards, brochures, flyers.

The point is why spend time writing a business plan when you already know what it is. Why spend too much time thinking about business name and logo when it’s going to change. (Apple, Microsoft, Google all had their business names and logos changed). How can you have financial forecasts when you don’t know if anyone will buy your product or service yet? A nice looking business plan and logo will not impress investors if you have no users or customers. Also, no one is going to care if you have an 800 phone number. No one is going to investigate where your address is or use Google earth to zoom down your house to look for you. You wouldn’t want that kind of creeps for customers anyways.

If people need your products or services, they could care less about your business plan or how your business cards look or what type of phone number or address you have. People pay you for your products and services, not your business plan or stationaries.

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