You Can't Plan For Everything

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When we soft launched SideraWorks last month we had a plan.  I'm not much of a 'business plan' kind of guy, by that I mean those templated documents that you spend a considerable amount of time trying to fill in content for and then put on a shelf never to be seen again.  While I was in venture capital I can't tell you how many of those I had to read that weren't worth the paper they were written on, so I'm a bit cynical.  However, I do research and analyze a marketplace to see what its needs are, how well that need is currently being met, and how it could be done better.  After a number of sanity checks and revisions with people smarter than I am that eventually leads to a business 'plan' (call it what you will, my partner and I don't formalize it into giant documents).

This isn't my first rodeo, I'm well aware of the fact that the marketplace doesn't conform itself to your planning. Yet I'm foolishly still surprised when things fall out of the woodwork that I didn't expect.  What do I mean? Here's how well some of that planning has shaped up so far:

  • Plan: Soft launch the company, generate enough interest to land a couple of clients while we spend time finishing up some basic things like web sites, materials, etc. before the hard launch.
  • Actual: The interest has outstripped our ability to work on much of anything else.  A good problem to have? Sure.  According to plan? Not even close.  It's great for now, but if it were to continue for too long it would be to our detriment as we wouldn't be scaling the company.  It's a fine balancing act splitting your time between generating revenue for today vs preparing for revenue tomorrow.

  • Plan: Two primary revenue drivers.  One is self-evident, Social Business consulting.  The other will be a bit of a surprise and arrives late 2012 (or should I say, that's the 'plan'?).
  • Actual: Yes, consulting is still the driver, but about 30% of the demand has come from a *completely* unexpected direction and with a slight variance on our offering.  30% is a pretty large number to have not seen coming.  We've had to refine a separate offering that's more in line with that unexpected demand because the one we'd built wasn't a perfect fit for it.  It also means changes to the sales pipeline structure, targeting, messaging, etc to account for the differences.

There are many other examples, including 'simple' things on a list that turn out to be more difficult than we expected.  Social Business is an incredibly nuanced topic, and not the easiest to explain.  As anyone in this space can attest, simplifying what you do and why you do it into a clear concise message is by far the biggest challenge.  We knew that, hell we're hyper-aware of it since we think the space in general does a really poor job of it, but I suppose we arrogantly believed that when we put some true effort towards it we would quickly overcome it.  I'd love to say we've got that one licked since it was on our list to be complete months ago…but we don't.  Have we made considerable progress in refining that message? Certainly, but 'making progress' is a long way from putting a checkmark in the 'complete' column.

To be frank, we're lucky.  The things that 'haven't gone to plan' have been beneficial to us for the most part.  You could say we were mindfully conservative in our estimates.  You could say it was the good planning of a soft launch model that allowed for the flexibility we've had.  You could say it was the million other little things we did that built the foundation.  But truthfully? It could just as easily have gone the other way.  Would I have been this transparent if things hadn't gone so well?  Great question.  I'm not sure.  Soon enough another surprise will come that makes me look like Nostradamus' idiot brother, we'll see what happens then.  

So should you have a plan?  Absolutely, not necessarily a traditional 'business plan', but a plan nonetheless.  But know that the only thing you can count on for sure is that things will not go completely to plan.  Prepare yourself for that fact so that when those surprises appear you can more easily accept them and roll with the punches.  Otherwise you'll keep trying to frantically shove them into your 'plan' and either miss the opportunity or not heed the risk they represent.  I'm no wise sage upon the hill who never makes this mistake anymore.  I'm the guy who often forgets this and needs to be reminded that a business plan should never be 'done', it should be a living thing that is always a 'work in progress'.  

P.S. - Do I like to ask rhetorical questions and then answer them myself? Apparently.

Cheers,

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

*photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacmao/
Posted on Wednesday, Feb 8, 2012 by