Having studied entrepreneurship as a master-degree, I learned that business-plans are important for the entrepreneur to verbalise what he is doing. If he can't do that in a plan, can he do it to outsiders, specifically his customers? However, running a startup for a year now, I find the act of writing a business-plan always comes second after doing what needs to be done to keep the business alive. Still, writing offers some reprieve from the day-to-day stress and I'm much better versed than my co-workers on the grander vision and how to get there.
Will a business-plan get you funded? It did in our case, from a governmental institution, but all the real investors I met preferred two things: a working product ready to launch and a clear financial overview of the potential return on their investment.
A new startup should write a business plan. If nothing else you familiarize with writing about your ideas and products on paper. With that you make a clearer vision of where you are headed and what you want to do. I believe you are thinking about everything everyday and all the time, but if you have to explain it to someone, it can be easily done with a business plan. It also shows you have read through most of the 10 points that potential investors are looking for, so you did your homework.
No one is saying that you should make an ultimate one, its a practice to refine it on a monthly, or semi monthly basis, depending on the pace of your development.
And also a product by itself is great to show around, but the numbers in business plan can also convince a lot of maybe not potential users, but business partners and investors.
I vote for writing it just so you put all your thoughts and plans on paper and doing iterations forward from there, I believe it's useful.
You have a masters in Entrepreneurship? Awesome, I'm close to getting my bachelors in it. I'd love to talk about the value that post-grad studies gave you--drop me a line: austin (at) beatnex (dot) com
Will a business-plan get you funded? It did in our case, from a governmental institution, but all the real investors I met preferred two things: a working product ready to launch and a clear financial overview of the potential return on their investment.