What we now know.

Startups are not just smaller versions of larger companies. Harvard started the first MBA program in 1908, but what they did not teach in the program is how to start a company.

It was previously believed that startup companies would do the same thing as a larger company- just smaller. However we now know that startups do more searching with large companies do more execution.

Another thing we used to believe was that we would spend a lot of time writing a business plan, then we would just follow that plan. However startups are rollercoaster rides that include ups and down. In turn no business plan survives first contact with a customer.

What we need to do is planning before the plan. We need to organize our thinking and get out of the building and test our hypothesis. This becomes a search for a business plan, not a write-up of a business plan. The result is a business model canvas where we update it frequently. This become a checklist for a business.