I write notes, which I generally consider my plan. It never ends up as a full fledged, fully written plan though. But I feel like I need to cover the basics, li

I write notes, which I generally consider my plan. It never ends up as a full fledged, fully written plan though. But I feel like I need to cover the basics, like who I would market to, how I would make money, some general estimates on how much money the idea could make, what the costs will be, how much capital it will require, that sort of thing. I found too many times I got excited about an idea only to later realize it was completely stupid and had no possible chance of making money. I have too many ideas in my head, so writing notes is part of the vetting process. If I can't figure out who would buy or, why and for how much, and if that will be enough in comparison to how much I would need to spend, then its not worth spending more of my time on. I think business plans or notes need to be written, because you come up with ideas and strategies and find problems you would never have thought of. I think its even more important when you're selling an actual physical product or service, because capital is so intensive. I think PG's advice is really for experimental entrepreneurship, where its labor intensive but not necessarily capital intensive, very much like many web 2.0 companies these days. If you're planning on building a widget that will cost $100 to make and sell for $200, you'd better be damned sure you know who might buy it, who would sell it, and when you'll start turning a profit. A good plan can be a process to tell you how those things will happen.