Planning Is Guessing

Long-term planning, strategic planning, tactical planning — all of these types of planning are really funny for a start-up, chuckles David Heinemeier Hansson, partner at 37signals. The punch line, he delivers, is that a start-up doesn’t even know if it will be doing business in five years, let alone five months. These types of planning suit a stable business, like McDonald’s in Northern Illinois. But a new business in a new industry has no clue what it will need long-term. In fact, he adds, most decisions for a start-up are incredibly temporary. What does matter more than planning? Simply starting.