Too many people think that a company’s vision is just marketing talk and for some companies, that’s probably all it is, but for startup companies and entreupreneurs – it couldn’t be more important.
To understand vision – its useful to think about what comes before vision. What is it that you can’t stand? What gets at you so bad, that you just have to do something about it? The answer for most software Entreupreneurs is probably some sort of dis-satisfaction, whether it be because you can’t find the right tools, or the tools out there just don’t cut it, or … Its often this that leads an Entrepreneur to start a company and invest huge amounts of energy and money into it. There comes a point in time where the dis-satisfaction becomes so strong that you enter some super-human state of mind and realise you can do it better than anyone else and that its worth selling your house for and investing all your time for the next x years into and this becomes your vision.
Vision isn’t something that the whole company thinks up at the annual team-building day. It doesn’t come from the marketing dept or a mentor or the board of directors. It comes from leaders. Leaders who have vision will always attract people who want to follow and work for them because “without vision, the people perish”.
Vision is something that a lot of people write off because they don’t understand it. It is simply why we get passionate and committed to do what we do. If we’re working for a small software company and building a state of the art software system but no-body knows why … then what’s the point? You work for the leader because they’re the one with the vision.
I think that when it comes to writing a business plan for a software company, you should start with:
Vision - why are you doing it? This is driven by the dis-satisfaction that led you to start the company and is what gives you passion and commitment.
Mission – what are you going to do to fulfill your vision?
Strategy – how are you going to deliver on your mission?
Objectives – divide and conquer – how much of your strategy can you achieve this year?
Goals – things you can touch and feel and that when met will fulfill your objectives
Entrepreneurs who want people to follow and commit to them have to be leaders and this means knowing your vision and making it absolutely clear to everyone involved.
