We here at HomeField have never claimed to be business experts.  We certainly don’t have an MBA among us… but that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about building a business.

So to correct that double negative… we DO know how to build a business.

One of our key tenets is being flexible.  As a software service built entirely on the web, we have the ability to change on the fly and iterate often.  It’s great for product development, but hell for anyone writing a business plan… so… we don’t have one(!) and the Harvard Business Review thinks we’re A-OK.  (See the excerpt below).

Where’d we learn this madness?  On the field, of course!

In sports, coaches can spend hours formulating a game plan, but when it comes down to it, the game moves too fast and quick decisions have to be made on the fly.  The best coaches get the right players on the field first, then set them in the right direction and trust that their instincts will take over from there.

We’ve seen it a hundred times – a well disciplined team goes up against Opponent X and when X does something unpredictable, the disciplined team falls to pieces.  You can’t be a robot in competition.

Check out the excerpt here and click through to read the rest of the article.  Some great advice…

From Keeping Your Business Plan Flexible by Amy Gallo on the HBR’s Best Practices Blog:

Case Study #1: Skip the formal document

Reece Pacheco and his fellow co-founders started the game-film editing and sharing service Homefield in 2007. When they started to court investors, they were regularly told to send their business plan. Reece spent a lot of time and energy creating a traditional one. It was difficult because, as he says, “early on, we didn’t know everything we needed to know.” In two weeks what he’d written was no longer relevant. He also found that the investors and partners most intrigued by Homefield didn’t care about the plan. They just wanted to hear his story and why he was passionate about the business. In fact, those that were less interested were more likely to request a plan.

Reece decided that a traditional plan wasn’t practical. “The web moves too fast. Most businesses move too fast he explains. “Investors’ attention spans have gotten shorter and shorter.” And the customers Homefield has secured are much better proof of their company’s viability than any five-year projections. So Reece now uses a six-page PowerPoint deck that is flexible and easy to update. The aim is to “build relationships,” to convince partners and investors that he and his colleagues are the right people to execute on their unique idea. And so far, it’s worked.