The other day I was trying out the New York Times digital reader 2.0, I must admit I’m enjoying watching the media giants try reinvent their revenue models on how to charge for content, premium or otherwise, and it will be interesting to see which technologies get consumer buy-in, but that’s not the topic of this post.

I also stumbled upon an interesting article about business plans and entrepreneurs by Scott Shane a Professor at Case western, which is the subject but not the topic which I wish to discuss, what I would like to discuss is the fact that I commented on the blog and my comment was summarily dismissed by the moderator and never made it into the great wide open, so I would like feedback from my professional readers as to whether my comment was crass and unprofessional or was just a little too racy to be fully comprehended by the poor bugger earning minimum wage as a journalism intern at the New York Times.

The article discussed why entrepreneurs don’t draft business plans and posits 3 potential motivations which can be summarized as:

1. Ignorance Theory- Many entrepreneurs don’t know what researchers and more experienced practitioners have figured out

2. Just Do It theory- The action orientation, combined with heavy dose of optimism, leads many entrepreneurs to skip the writing step

3. Don’t-look-under-the-hood theory- People don’t want to test their ideas too much, for fear they won’t withstand the scrutiny

Ok, so by now you’re probably wondering what could I have written that was so offensive that it didn’t qualify as a comment on a subject as parev as this, so have a look and decide for yourself.

I proposed an alternate theory called Does-this-dress-make-my-bum-look-fat theory which I believe is a hybrid theory which synergizes the above 3 theories into a multi-motivational theory of why people don’t draft business plans, it goes like this:

In all likelihood this back of a bus ticket half-tongue-in-cheek theory won’t become the next hot management guru quote, but I believe it conveys the complex motivation of many an entrepreneur debating as to the extent they wish to prepare for their outbound venture.

To illustrate how some ideas initially appear pretty dumb I like to employ the example of how you would respond to a colleague who asked your advice regarding naming his company Macrohard, which does sound a little banal, yet the inverse name Microsoft definitely rings a commercial tone, or perhaps branding in hindsight is just a futile exercise, just ask the boys from Och-Ziff!