Evan Carmichael explains why entrepreneurs need a fixed vision but flexible paths. Keep Plan A as your core goal, but stay open to Plan B and C if they serve that mission. He warns against chasing shiny objects and shares how his biotech company learned to build what customers actually wanted, not what they assumed they needed.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm gonna be talking about should you have a Plan B or just stick to your Plan A? So it came from a reader question, so coming in from Chuck Woody, I hope I pronounced that properly, from Twitter, and he wrote in saying, "Good morning Evan, wanna find out if it's true or not to have a Plan B." but only stick with our original Plan A? So thanks for the question, a great one, something a lot of entrepreneurs face, especially as you're getting your business started. The thing is, it never works out as you think it's going to work out. Things will always change, you know, as great a business plan as you're going to have, the minute you actually start running your business, the plan is going to change. What I recommend doing is having a vision. So you want to have a main vision, you want to have a goal for what you want to accomplish, but how you get there you gotta be open to it, right? So, you know, for me, what I want to do is help a billion entrepreneurs. It's one of my main goals inside of my business, and most of the way I do it is through my website. But how that happens on a daily basis changes. So you don't want to be too rigid in how you go about doing things, but you want to have a set goal, a set vision for what you want to accomplish with your company. Things are going to change, opportunities are going to come up. You want to make sure that the opportunities are related to what you're doing. One problem a lot of entrepreneurs face is they get distracted, right? It's easy to get distracted by shiny objects, new opportunities, and forget about what you were doing. And one problem that a lot of entrepreneurs go through is they just jump on new opportunities, new opportunities, new opportunities, and never see anything through to completion. And that's a major challenge, it's a big problem. So if you want to have success, you got to focus on something and see it through. So have that main goal, have that main vision of what you want to accomplish, Don't be strict on how that has to get done. You know, let things happen, let opportunities come, but make sure it's still in line with your main goal of what you want to accomplish. So it's great to have a Plan A, it's great to have a Plan B, it's great to have a Plan C, D, E, F, you know, goes on. Be open to the market, see what customers are telling you. As an example, in my first software company, we created software that was biotech software. It helped companies plan research to try to find cures for all sorts of different diseases and ailments. And we spent a lot of time working on this feature that we thought was really helpful and cool, but nobody else actually did. Our customers didn't care about it. So we spent all this time creating this feature that they didn't want, and if we just talked to them and figured out what they wanted, we would have been able to build a much better tool. Now luckily, we still had enough great features in there to be able to sell and, you know, make it into a real business. But by talking to your customers, you'll find out different things that you didn't plan on from the beginning, and they'll take you to new opportunities. So adding different features in based on customer feedback from them, that was still in line with our goal. We still want to build a successful software company, we still want to help solve different ailments and try to help cure diseases. That was our overall goal. How exactly we did it changes based on the feedback you get from the market. And so when you're starting up, it's important to have a plan, it's important to make educated assumptions. A lot of them are guesses, but as you get into the market, you start talking to your customers, you'll find that things are going to change and you want to be responsive and not be too rigid. So again, have that main goal, have that big vision for what you want to accomplish, have your Plan A and B, and as long as the opportunities that come to you are still in line with your vision and goal will help you accomplish it, go for it. If it's off a completely different tree and it will take you off in a completely different direction, then you have to evaluate what you're really trying to do as an entrepreneur. So hopefully that helps. Great question, one that I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. If you guys like the video, please give it a thumbs up. Uh, makes me wanna do more of these videos for you guys. And if you have a question or comment about Plan A, Plan B, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'd also love to hear any problems you're facing with your business so I can try to answer them. If you wanna leave it in the comments below, I always read the comments. They mean a lot to me. Uh, so please leave a comment if you can, and we'll see you on the next episode.
