Jon, thanks for sharing your great thoughts. If I should add something to your already good points is that: The most important point to remember, when it comes to developing a business plan for an entrepreneur is in fact not the plan itself, but the step that s/he needs to go through, forcing him/her to “structuring” his/her “thoughts” about the venture — and ensure they have thought-out about everything; pros and cons, and what can go wrong etc. Therefor, at this stage it is something only for the entrepreneur him/herself. This stage is not any team-effort, that comes later.

This “soul-searching” and “structured” approach is one of the key issues the VC/Banks/Investors want to see. They want to see that the person has gone through everything linked to his business, that s/he has thought about how and what, etc. so they know what they are going into, and also thought out any contingency plan or exit-plan if it should fail to go as planned.

Later, when the business is up an running, yes, then the entrepreneur should involve his mgmt-team to fine-tune the BP the way you suggest and so forth…