Writing a business plan helps formalize your idea and can streamline the business-creation process by getting you to sit down and think things through methodically.

And, yes, plans are (often) worthless, but planning is everything. Many entrepreneurs say they rarely look at their plan once they’ve launched—but they’ll also tell you there’s value in thinking through and researching your idea; writing any business plan is the perfect canvas for this exercise.

At the very least, you'll quickly figure out what questions you don't have answers to. Having a firm grasp of your "known unknowns" is important because all it means is that you're actively not prioritizing finding a solution right now; that's a lot better than being unprepared or caught off guard, especially if you struggle to answer these questions while seeking funding.

Your day-to-day of getting your business off the ground will undoubtedly move on a much shorter timeline than the average business plan. And that's a good thing; you need to know what you think, not what you thought. But the initial draft of your plan is like charting a course for an intended destination. Along the way, things will change, and minute details in the original plan will become out of date. But if you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you've arrived?