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Jensen Huang: Your Startup Does Not Need a Traditional Business Plan

By Jensen Huang · Product & Building · 1 min read

Huang says business plans are for banks. Startups need conviction and a prototype.

Key Points

Traditional business plans are fiction for startups — the market does not exist yet
Build a prototype instead of writing a plan
Conviction and depth of understanding matter more than projections

We could not write a business plan because the market did not exist. We just knew it mattered.

Plans Are Fiction

NVIDIA could not write a business plan in 1993. The market for graphics chips barely existed.

There was nothing to project. No historical data. No comparable companies.

Huang says that is true for most startups. You are building something that does not exist yet.

Build Instead

Instead of a plan, build a prototype. Show that it works.

A working demo convinces investors more than any spreadsheet.

Huang walked into meetings with conviction and hardware. Not slides.

We could not write a plan. We just knew it mattered.

Conviction

VCs funded NVIDIA because of Huang's conviction. His depth of understanding.

He could not prove the market existed. But he could prove he understood the technology better than anyone.

Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes conviction IS the business plan.