There's no question that writing a business plan is a complicated process - and that it's a behemoth task. YAWN.

But here's a new idea: instead of wigging out at the magnitude of the project and throwing your hands up, try taking a simple approach to getting started. Over at Wisebread (via Lifehacker), they suggest that all you need to kick-start the process is to answer four questions:

1) What is your product or service

2) Who are your customers

3) When will things get done?

4) When are the bills due and when do you get paid?

We'd also add the following:

5) Who's your competition and what are you doing differently or better than them?

6) What's the problem in the market that you're solving?

While at first blush that seems awfully (overly?) simple, it actually makes sense. Before you get caught up in the idea that you need to create a novel-sized business plan with page upon page of financial projections and market data (and thus give up), try to boil your idea down to its simplest form. Doing that automatically gives you a better shot at creating a business plan that is clear, focused, and doesn't get lost in useless details. Trust us, business plans that spend pages pontificating on garbage end up where they belong—in the waste bin.

What do you think? Are there any other questions you'd add to this list? Before anyone starts screaming in the comments section that we've dumbed-down the business planning proccess, bear in mind that we're simply talking about questions to ask yourself as a starting point.