There must be something in the air today (Er, slow news week?) because more than a few business blogs are running variations on those "top tips for entrepreneurs" lists or advice-y types posts that get recycled every so often. A couple are kind of interesting, including VC Guy Kawasaki's Five Most Important Lessons I've Learned As An Entrepreneur on the Sun Microsystems blog and the Small Business Trends' Five Success Tips You Never Learned In School.

Despite that, there's no question that the advice in these posts tends to be the same stuff you've heard before (it is, as we pointed out, recycled info). Focus on cash flow! Don't be a control freak! But a post in the same vein on marketing guru Seth Godin's blog struck us as actually being worth a read. That's because it reflects on something most entrepreneurs legitimately should consider before starting a business. Here's the crux: does it make sense to nail down every tiny detail of your business before you get started? Godin writes:

"A friend sent me a business plan the other day. He outlined four or five elements of the project he was launching and wanted my feedback on each.

In our haste to get started, we jump ahead.

He'd already decided to launch a project. To make it a non-profit. To build it on a scale of a million dollars a year. To do projects that would involve certain types of growth but avoid others. To include primarily live events instead of online or media properties. He'd also decided not to create a self-propelling movement, not to be tribe-focused and not to be huge (or tiny).

That's a lot of decisions to make before you start."

We agree. What do you think?