Pitching Your Business vs. Planning Your Business

Pitching Your Business vs. Planning Your Business: I feel like recently, as the Lean Startup movement gains more and more traction (I love the Lean Startup principles) and there are more incubators, accelerators, innovation centers, etc. helping startups get off the ground, that I'm hearing more and more this idea:

"you don't need a business plan, you need a great pitch"

While I absolutely agree that a great pitch is critical for any high growth startup thinking of pitching Angel Investors or Venture Capital firms, I am puzzled by this idea that you need a pitch but not a plan. When I talk to people  who run incubators and accelerators, they all give me the same song and dance. Full disclosure: as the CEO of Palo Alto Software, the developers behind LivePlan, a Software as a Service online planning solution, it is in my benefit to have every small business and every startup write a business plan. But nonetheless, I run this business because I truly do believe in the tools that we produce and truly feel that planning will make startups and small businesses more successful. So, back to this idea of a plan vs. a pitch and what a startup really needs to be successful in today's landscape. Let's make the assumption that you don't need a plan. That what you need is a fantastic pitch. A pitch where you presumably need to talk about: