A prominent stream of research on business planning has not taken into account the fact that business planning activities are not randomly occurring phenomenon, but choices of entrepreneurs who have specific cognitions shaped by past experiences. Strikingly, while substantial research is devoted to business planning and its outcomes, little is known about the consequences of customer interaction. In this research, we address this research gap by comparing and contrasting antecedents and consequence of customer interaction and business planning as well as their interrelations. We show how the founder’s cognition, education and experience shape their choice to engage in business planning and/or customer interaction. Subsequently, we develop a research model to control for the endogeneity of the decision to select the respective activity, and examine how business planning and customer interaction impact the investment behavior of the founder and investors as well as the progress of new venture creation.