There are many, many things to get right in building a plug-in and making a project. If you get them wrong, some will give errors, some will fail later, and many will make a plug-in that just doesn't load.
So always start with an existing sample project, perhaps the STARTER project, and add your code rather than trying to reinvent this particular wheel.
(If you are trying to use the plug-in API in your own EXE, give up, you cannot).