Mr. DaveyEconomics
Developing a Business Plan
As a world-renowned entrepreneur, you and your partners are in the process of establishing a new business together, and need to put together a business plan in order to obtain funding for the Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Your mission is to brainstorm the inner workings of your idea and make certain that its time has come. You will be presenting your plan to request funding for your business proposal to the class and three local tech titans who will come to class and represent VCs. They will ask difficult questions of your team so you should be prepared. If your ideas are manageable for high school students to develop, a group of students within the class may use the proposal in the JA Company Afterschool program and earn extra credit in Economics class. See flyer .
There are five main aspects to your plan which need to be put together. They include: 1. An Executive Summary 2. An Operations Plan 3. A Market Analysis 4. A Marketing Plan 5. And a Financial Analysis. These aspects are explained below.
Executive Summary: What, how, and for whom do you produce? How much time and investment will this require? How much demand/pricing/opportunity is there for this venture?
Market Analysis: What is the need for your particular product? How does your product fulfill this need? Is the market a profitable one and is it growing? What are the markets demographics-area, age, income, etc.? Or if selling to businesses- their size, number, needs, characteristics (a customer profile). Who is the competition? Where do they excel and where do they fail?
Marketing Plan: Based on the market analysis, what is your sale strategy? What relationships or alliances do you need to build? How will your product be distributed (used more than one advertising medium and explain why). What advertising slogans have you developed? How much $will this require? How will you track your sales/ advertising success? How will your product be priced?
Operations Plan: What it takes to produce your product or service? Where will it be produced (store or factory needs)? Who will produce it (employee needs)? What kind of suppliers will you have? What kind of capital equipment is necessary?
Financial Plan: Using the ideas gained from your market, marketing and operations, how much money is there to be made from your product (sale goal)? How much will the production of a product/ several items cost (add up all the factors of production)? How much will it take to distribute (sales, marketing, costs)? What are the one time start up costs, and ongoing expenses? How long will it take until you firm is profitable (remember this is a key on Wall Street right now)?
Each person should help your team formulate the five parts of the business plan and then put it together in a proposal to the venture capitalists. Make sure you include the bottom line: the risk and reward to the investors.
Grading:This is a 40 point project
20%Quality of Reasoning (your idea and whether or not it would work)
40%Research regarding the aspects of your business plan and clarification of its various parts.
10%Appearance of your business plan on paper (charts/ graphic etc. which adds to the text)
25%Originality and persuasiveness of your presentation
05%Approval of investors