Building Your Plan - Individual Project

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Individual Project
 Building Your Plan
 Mon, 12/19/16
Numeric
 250
See assignment details

Key Assignment

Part 1 (Objectives from Week 1–4)

Based on the work that you have done this term, complete the following sections for your venture's business plan:

  • Mission statement
  • Vision statement
  • The product or service
  • Market opportunity
  • Competitive environment
  • Statement of ethics (based on your Phase 4 IP)
  • Statement of social responsibility (based on your Phase 4 IP)

Take your written assignments and convert them into the required sections.

Note: Each section should be no more than 1,500 words; however, the following are some limitations:

  • Your mission statement should be 1 paragraph maximum.
  • Your vision statement should be 1 paragraph maximum.
  • Your product or service description should be around 1,000 words.
  • Your market opportunity and competitive environment sections should be no more than 1,500 words.
  • Your statement of ethics should be no more than 2 paragraphs.
  • Your statement of social responsibility should be no more than 2 paragraphs.

Part 2 (Objectives from Week 5)

  • Choose a business plan template, and customize it for your venture. Include your venture's name, logo, and contact information. Fill in those sections that pertain to the work you have done on your venture this term.

Please submit your assignment.

Click on Student Expectations to view the expectations for this assignment

For assistance with your assignment, please use your text, Web resources, and all course materials.

 

 

 Unit 5 IP Checklist  12/12/16, 8:52 AM 

http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/top-10-business-plan-templates-you-can-download-free.html

Grading Criteria

 

  • Each student will provide his or her business plan Table of Contents (TOC) and will have completed the required sections.
  • The students will be evaluated on the quality and relevance of their writing, not on the quantity of words.
  • Each completed section should contain research and analysis that pertains directly to the student's proposed venture.
  • Each section should be complete.
  • Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format should be correct and professional.

Tasks

  • Each student will provide his or her business plan TOC, and he or she will have revised the required sections to be written in language suitable for business plan documents.
    • Academic language and style should be removed and replaced with serious business language.
  • Relevant charts and graphs should be included in the final assignment.
  • Each section should be complete.
  • Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format should be correct and professional.

Check out this site:

Writing your business plan. Ughhhh.

It's definitely not the most exciting part of starting a business. In fact, if you're like a lot of entrepreneurs, you're probably going to find yourself pulling a few all-nighters to get one done before heading into your first pitch for funding. Because that's the thing--your business plan is a pretty important.

 

Any funder worth his or her salt wants to see it right off the bat. Moreover though, a solid business plan is a living document that will continue to guide your efforts as your business grows. Recently, I shared 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups, an infographic created by Mark Vital over at Funders and Founders.

A lot of those mistakes (most of them, in fact) are the result of poor planning. Bad location, a marginal niche, having no specific user in mind, raising too much or too little money--all of these issues can be prevented or at least mitigated with good planning.

Creating your business plan is more than just getting your ideas down on paper for potential funders to see. It's an exploratory process in which you can evaluate your options, test your assumptions about your idea, and even discover new opportunities. It might even lead you to kill off aspects of your business before investing too much time or money in them.

That doesn't mean you have to bust out Word and start the plan from scratch. A template is great--you probably aren't doing anything that hasn't been done before, so it provides a proven structure for your plan. Pretty much everything on it can be customized. Check out these comprehensive business plan templates you can download for free to get you started:

1. Score's Business Plan Template for Startups

Score is an American nonprofit dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get their companies off the ground. Its template, available as a PDF or Word download, asks a whopping 150 questions and is generic enough to customize for most types of businesses. The Refining the Plan resource that comes with it is helpful, especially if this is your first crack at writing a business plan.

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2. U.S. Small Business Administration Business Plan Engine

The SBA's template is available to fill out online and then download as a PDF. You can go back in and edit it as needed, so don't worry about having everything ready the first time you sit down to tackle it. Even broken into sections, it's a long document and a bit of a slog to get through, but it produces a professional-looking and useful business plan. This is particularly helpful if your idea isn't fully fleshed out and you know you have homework to do--it prompts you for information.

3. The $100 Startup's One-Page Business Plan

Who said a business plan has to be a long, complicated document? Some funders are going to want to see a lot of detail, but you can provide that in appendices. The $100 Startup, the website for the best-selling book of the same name, has a ton of stripped-down resources for entrepreneurs, including this super simplified business plan template.

4. LawDepot's WYSIWYG Business Plan Template

This one says you just have to answer a few simple questions and will be "done before you know it!" Don't believe it. A business plan should take time and a lot of homework, but if you've already done that, LawDepot's template is a decent choice. It walks you through getting started, marketing, product, competitive analysis, SWOT, and more, with a window below the input fields to show you the plan as you work away at it. You can download it free with a trial subscription, but you'll have to remember to cancel it within the week if you don't plan to continue using it.

5. SME Toolkit Business Plan Samples

The SME Toolkit, jointly offered by IFC and IBM, offers a simple two-page outline of what should be included in your business plan to meet the minimum requirements of funders and tax authorities (in the U.S.). It contains 10 broad sections, including market analysis, management and organization, etc., with a one-paragraph explanation of each. A second download on the same page is an Excel file to help with your financial projections.

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