assignment

Assignment 1: Establish a Personal Vision

Throughout this course, you will be given assignments designed to help you plan a successful business start-up. For your first assignment, you will create a personal vision. This is an opportunity to examine what is important to you and to articulate the type of life that will bring you satisfaction.

Answer the following self-evaluation questions:

1. Why do you want to start your company?

2. What kind of business do you want to start?

3. Are you emotionally suited to start and run my own business?

4. Are you financially prepared to start my own business?

5. Are you willing to invest the time and energy it takes to succeed?

6. What skills of training will you need?  Do you have them or will you need to take special training?

7. Do you have what it takes?

8. What is your biggest fear in starting a business?

It is not unusual to discover that some of your goals conflict with each other. In this case, you can determine priorities or compromise between the conflicting goals. Ultimately, the outcome should reflect how you want to live your life.

Submission:

Write a robust Personal Vision Statement that expresses how you see yourself based on the self-evaluation.  Ideas to include in the vision statement. APA format is required

1. What is your Entrepreneur Quotient from the websites cited above?

2. What are your passions and skills how do they fit in your venture plans?  Does it fit with Mike Wroe's advice?

3. What are your top 10 keys to success?  Explain.

4. What are the top 5 reasons you will fail? Explain.

5. Of the TED talk speakers, who would you most like to spend an afternoon with and why?  What would you hope to learn from that time?

You must cite at least five separate sources from the online course material, For example:

In John Maxwell's story about the mountain climbers, I identify with the ones who press on even if it is the less comfortable choice.  I would be pushing the guide to start and would never want to stay in the lodge.  What that tells about me is I do not want to waste the opportunity when it presents itself. 

Use APA format.  This assignment will require around a 1000 words.

Submission:  When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 2: Create a Business Concept Statement

1. Answer the following business concept questions based on your review of the course materials:

. What problem are you trying to solve and how will you solve it?

. Is someone else already solving this problem?

. How is your solution better and/or different than your competitors’?

. Is there a want or need for the product or services?

. How big is the potential market

. How much will it cost to start the business?

. How soon can you start the business?

. What personal and professional adjustments must you make to start this business?

. What is (are) your ultimate goals(s) in starting this business?

. What will happen if you don’t start this business?

· Prepare the Business Concept Statement.  You can expect this to be at least 500 words for a simple business and more with additional complexity. Cite at least 5 sources from the course material or other resources to support your concepts. Use APA format for your submission.

· Use Word .doc/docx format for submission.

· Submission:  When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 3: Create a Marketing Plan

1. Prepare a Marketing Plan that answers that the following pertinent questions:

. Product Description: What product or service are you going to provide? 

. Marketing Strategy: How will your marketing plan support your business goals?

. Mission Statement: What are you trying to accomplish, and why?

. Target Market: Who are you trying to reach with your marketing activities?

. Competitive Analysis: Who are you up against, and where do you rank?

. Unique Selling Proposition: What makes your business unique?

. Pricing Strategy: What will you charge, and why?

. Promotional Plan: How will you reach your target market?

. Social Media: How will you employee social media? Provide specific details from the video presentations. 

. Marketing Budget: How much money will you spend, and on what?

. Action List: What tasks do you need to complete to reach your marketing goals?

. Metrics: How are you implementing the plan and where can you improve?

· The submission  should cite at least five sources from the course material and should use APA format.  This assignment will require around a 1000 words.  Use Word .doc/.docx format.

· Submission:  When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 4: Create a Financial Plan

1. Create a Financial Plan for your business. This will include an analysis of start-up cost, capital costs, operating cash flow, break-even analysis, and financing alternatives. Be sure to discuss all the assumptions upon which the Financial Plan is based.  Every number must have an assumption to support its validity.

2. The spreadsheets should provide at least a month to month cash flow projection for the first year and a yearly summary for the first three years. The footnotes must discuss the assumptions.

3. The discussion portion should include break-even analysis and financing alternatives.  There is no specific word count but this must be complete and robust.

4. You may present all the information in a commented Excel spreadsheet or provide the Excel spreadsheet with a separate word document the assumptions but the spreadsheet must be in one of the suggested forms.  You do not have to cite sources and APA format is not required.

5. Submission: When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 5: Early Management Decisions Statement

1. Prepare the Early Management Decisions Statement.  You must cite at least 5 separate sources from the online course material or other resources based on your research. The citation should be a paraphrase of the source.  This will likely take you at least 500 words to write an adequate description of your Early Management Decisions Statement  that answers at a minimum the following learning objectives:

. Define the legal form of business. Why?

. Identify other legal issues such as copyrights, franchises, and patents.

. Identity risks and risk management particularly insurance requirements.

. Determine when outsourcing management and team infrastructure is the best course of action.

. Identify potential suppliers including POS system, accounting, legal, furniture, products...

. Identify a potential location. Why?

. What is unique about your business that you must consider?

·  APA format and Word .doc/.docx format is required.

· Submission:  When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 6: Management Vision Statement

1. Prepare a Management and Organization Vision Statement. You must cite at least five separate sources from the online course material or other resources based on your research. The citation should be a paraphrase of the source.  This will likely take you at least 500 words to write an adequate description that at a minimum answers the following learning objectives. You may add additional information that you consider relevant. 

. Plan an entrepreneurial management team.

. Define the roles of the management team.

. Define an organizational culture.

. Determine your leadership style.

. Develop growth and exit strategy.

· APA format and Word .doc/.docx required

· Submission: When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

Assignment 7: Final Business Plan

Submission: Use your selected business plan template to complete the Business Plan.  

1. Prepare to submit your Business Plan.

. Design a Cover Page for the business plan that includes relevant information. The Cover Page is the first impression so make it look impressive.

. Create an Executive Summary.  In presenting the plan to your financing source this is the first thing they will read. You must make it engaging and compelling so they will want to look at the details contained within the plan. This is the single most important element of the plan to anyone looking at it for the first time.   

. Create a Table of Contents.

· Organize the information from the prior assignments within the body of the plan so the information is presented Plan updated for any comments you have received or any additional research or ideas you wish to include.

· APA format and Word .doc/.docx

· Submission: When ready to submit - open the Assignment link above, browse to and attach your saved document. Verify submission in the grade book.

At this point in the course, the core of the Business Plan should be complete. In this lesson, you will finalize your Business Plan by adding these important elements: 

· Cover page

· Table of contents

· Executive summary

· Appendix

After the B