Busniess Plan

Personal Business Plan Assignment

SAMPLES: ​(courtesy of Prof. Sorah Seong)

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The entrepreneurial process is at its core concerned with “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources already under control.” This process is as applicable to your career as it is to starting a company. The goal of this assignment is to ​identify where you want to be and how you will get there​. Do not worry about your current resources. ​Think entrepreneurially!

Your personal business plan should include a long-term vision statement, the “external” opportunities that exist, your “internal” (personal) strengths, and a strategy for yourself and your life over the next two to three years. ​In addition, please share one “failure” from your past and what you learned from it in terms of maximizing your potential for the future.

Deliverables​: The assignment should consist of a ​1-2 page write-up​ that summarizes EACH of the areas discussed below, as well as the one “failure” (and what you learned from it) wherever you feel it best fits. This assignment constitutes 10% of your grade.

Vision and Opportunity

● What are your goals (career and/or educational) after you leave UW? ● What is your purpose, your values and your mission? List the 3 key questions

that guide your choices. These should be essential questions that serve as touchstones to direct your life and work. For instance, how can I have impact? What do I love? What do I fear? What engages my passions? How do I want to be remembered? The answers to these questions may well change over time, but when the questions themselves are fundamental they tend to last a lifetime.

● What is the market and opportunity that align with your goals? Don't restrict yourself to matters of career or work; think more broadly about your opportunities to make a difference.

Marketing and Implementation Strategy

● Create your market positioning statement. This may be directed at a hypothetical employer, industry, organization, or the world at large.

● What compelling value will you offer to your employers and society? ● How will you differentiate from other UW students? How about from the

broader populace?

Risks and Mitigation

● What are the key milestones and checkpoints in your plan? ● How will you measure/determine if you have successfully attained these

milestones? How do you define success? ● What external factors might affect (positively or adversely) attaining your

success? ● Develop contingency and risk mitigation strategies.

Personal “Board of Directors”

● If you could assemble any 3 people to advise and mentor you, who would they be? They may be alive or dead, family or world leaders, friends or strangers.

● Why would you choose each? Is it their wisdom, their accomplishments, their words, their creativity, their character, their heroic deeds…?