for Prof Xavier

MEMO

To: Smart Shades (Anson, Charles, Aaron, Wen Jun, Andrew)

Date: October 9, 2018

RE: Business Plan & Presentation

Agendas & Minutes:

This was incomplete. This portion of the assignment required three agendas and four minutes. Here, we have everything on one page with just a quick note of what went on. I can’t et any real sense of what was accomplished in during your meetings.

Score: 5/20

Business Plan/Proposal:

The executive summary was so close to being appropriate and effective. They are limited to one page. The purpose of a summary is to give readers something quick – don’t make them turn the page. Because it exists independently of the plan, more about your product needed to repeat in the plan. It felt as though we never got a real description in the plan itself.

The “Background” section is well-written and a lot of the errors in the summary are gone – improved but different.

The “Finance” section takes a dramatic shift in tone because it adopts a “you” perspective. The use of “you” is too conversational and confuses your audience. This plan is not for the consumer. The end refers to “your” when discussing investing, but it’s still problematic because it is too conversational and it forgets the internal document. The language there is what is meant to be in your persuasive letter. Each medium (proposal and letter) functions differently.

Images and tables need to be introduced and explained – never drop them hoping the reader will interpret them for you.

Aesthetically, this doesn’t look professional. The spacing is inconsistent, headings are simply bolded, at times too much white space (one paragraph break is sufficient), and there was no table of contents to help us navigate the document.

It’s incomplete. There are only four sections that were required 1) Business Description (sort of there), 2) Finance (there albeit not incorporated well), 3) Operations (missing), 4) Market Analysis (barely there). The textbooks had several outlines for you to follow to ensure the completeness of this.

Score: 55/80

Presentation:

The class overwhelmingly marked the presentation as “exemplary,” and I would agree. Some of the “acceptable” marks were for things like posture, vocals, discrepancy with distribution of speaking, and the message being slightly unclear.

Score: 48/50