Reference no: EM131654023 , Length: word count:2000
Part A - The New Venture Business Plan
Outline - This workshop will introduce the Entrepreneurial (new venture) Business Plan (EBP).
Our core question for this topic is: Why do entrepreneurs need a business plan and what should be included? This question will be answered by covering the following parts:
- How does it differ from corporate strategic planning?
- Developing the entrepreneurial business plan
- Basics of preparing a business plan
Activity: The passage above contains three reasons why business planning is important. In groups, elaborate on those reasons.
More specifically:
- How does a business plan help a founder to make decisions?
- How does it balance resource supply and demand?
- How does it turn abstract goals into concrete operational steps?
Activity: What do real-life entrepreneurs think about business plans? Watch this video (What Investors Really Think About Your Business Plan) and then discuss in your groups whose views resonate with you and whose views do not.
Group activity - Prepare a rough outline of a business plan tailored to a specific venture you have in mind. Do not worry about the detail. Just identify the types of issues that might need a thorough investigation:
- Write a rough outline of the table of contents with headings.
- What is your assessment of your own level of knowledge and experience about the different areas of the plan that you have listed?
- Do you feel competent to analyse these areas well?
- Where would you find the information and expertise that you don't have?
Part B - Venture Planning - Can You Fund It?
Outline - This workshop will focus on:
1. Business planning and opportunity financing
2. Determining capital/funding requirements
3. Developing and implementing financial and fund-raising strategies in your business plan
Activity -
Read the following statistic. What do you think went wrong with the majority of VC investments? What do you think went right with the minority?
"62.4 percent of VC investments were completely lost while 3.1 percent of the investments accounted for 53 percent of the profits for roughly 600 investments."
Group activity - So what could go wrong?
Many financial scenarios exist for venture funding. Discuss in your groups what could go wrong in each of these scenarios if the entrepreneur underestimates the conditions of the finance approach and what types of things you need to consider to avoid them.
- Direct investment from individuals
- Bank borrowing
- Use of personal wealth
- Venture capital and angel investment
Group activity - One of the points made on the previous slide was that it's important to conduct in-depth analysis and research on the investor ... and to get referees' reports.
- This indicates you should be investigating the investor as much as the investor is investigating you.
- In groups, discuss the following:
- Why is it important that you perform due diligence on your funder?
- And what kinds of things should you be looking for?
Group activity -
Q1. What activities and practices do you think will BURN through cash?
Q2. What activities do you think should be avoided?
Activity: What are some of the risk factors that could affect the value of the new venture? In groups, see if you can identify at least five.
Group activity - Map a checklist for planning for your new venture. What items do you think are important?
In what order do you think they should be considered?
Assignment Files -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vup81edjvrbqbx1/Business%20plan%20Assignment.rar?dl=0