ASSIGNMENT: In this scenario (which we will use throughout this course), a friend has approached you with a business idea and wants your help in planning it out.

ASSIGNMENT SCENARIO: Your friend (who loves doing woodworking) tells you the following background information:

They have read multiple articles stating that home improvement and woodworking projects are now more popular than ever people love building things so much that hardware stores are struggling to keep up with demand for wood and supplies.

Your friend tells you that although the average person could afford to buy woodworking supplies (such as lumber and hand tools), they dont imagine that the average person would be able to afford their own good quality woodworking machines (such as professional table saws, lathes, sanders, routers, drill presses, etc.).

The friends business idea is inspired by their high school woodworking class experience. They are proposing:

Perhaps renting a vacant storefront or something like that somewhere;

Purchasing about $70,000 worth of high-end woodworking machines; and

Charging people a fee to use this equipment for their own projects.

The idea is that customers would buy their own wood and supplies, and bring these to the store where they would pay an hourly rate (or an annual rate) for access to the equipment.

A true win-win! Customers get to build more interesting projects using the appropriate equipment, and your friend now has their own business.

Business plan audience: Your friend has some funds, but would need an additional $50,000 investment to make this happen. Thus the business plan is needed to either attract investors or to secure a bank loan for this project.

QUESTION: Business case content[1]: For this assignment[2] the business plan will consist of the following three sections:

Mission statement and goals: This is a high-level section it needs to demonstrate that you understand how to practically apply both terms (mission statement and goals) to this scenario, and it should logically lead the reader into the company overview section (next section). All sections of your document need to be holistically supporting each other and should flow well from one section to the next.

Company overview: This section is important as this type of business model is not common (investors might not entirely understand it). Youll need to clearly and concisely explain the model in such a way that an investor would be able to see its potential (without the use of excessively lengthy descriptions keep it short, concise and understandable).

Products and/or services plan[3]: In this section you need to describe what products and services you will be offering. You can be creative in this section for example: Will the business provide services such as teaching? Workshops? Will it sell consumable products? Or perhaps the business will partner with the government and offer government assisted (subsidized) skills retraining?

What you decide to offer as services and products is less important than how effective you are at writing them up. This assignment is not about determining how imaginative you can be, but rather developing the ability to pull relevant information together and write in a professional business-quality writing style.