CW1 Summarise your business idea so that it has a real impact on a potential investor, client, or other stakeholder
ASSIGNMENT
Your video pitch, slides and scrapbook will contain details of the following:
1) The Idea
Summarise your business idea so that it has a real impact on a potential investor, client, or other stakeholder. Please note that we expect that you will use visual aids such as graphs and photographs.
2) The market and its needs
This section is all about explaining the need you wish to meet and the problem that you are proposing to solve. You need to demonstrate that there is likely to be demand in the market for your product/service or project. You need to identify who your target customer is, and why they need what you are proposing. You need to point out how your business idea prioritises and creates the value that your target market requires. By doing that you are expected to outline at least three examples of value your solution offers.
Is the solution you provide for individuals or organisations? What are their characteristics? How many possible customers are there? Will the people or organisations who pay for the service or product be the same ones who use it? (For instance, university services are partly paid for by the government or the university, but they are used by students.) Finally, in the market, are there several different kinds of customers and needs (segments)? Identify the particular segment/s that you are targeting.
You will need to do some primary and secondary research to demonstrate what the market need is for the value your product/service provides. You may be able to do this research at your desk, by looking up statistics, reports, or finding evidence from other sources like newspapers and trade journals. Please undertake some original research by talking to people or doing a survey. Make sure you cite your sources properly and keep all the data that you collect.
The key questions you should answer are:
What is the need being addressed or problem being solved?
Whose problem or need is it, and what do customers value?
What size is your target market?
Are your customers the ‘end users’? If not, who is?
How have you ‘segmented’ your market?
Competitors
Who are they? Why aren’t they meeting this market need already? There may be substitutes already in the marketplace – other products which do most of the job in some other way. Why would customers select your solution? Who else is solving their problem, frustration struggle or fulfilling their aspirations? how are they doing that? Again, you need to research your competitors thoroughly and understand the value that they create for their customer base as clearly as you understand your own.
The key questions to answer here are:
Who are your main competitors?
How well do they understand their target customer? what mechanism do they have in place to ensure that they are aware of how they create value for their customer
Why are they not solving the market need that you have identified already?
What are the ‘substitute’ products/ services to yours?
How well do they understand their target customer? What mechanism do they have in place to ensure that they are aware of how they create value for their customer?
You need to outline the costs you are likely to incur to launch your minimum viable product. You also need to explain the sales you expect to make over the first year of operating and provide a justification for your estimates.
