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    Assignment 1: the Opportunity

    Due by 10 a.m. April 8.

    Explain your business opportunity in a single letter-sized page, in PDF format.  You can draw it yourself and write it yourself and scan it into PDF, or write a text, or use PowerPoint, or some other drawing program. preferably with illustrations, not just text. Leave your name off of the page, but keep it on the file.

    Here are a couple of examples: College Prep Information Business and Australian Firefighter Business.

    Thought provoking: Business Plans or Prayer Flags … see what you think. You’ve heard about the famous “business plan on a napkin?” Keep that in mind. You may also have heard about the one-page business plan, but you can let that one go. This is not a business plan, it’s a description of an opportunity. And I do want to have it in a single page, I’d expect at least one picture, and I want you to deliver it to me as a PDF document attached to an email.

    Your grade will be based on how well you cover the following three points:

    1. Identify and explain a problem or need that your business idea would solve.Remember you don’t have to limit yourself to true needs, because wants and intangibles – prestige, good looks, business success, etc. – are also valid.
    2. Explain how your hypothetical new business fills the need or satisfies the want.
    3. Describe the ideal customer, or user, or target market company. Ideally you invent or dream up a specific person, with age, gender, economic stratum, job (or not), media usage, preferences; or a company, with industry type, size, location.

    And communication pizazz, sizzle, excitement, diction, wording, choice of pictures, and general look and feel will also count for the grade. It’s only a page.

    Important additional details:

    1. You can do this in Word, iWork, PowerPoint, Keynote, or any other tool that you like. Draw it by hand if you want.
    2. However you do it, your final step is to get it into a PDF file format that takes up a single page maximum.  If you’ve produced it as something physical on actual paper, get it scanned into PDF to submit it.
    3. Put your name on the filename, but not on the page as it appears printed.

    3 Responses to “Assignment 1: the Opportunity”

    1. [...] “Executive Summary.”) Text topic. Should include all of the information detailed in Assignment 1: the Opportunity and you’re welcome to add to that as well. If you’re working with Business Plan Pro, I [...]

    2. anon says:

      Help!
      where can I upload the file? How can I make it PDF?? from where?

    3. Tim Berry says:

      Thanks for asking, and in the comments, so others can see it.

      Instructions for making the pdf file are at …

      http://ba410.com/pdf-files/ on this site.

      After you’ve created the file, you email it to me — tberry at paloalto.com — as an attachment.

      Thanks, Tim