• What does it really take to build a business?
• What makes the difference?
• What’s required?

OVERVIEW

The heart of a business is the mix between the business identity, its market and marketing, and its strategic focus. That’s basically a matter of how are you different, why do you exist, and what are you giving the world that would be missed if it weren’t there?

What’s the first step? Take the idea that has been forming in your head (concept) and see if you can turn it into a business reality.  Will your business concept fly?

DEFINITIONS

Concept: “A general idea, derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences. Something formed in the mind.”

Kick Start: “To start or begin strongly, quickly.”

(The following excerpts are from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)

Patent:  “…the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office…”the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States…”

Copyright:  “…a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished….Copyrights are registered by the  Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.”

Trademark:  “… a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others…”

• 3 Weeks to Startup –  Chapter 1: Concept Kick Start
• The Art of the Start — Chapter 2, The Art of Positioning

As you prepare for this class, make sure you’ve also finished the reading for the first class — Chapter 1: The Art of Starting from the book The Art of the Start.

(Optional Reading)

The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan — Chapter 3, The Heart of the Plan

REQUIRED VIDEO

Please watch this video before class: What is The Value of Your Idea? How Do You Protect It?

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  business opportunity should 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 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.