Entrepreneurship Notes

What is a business plan? Plan for the creation and management of the business with special attention to - marketing plan describing match of products and strategy to current and future markets. Operations plan assessing all revenues, costs, and financial requirements and sources. Business plan format generally includes: (Suggested format from US Small Business Administration) 1. Executive Summary 2. Company Description 3. Market Analysis 4. Organization and Management 5. Marketing and Sales 6. Service or Product Line 7. Funding Request 8. Financials 9. Appendix Pricing Pricing requires understanding current and future customer & competitor desires & plans. Customer oriented pricing considerations are critical to setting prices throughout the product lifecycle; starting at the R&D stage. Pricing strategies require constant evaluation & refinement as the market reacts & evolves. This blog post is based on my learnings from the course on ‘entrepreneurship’ offered b...

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Types of business models: 1. Sell a product: well defined, easy to scope and price, produce inventory with hope for sales 2. Sell a service: low startup costs, flexible to customer needs, tough to price 3. Sell a subscription: customer pay regularly, recurring fees and may receive regular product upgrades 4. License a technology: involve lower risk and lower reward 5. Advertising: works best when volume of users/viewers is large 6. Hybrids: sell products & offer services together This blog post is based on my learnings from the course on ‘entrepreneurship’ offered by Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, University of Maryland through Coursera (2014).