Final Product

I successfully reached my goal to create and complete my business plan. The reason I was able to succeed at my goal was because I put a lot of time, and effort into this project. I made sure to create deadlines for myself, and I pushed myself to achieve those deadlines. I learned that I can complete challenging tasks as long as I plan ahead, and push myself to achieve those goals.If I had this class for another semester, I would have tried to get an investor or a business partner, and work towards making the actual business.

My TED talk explaining my experience through this project went well, although I did forget some of the things I was going to mention because I got nervous. To prepare for the project, I created a power point presentation and a speech. I practiced, and memorized my speech for 5 days to try to ensure a good TED talk. 

Planning for completion

I have found a property that is currently listed on the market, which would be perfect for creating such a venue. I have been using the information from the property to develop estimates for cost. I have completed creating a list of all the potential employees that are need along with the cost for those employees. I have been debating whether the event center should be bought or leased, and I have came to the conclusion that it would be best to buy the property to avoid any issues with the land owner, and to gain a profit when selling the property. I have had a lot of progress on completing the business plan. However I am having some challenges developing estimates for things such as expected cash flow forecast, the profit-loss comparison, start-up cost, etc. I plan to look into similar businesses to compare my business plan's estimates to their actual results. For the next two weeks, I plan to gather all the necessary data, and to complete the business plan.

Unplanned for Setbacks

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on finding a potential location, trying to figure out the amount of employees, and the cost for it all. I ran into a few setbacks along the way. For example, I didn't know how to figure out the amount of employees that I need, so I began writing a list of every task that needs to be done in order to find out what the minimum number of employees I can hire to complete those tasks. Also I was very confused on figuring out the cost of paying the employees, but Mr. Orre suggested that I look up employees in other companies that are doing similar jobs in order to get an idea of the cost. For the next couple weeks, I plan to have a completed list of all of the employees I will need, have comparison salaries for all of the employees, decide whether to buy or lease, and decide the business structure. 

Planning for my business plan

My Progress for creating a business plan (BP)
So far, I have researched and learned all of the information that is required to go into a BP. I have also created a template and outline to ensure efficiency, and to better understand what exactly is needed to create a BP. My only setback was realizing the significant amount of information BP's require, and trying to figure out how to obtain the information.

Projections for next update
In two weeks, I plan to finish part one of my BP template which includes questions like: What is the business, Who is the potential market, What will the future be like (goals and objectives), etc.

New plan for my business plan

Update on Progress:
I began filling out my BP template and noticed there were many flaws. I decided to start over and use a new template in order to prevent any potential mistakes. The information I filled out so far is the summary of the business along with the summary for marketing. I have also came up with a list of services the event center will offer. I have met the projections the were predicted in the previous post.

Projections for two weeks
For the next two weeks, I plan to go in depth about the business itself. For example, I plan to find a potential location, deciding to buy or lease, deciding the management and ownership, the amount of staff, etc.

In the Business of Planning

What is 20% time?

20% time is an idea created by Google which allows it's employees to use 20% of their time at work to work on any projects they want. Google gives their employees this creative freedom in hopes of them inventing and fixing Google products. This idea recently came to the attention of many teachers; sparking the 20% time in many classrooms across the world.

The essential question
What does it take to create a business?

What have you chosen to be your 20% Time Project? Why did you choose this? How does your project choice answer the essential question?
For my 20% time project, I have chosen to create a business plan for an event center. I chose to do this because I have thought a lot about what it would be like to make an event center, and I saw this as an opportunity to truly understand what it would be like. By creating a business plan, I will learn what is takes to create an event center.

What are your goals?
My goal for this project is to understand everything that is needed to create a business. I hope to achieve this goal by creating a business plan.

How will you measure your progress/achievement?
My progress will be measure by projecting what I will learn and do by certain dates and seeing whether or not I achieve or exceed those projections.

This blog
This blog will track the progress, findings, and obstacles that I will experience throughout the project.