The Challenge Behind the Workshop Challenge – How I went about Putting Together the Business Plan

This post is slightly overdue (good thing a public holiday is coming up), but I just concluded fully the business plan for the workshop challenge for the fourth week of this module. I have to admit, it was a steep learning curve, partly because the one time I wrote a business plan was back during art school days (and it was a group project) and also because I had never given this much thought about actually launching a business. Not to mention the time spent bonding with Microsoft Excel… And of course, as a designer, I wanted the Business Plan to look pretty.

It was a very insightful and informative week. Amongst other things, I got to learn some basic accounting and some general knowledge about making a business work financially. Before I get into the ordeal of the balance sheets, let me talk about the other sections of the Business Plan. I have a previous post regarding my work-in-progress (check it out here), but that part of the research covered mostly the core of my business. When it came to looking at competitors and how strong is the potential of my target market, I had to do a lot of observational research and a drew a lot from previous experience as ‘a customer’ of these said clients. Unfortunately, there is no official data that covers that industry on the islands, such as how much money is spent every year in entertainment venues, the demand and such. If time had permitted, I would have put together some surveys or questionnaires and sieve better the social media platforms and put collate everything in a data sheet for even better insight.

I would not say that I found it tricky. It was more of a question of having to think about aspects of a business that can be easily overlooked. For instance, something as simple as the client profile can easily be overlooked if one is not involved in the business world. One may simply think that is it a question of reaching out to your potential client by email, but if your client happens to be a managing director of a company, where he or she receives numerous emails every day, chances are that the email would end up in the spam folder. In addition, knowing the client profile makes room for exploration regarding the services offered as well as the pricing. That being said, the financial section for the workshop challenge as a mouthful. This definitely required some deep thinking. Case in point, I was going to forget completely about costs that are not directly related to the business itself, such as expenses for car fuel. It is not directly linked, but if I do not plan on having an office for the first year (you shall see it in the business plan further below), I would need to drive around a lot more. Also, something as basic as the phone bill can easily be overlooked. There will be a lot of phone calls between me and the clients.

Final Draft

All in all, although daunting, I enjoyed working on this task. It helped in giving me a better view on how a potential business might function, and the feasibility of the whole project. Below I have included the full document of the business plan. Enjoy.