Business Model Competition
PREPARATION FOR STUDENTS
The Competition is described in English at:
http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModelCompetition/DescriptionUOBizModelCompetition.htm
Et en français:
http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModelCompetition/UOttawaCompetitionDeGestion.htm
Each entrant will need to click on the links on these pages to get a better idea of our expectations I will summarize these below for you.
You will be able to practice your pitch the week before the finals for four minutes to explain and promote your business model. Your pitch is followed by a four minute Q and A with the class.
You will get to do it for real the following week. The marking grid is available for your perusal, by clicking here: MARKING GRID.
What you need to produce is as follows:
a) a one page biz model in graphical form that shows who your customers are and your suppliers are and who are the customers of your customers and the suppliers of your suppliers are (i.e., show how your business is part of a business ecology);
b) a 400 word description of the business model;
c) set some goals for your business in terms of N = ? (where N could be number of customers, total sales, total traffic to your website, vacancies, occupancies, advertising dollars, products shipped or a benchmark of some type, e.g.., sales per employee per year... all related to time—i.e., you will have so many customers by the end of year 1, year 2, etc. A three year time horizon is probably as far as you want to take it since everything changes so quickly, goals beyond the first three years are probably meaningless);
d) run your business model through the Business Model Generator: landing page— http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModels/BusinessModelGeneratorLandingPage.htm
and generator: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/bmg/;
e) show how you can generate more value with the business model than if you just had a JOB;
f) show how you can incorporate: differentiated value (http://www.dramatispersonae.org/DifferentiatedValueAndBootstrapping.htm), self capitalization (http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BootstrapCapitalSources.html), smart marketing (http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GuerrillaMarketingAndFinance/GuerrillaMarketing.htm) and show you intent to Get the Business Model Right (http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GTBR/GettingTheBusinessModelRight.htm and http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GTBR/GettingTheBusinessModelRightDefinition.htm);
g) you need to produce a one page spreadsheet with your value proposition on it for a single customer or client: see for example— I did a few of these for simple businesses: "Yoga and Injury Reduction for NHL Teams" http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GTBR/GettingTheBusinessModelRightDefinition.htm and the spreadsheet is at: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/ValuePropositionOttawaSenatorsMountainGoatYogaCentre.xls, for an HR firm in San Francisco: http://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=24 and the spreadsheet is at: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/ValuePropositionHRProfessional.xls, for GradeATechs.com the spreadsheet is at: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/UOttawaAlumni/ValuePropositionGradeATechs.com.xls and finally, here is one for Gino Rossetti, architect of Scotiabank Place: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/ValuePropositionArchitectGinoRossettiPalaceOfAuburnHillsScotiabankPlace.xls;
h) show how you will go about acquiring your launch or pre-launch clients or customers—talk about how you will actually do this by meeting face to face with potential clients or customers, talking to them by phone or whatever—be specific; remember that mass emails are often useless in this regard and can be counter-productive (it’s called spam); show how you will populate your website with user-generated content or supplier content if this is part of your business model;
i) show how you will incorporate the Internet into your business model even if it is a low tech business or a service business: try to obtain custom products from standard inputs (http://www.dramatispersonae.org/CustomeOutputsFromStandardInputs.htm), reverse out some of the work to clients and suppliers (for example, a Virtual Home Builder, VHB allowing clients to configure their homes and finishes on the Internet or allowing suppliers to update construction schedules online), obtain user-generated content (a subset of reversing out the work… for example, www.Digg.com readers are also content providers, journalists, headline writers and editors through their voting system; www.Midomi.com has wonderful (and some not so wonderful) tunes generated through their virtual karaoke site; www.wikipedia.org is a significant and brave attempt to harness human knowledge), scalability (the marginal cost of distributing www.Digg.com is practically zero), network effects (the more customers that use the VHB’s website, the more suppliers (kitchen cabinetry, carpeting, flooring, lighting, plumbing suppliers, etc.) will want to be on the website and the more supplier products on there, the more clients will want to use the site…), match-making and scheduling abilities (for example, GASnet is the back end system for www.GradeATechs which allows online matching of customer appoint requirements with Tech availability; www.LavaLife.com is an example of match making in the most literal sense(!)), peer-to-peer models (www.Skype.com is an amazing advance that practically made Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953(!)prediction in Childhood’s End that long distance would end in the year 2000 a reality), open source (www.Mozilla.org supports open source software like their Firefox browser—the real killer app on the Internet is the browser itself which ahs made everything else possible), search engine optimization (inexpensive guerrilla marketing—more than half the folks who live near me in Kanata, Ontario don’t even think about opening up the Yellow Pages anymore), mechanical Turk properties (things that humans can still do better and faster than computers like image recognition or answering questions or prioritizing—harnessing millions of willing computer users to achieve tasks—see for example what Amazon has done with this at: http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome, they have a great slogan for it: “Artificial Artificial Intelligence”) and other unique aspects of the Internet that may allow you to ‘make money while lying on a beach’;
j) finally give some indication on your spreadsheet of how big the opportunity and industry are and what the type of growth rate in the industry is (obviously, it is easier to make money and create a large opportunity in an industry where ‘all boats are rising’—i.e., a fast growing sector is usually better than one that is slow growing or contracting).
Good luck to all.
Dr. Bruce M. Firestone,
B.Eng. (Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., PhD., Entrepreneur-in-Residence, School of
Management, University of Ottawa, Adjunct Research Professor, School of
Architecture, Carleton University, Founder, Ottawa Senators, Realtor, Metro
Suburban Realty Ltd. (613) 723-2222 x 229 w Fax (613) 723-2345 Email bfirestone@metro-sub.com
http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModelCompetition/DescriptionUOBizModelCompetition.htm