In order to help you to generate your business model and to understand how business models are generally scored, we have put together a manual example and have scored companies that are household names. Please note that the BMG is not in any way associated with these companies. If your company has been listed here and you would prefer that it not be, please email us and we will have it removed.

We have provided the iSoldit.com business model as a manual example. It can be viewed here: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModelExampleiSoldIt.htm

The following is a list of household names and their respective scores on the business model scoring test:

• Dell 84%
• FedEx- 55%
• Home Depot: 63%
• i-soldit.com: 72%
• AOL Time Warner: 76%
• Microsoft: 87%
• WalMart: 59%
• Ford: 59%
• GM: 59%
• Boeing 69 %
• BOMBARDIER INC. 51%
• AT&T: 72%
• Trivial Pursuit (Board Game craze of the 1980s)- 46%
• Amazon.com- 50%
• Pepsi Co: 64%
• Coca-Cola: 64%
• Walt Disney: 80%
• AOL Time Warner: 76%
• General Electric 78%
• Intel 71%
• Hewlett Packard 76%
• Motorola 79%
• Lucent 80%
• Lockheed Martin 70%
• Cisco 71%
• Phillip Morris 67%
• EDS 65%
• City Group 47%
• Bank of America 48%
• JP Morgan 46%
• Willis Fargo 46%
• Merrill Lynch 46%
• Morgan Stanley Dean Witter 58%
• K-Mart 57%
• EasyCar 64%
• Nokia Home Communications 56%

We have also compiled some scores from local Ottawa Companies:

• Brymark.com (promotional items)- 69%
• FuelIndustries.com (web designers and developers)- 76%
• Gondolas.ca (boat tours in replica gondolas)- 71%
• gradeAstudent.com (on-site computer repair)- 88%
• Corel New Ventures 65%
• Ottawa Senators 68%
• WildernessTours.com 82%
• CEO.TV 76%
• CertainKey.com 77%
• OfficeServer.ca 80%
• Canadarch.com 81%
• EnvisionOnline.ca 78%
• BlueHeronStorage.com 72%
• DigitalGuard.com 81%
• ICHU.com 87%
• StreetPaddleTennis.com 68%
• NobleOak.com 62%
• ThirdWall.com 54%
• Tanjun.com 75%
• Footeworks.ca 77%

You will note that Businesses that require enormous up-front capital investments and huge marketing budgets like, say, Fed/Ex, don't do well in the BM Scoring Test. A low score on the test doesn't necessarily mean that a business can't succeed but it does probably mean that the odds are not with you. Fred Smith, the entrepreneur behind Fed/Ex, had to raise huge amounts of capital, take enormous risks and then create the demand for his product. At that time, there was no market for overnight package delivery- on their first night of operation, after Fed/Ex put in place a large hub and spoke delivery system with its own aircraft, they moved fewer than half a dozen packages.

So for most entrepreneurs, business models that cater to a large, existing demand, require small amounts of startup capital, can use guerrilla marketing and bring some creativity to the industry probably have a higher probability of success. Afterall, Michael Dell started Dell Inc. from his College dorm with a phone and no money and no inventory and now Dell is the largest PC maker on the planet, so it can be done.

The BMG Research Group