Lesson Plan - Develop a Business Plan for Yourself

This post is another follow-up to something I mentioned on Twitter today. Today, the students in my Global Identity and Interaction class (I only have six students in the class) pitched their business plans to an angel investor (this person actually was a prominent businessman in our community before retiring). The purpose of giving the assignment to my students was to get them to explore business and job opportunities beyond the conventional model of "get a degree, go work for big company."  To give students as much flexibility as possible, the actual directions that I gave to the class were quite basic. You can read the directions here.

I and the angel investor were quite impressed by all six students' presentations but two really stood out. One student developed a plan for an online fitness and nutrition coaching program for teens. The program would include one-on-one virtual coaching and a community forum for members to support each other. The other plan that stood out was for a blended online and in-person tutoring program for K-12 students.

I was asked on Twitter which resources the students used to acquire ideas and background knowledge while assembling their business models. In no particular order here are the resources that I directed them to (the students also found others on their own).

Excerpts from Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start and Reality Check. We also watched a couple of YouTube videos of Guy Kawasaki explaining his 10-20-30 rule for presenters.

Excerpts from Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Overnight Success.


We looked at the Common Craft business model and listened to part of this podcast with Lee Lefever.

Students also read some of Chris Brogan's blog posts about Kitchen Table Companies.