Modifying the Outline in LivePlan, writing the Executive Summary and giving Instructor access to your LivePlan account

Once your business idea has been approved by your professor, you will be ready to begin writing your business plan.  Your first writing assignment in LivePlan will be to write the Executive Summary.  Typically, the Executive Summary is written after the rest of the business plan is complete (since it’s a summary of your entire plan) but for this course, you will write it first.  This will allow your instructor to review, early on, the direction you are heading in. Of course, you should review your executive summary again before you submit your final business plan at the end of this course.

Before you begin writing your business plan, you will need to create a company and revise the plan outline.  This assignment will walk you through those steps.  When you are ready to begin this assignment, go to LivePlan – buy it by following this link http://www.liveplan.com/partner/kean-university

 The first step will be to create a new company.  LivePlan will allow you to have 3 active companies at any given time.  Enter the following information (don’t worry, you can change this information later on):

· Company name

· Business Stage – new business

· Start of forecast

· Length of Forecast – 3 or 5 years – your choice

· Monthly detail – select 1 year

· Preferred currency – Select dollars please.

Next, click on “Create a company” and then “Start Plan.”

Click on the Plan tab. Since LivePlan does not have a section for an Industry Analysis, you will have to modify the outline both in the Executive Summary Section and under Opportunity in the main business plan (which comes after the Executive Summary.)  First, rename “Market” to “Industry Analysis and Target Market” in both the Executive Summary: Opportunity and the Opportunity sections. This may sound confusing but there are two Opportunity sections. Then, you will need to further edit the Opportunity Section (not the Executive Summary one) by adding a subsection called Industry Analysis which should come first under the “Opportunity: Industry Analysis and Target Market” section. You do not have to make any changes to the “Expectations” section in the Executive Summary. Do not delete the other sections of LivePlan.  You are only modifying the first two sections and leaving everything else alone.

 The question you should ask yourself when determining what should be in the Executive Summary is “Would knowing this information impact whether the investor chooses to invest or not?”  If the answer is yes, most likely it should be included in the Executive Summary.  Remember, the investor/lender will read the Executive Summary first, so it must be well-written and contain the elements of your Value Proposition.  However, remember that the Executive Summary must be succinct, meaning, you get your idea across using as few words as possible. You do not have to write the “Expectations” section in the Executive Summary, at this time.  That will come later after you have prepared your financial projections.

 I have attached an outline of the information you will need to address in your Executive Summary.  You may wish to look at some examples in LivePlan for this assignment.  However, please follow the suggestions that are included with this assignment. Be sure to review the menu item "BP Pointers" before you submit this assignment.  Your business plan will partially be graded on how well you follow those instructions.

One final and very important step is to invite your instructor to have access to your LivePlan account. To do this, , go to “Invite Users" at the very bottom of the menu on the left (in LivePlan) and click on “Add a Contributor” and put my email address [email protected] in the top box. Click on all three boxes of “Let this user.” Be sure to click on the box which selects which company your instructor will have access to.  An email will automatically be sent to your instructor inviting her to review your plan.  This will allow your instructor to add her comments directly in your plan.  You can access all comments under the “Comments” tab under the Plan menu item.

Once you are ready for me to grade your Executive Summary, go to Bb, click on this assignment link and attach a Word or .pdf copy of your Executive Summary.  Please name your file using the following naming convention – LastName_FirstName_ES3013-XX_ES

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MGS3013

Unit 4 AS: Executive Summary in LivePlan