BUS 357: Two of your SUSS friends and you are keen to start a new business together, having gained invaluable knowledge :Starting and Managing a Business, Tutor-Marked Assignment, SUSS

Question 1

Two of your SUSS friends and you are keen to start a new business together, having gained invaluable knowledge from various SUSS business-related courses. The following business idea came about when planning for a year-end trip to Japan.

There are more than five (5) million of outbound travelers in 2022. Though a far cry from the peak of 10.7 million outbound travelers in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, it is still a significant number due to our small population.  2 You believe that this presents a window of business opportunity as travel will increase in years to come as the world normalise.

Your team’s idea is to start a luggage rental business, called “TrippyBag.com”, for any travelers out of Singapore. One of the biggest inconveniences for travelers is to purchase huge luggage and then having little space to store them at home after returning from overseas. Getting external personal warehouse storage space is costly as it is a recurring expense. Furthermore, most luggage left unused for a long while will soon deteriorate, e.g., the rubbers of wheels may harden and break. Your luggage rental business is also to promote sustainability – reuse and share – rather than buy and dispose.

Due to different travel seasons throughout the year, rental prices will be set based on demand and supply on different periods of the year, for example, higher rental prices during peak travel period of mid-November to end-December.

One of your friends is trained in IT, and he would design and develop the first version of the website and mobile app. The other two of you would be looking into the commercial aspects of the business.

Your team sees a great potential to this business, and there are other possibilities for upselling similar travel products or services as the business grows. While each person’s initial contribution of $12,000 as start-up capital is not substantial, your team feels that the business idea is novel and should start off at the right footing. Without a proven business track record and experience, obtaining bank loans and equity financing to fund your business would be extremely difficult and out of the question during the start-up phase.

Now, your team decides to appraise and validate and test the business idea using a Validation Board before plunging into the new venture, to be certain that this business idea is viable before further committing time and money.

Required:

You are required to analyse the information given above, and develop a Business Feasibility Assessment Report in a report format with the following sections:

Executive Summary (1 page) 

Prepare a summary of the various key points of the validation board exercise, main findings, and conclusion on the business viability and next steps, if any.

Validation Board (1 page)

Construct a Validation Board based on the prescribed format.
The Validation Board should show the key points in the various required boxes.

Validation Board Details (3 – 4 pages)

Explain in narrative (proper paragraphs) for each of the following:
(a) Customer Hypothesis
(b) Problem Hypothesis
(c) Core Assumptions
Describe five (5) core assumptions, with suitable explanations and ranked from the most to the least risky.
Identify and explain the riskiest assumption, and why it is selected for validation and the implication to the business if not well tested.

(d) Method (i.e., Design Experiment)

Explain how you would use an ecommerce website to fulfill the minimum set of features to be released during launch date, i.e., Lean Startup Model.
Describe the method you would use to validate this ecommerce website against your assumptions.

(e) Minimum Success Criteria

Explain, with suitable justifications, the criteria that should be met to validate/invalidate your assumptions.

(f) Validated Assumption

Select the first and riskiest core assumptions made and assume that it is validated and explain why it is validated.

(g) Invalidating Assumption and First Pivot

 Select the second core assumptions made and assume that it is invalidated; you can provide any reasonable assumptions so that you can create and describe the first pivot.
Describe, for the first pivot: (i) the Customer Hypothesis,
(ii) the Problem Hypothesis and (iii) Solution Hypothesis.

Starting the Business (1-2 pages)

Describe how you would proceed to develop the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) when starting the business, and describe how this MVP will support your front and backend business, e.g., business process workflow.
Appraise the capital constraints and use the Lean Startup Model to explain how your team may be able to start the business venture, including areas of major expenditure requirements.

Conclusion (1 page)

Appraise and provide a suitable conclusion to the viability of the business, and state the next steps to be taken if any.

The post BUS 357: Two of your SUSS friends and you are keen to start a new business together, having gained invaluable knowledge :Starting and Managing a Business, Tutor-Marked Assignment, SUSS appeared first on Singapore Assignment Help.