Introduction
Many people believe that a business plan is helpful but not necessary. This is true in the sense that business plans are helpful but, in fact, they are vital if you are serious about success in both short and long term. The aim of this paper is to evaluate and critically assess the “Room for dessert” business plan. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 will try to analyze who is the audience for the plan, what are their needs, and how well does the business plan meet those needs. Section 3 will discuss about the strengths and the weaknesses of the business idea, while the final section will present a personal opinion on the critical issues that might require further investigation before investing in this venture and the way the information might be acquired.
Who, What, How well?
Many would think that business plans it’s all about formulating the concept and clarifying the details of the proposed business but, first of all, it’s about raising the money to start-up and implement the idea in the real world. When we talk about raising the funds, we implicitly talk about the investors who are looking for the best investment opportunity out of thousands of business plans sitting on their desk, making the business plan the core and probably the most decisive document of the business. It is the case of RFD as well; their business plan audience is the investors. As Sahlam (1997) recommends, in order to speak the language of the investors it is essential to assess the four interdependent factors critical to every new venture: the people, the opportunity, the context and the risk and reward.
When discussing about the people behind the business, the investor values the managers who posses insight and experience and he is interested to see how familiar the team members are with the industry and its dynamics. In our case, RFD’s board of directors is represented by