Dominican University Gymshark T Shirts and Apparel Research Paper

The Entrepreneurship Case Study Project

Based on your idea generation speech, please select one of your direct competitors as the company for conducting this case study. Ideally, the competitor you selected should be a start-up that was started by the current owner/manager within 5-6 years (early stages of its development, fast growth). Your key task is to talk to the founder(s) and learn about how they have founded and managed their businesses, then you would summarize what you learned through the interviews into a written report. Use your network of friends, neighbors, relatives and previous employment to find a start-up willing to participate. The opportunity to network and get your foot in the door may help you accomplish your goals.

Format: Double spaced, 12-pt. Times Roman font. References should follow APA format.

Written Report Structure:

1. Introduction (1 page or less) Describe the main objectives/goals of your case study project, and provide an overview of the main questions and issues your paper will address.
2. Overview of the business (1 page) You should describe briefly about the business, such as industry, sales, profits, number of employees, gender, age, educational background of the entrepreneur, time they have been in this country, add if any interesting information that they might want to share.

The following four sections will be the main body of your paper. I recommend you select at least 2 interview questions (listed below) from each section and analysis those questions with the information you collected from the interview. The conclusion question is required to answer.

1. Analysis of Entrepreneurship intention (1-2 pages)
2. Analysis of Beginning considerations (1-2 pages)
3. Analysis of Marketing and financial considerations (1-2 pages)
4. Analysis of Sources of Funds and conclusion (1-2 pages)

The following are some of the questions that you can use during your interview. But you are not limited to them. Remember you are learning and so you are encouraged to ask more questions that you are interested. The major purpose of this case study is to learn from your competitors toward their start up experiences that may be helpful when you start or run your own businesses.

• 1.Basic information of the business:
• 2.Entrepreneurship intention:
• 3.Beginning considerations:
• 4.Marketing and financial considerations:
• 5.Sources of Funds:

You should ask basic information about the business, such as industry (retailing, restaurant, and so on), sales, profits, number of employees, age of the company and the owner (for this, you can have a range, such as 40-50), educational background, time they have been in this country, if any parent owned a business before and any other interesting stories that they might want to share. Sales and profits can be hard to get. For these issues, you can ask for a range, such as between $50,000 and $100,000, or above 1 million dollars. If that is not possible, do include the number of employees.

Why did they start the business? What opportunity identification sequence was used for the initial launching of the business?

What form of business does the company choose? Why?

Provide a time line for the venture beginning with when the idea was first formed. How did the idea evolve over time, or did it?

Did the company write a business plan? If no, why? If yes, how did they do it? What was the biggest headache while they crafted their plan?

Who are the key customers? How did they choose that group?

Describe the external environment for the venture. Who are the major competitors? What is the labor market like? Are they any major legal or regulatory restrictions? How rapidly is technology changing the way the company does business?

Describe any ethical issues or problems the management team encountered along the way. How were these problems resolved?

Describe the exit or harvesting strategy of the entrepreneurs. Will the venture be harvested? Do the entrepreneurs have an exit strategy in place?

What is the marketing strategy? What is the unique selling proposition?

Ask him/her to describe one marketing trick that he/she used.

Do they have a balance sheet and an income statement? Do they have the projected financial statements? If yes, ask them how they did them. If no, ask them why they did not have them.

Did they ever have cash flow problems? If yes, how did they deal with it? If no, how did they do to prevent that from happening?

How did they price their products/services?

What kinds of advertising did they choose? Why did they do so? Ask them to show a piece of their advertising that they are very proud of (in print or video or audio).

Do they have their own website? Did the website help and how?

When they started up, how did they finance their businesses? Did the founders use debt or equity financing? Were there multiple levels of financing?

Where do they do their businesses? How did they choose that place?

What is their organizational culture? Ask them for one trick that they used to motivate their workers.

Conclusion question (required):

Chart annual sales since the venture began. Describe key events in the development of the venture with reference to the time line. Include the following components:

1. Major resources available at founding and acquired throughout the life of the venture
2. Major changes in the products or services offered
3. The addition or termination of key partners or employees (pay close attention to the addition or deletion of members of the management team)
4. Major technological shifts and breakthroughs
5. Major changes in markets

Finally, you must turn in a written report of this Entrepreneurship Case Study through Canvas by Nov 20th, 2020. The length of the case write-up is up to you. In order to cover all the required parts, I recommend your report as about 6 to 10 pages. The birth and subsequent growth of entrepreneurial ventures are frequently an exciting and life changing event for the people involved. The case report should fully capture this experience.

The Business will be based on GYMSHARK t-shirts and apparel.