Take My Liberty BUSI 603 Class

BUSI 603 follows a venture from idea to exit, and every week's reading becomes a section of your plan. Allen opens with the entrepreneurial mindset and the difference between an idea and an opportunity worth pursuing.

The early chapters cover building the founding team and choosing a business model, then analyzing the industry and the market to size the opportunity.

The middle weeks turn to product development, operations and the legal and organizational form of the venture.

Marketing follows, with how a new company finds its first customers and what each one costs to win.

The later chapters cover the financial plan, funding sources, growth strategy and the harvest, the way founders eventually step back or sell.

Reflection devotionals and recorded interviews with Christian entrepreneurs run alongside the reading in weeks three, five and seven.

A quiz closes every even week.

Allen's chapters are paired with short recorded lectures in the odd weeks.

Funding chapters compare bootstrapping, bank and SBA-backed loans, angel investors, venture capital and crowdfunding, and which suits which kind of venture.

The harvest chapter asks founders to plan an exit from the start, whether a sale, a family succession, an employee ownership plan or simply a well-run business that pays its owners.

BUSI 603 is planned around your venture, so the concept is settled in the first days. It can be an idea of your own or one developed with you from your interests and experience.

Each weekly forum thread researches its assigned part of the plan with at least three academic references, so the threads become the plan's first drafts.

Your two replies critique classmates' ventures with references of their own, and they go up on time, since a late reply cancels the thread's credit too.

The journals answer the reflective questions on each recorded interview, noting how the entrepreneur's faith shaped concrete decisions.

Part I of the plan revises the first five threads into the concept, team, industry and market, product, operations and organization sections, adding what forum feedback showed was missing.

Part II adds the executive summary, marketing plan, financial plan, growth and contingency plans, harvest strategy and timeline, with three years of pro forma statements and a break-even analysis.

The quizzes are yours.

Market sizing moves from the total market to the slice the venture can realistically serve in its first years, with the sources for each figure.

Every number in the plan is sourced or explained, from the market size to the rent on a first location.

BUSI 603 goes to someone who has written business plans that were actually used, often a founder, a small business consultant or an MBA instructor who coaches student ventures.

That background matters because the plan is judged on whether its parts fit together, and someone who has pitched to lenders knows where reviewers look first.

Spreadsheet models of start-up cash needs are routine work for them.

They also know where to find industry data and academic research on new ventures, which the forums require.

A colleague checks the plan's numbers before release, and one writer stays with your venture through all seven forums and both parts.

Your details stay with the coordinator. A plain summary of any chapter can be sent before a quiz.

Many have reviewed plans for lenders or accelerators, so they know which questions a reviewer asks first.

They build the plan around your concept, checking key choices such as location, pricing and legal form with you.

A vague concept is the first trap, because every forum from week one builds on it and a fuzzy idea makes every section fuzzy.

The weekly rhythm is the second. Seven researched threads and fourteen analytical replies in seven weeks leave no slack, and a missed reply forfeits the thread's credit as well.

Length is the third. Each part of the plan must reach thirteen pages of content before the cover, table of contents, references and appendices are counted.

The financial plan is the fourth. Three years of projections must flow from the market size, pricing, staffing and equipment stated elsewhere, or the plan contradicts itself.

Week six is the fifth, with a forum, Part I and a quiz all due by Friday.

Faith integration is woven through the journals, which ask how real Christian entrepreneurs made specific choices, not for general reflection.

Legal form is a quiet decision with large effects, since an LLC, an S corporation and a C corporation differ in liability, taxes and the ability to raise investment.

Booked before week one, the venture concept is agreed and the first thread is researched straight away.

Each week's thread comes at the start of the week, and your two replies once classmates have posted.

The three journals come in the odd weeks from three to seven.

Part I is in hand by the middle of week six; Part II and its model come at the start of week eight.

Most of the cost sits in the two plan parts; the weekly forums are smaller lines and the journals the smallest.

Joining late, you are quoted for what remains. Every item arrives as a file you can edit.

The forums and plan cost less when booked together, since each thread drafts a plan section.

Booking by week one gives the best price on the full set.