Nick Winter ’21 LABB Intern– The LABB program has given my fellow students and myself the opportunity to create business plans for our mock “apps” and “food trucks” that we have pitched to investors. A business plan may sound menacing at first; however, it is an essential role in creating a great foundation for a business. In fact, I would even say that it is a mandatory step when starting any business… may that be a lemonade stand or a multimillion-dollar company. Business plans describe the problems of the market, the business solution, marketing, financials, management, funding, and provide a timeline. The idea of the business plan is to have all these metrics on one document or presentation. This assures that management always can follow the business plan to stay on course when the business must pivot. A firm, well written business plan keeps the company anchored to the core goals, values, and ethics. When pitching our business plans to “potential investors” our team was able to stay focused on the mission of what our app and restaurant provided. A business plan is a great thing for any business to fall back on in hard times. Our food truck business plan for “Basil’s Gyros” helped us pitch our ideas to potential investors. We had to be sure to clearly show the financials that we forecasted for the investors. Often, we were question on our target market and financials the most. I learned that these two factors go hand in hand with each other. If you have not proved that there is a market and reasonable financial plan, your idea is dead before you even started. We have learned how important it is to clearly define your target market when writing your business plan. A target market is the driving factor of how successful a business is going to be. Without this research, that is shown in the business plan, a business may try to appeal to a market that is not right for their product. Overall, business plans may be tedious; yet, they provide priceless insight to the many important factors of any business.