2 Market – micro What customer pain will your offering resolve?
Who, precisely, are the customer who has the pain?
What differentiated benefits does your offering provide?
What evidence do you have that customers will buy?
What evidence shows that the target market has potential to grow?
What other segments could benefit from a related offering?
3 Market – macro How large is the market you are seeking to serve?
How fast has it grown?
How fast will it grow in the future?
What trends can you identify that will affect your business e.g. economic, demographic, technological, regulatory The population of London is nine million, with an average growth rate of 1.45% annually, and it is expected to grow in the future at the same rate (Statista, 2020). Ninety-five million cups of coffee are consumed per day and are expected to grow at 10%, with speciality tea drinkers growing at 13% (CoffeeBI | Coffee Business Intelligence, 2020). Common drinks in UK are coffee 80%, tea (43%) and chocolate (36%) (Mintel.com, 2020). Good Deals Coffee business will be affected by demographic changes as under 20 ages drink 0.5 cups, 20-37 years take 1.3 cups a day, 38-52 consume 2.1 cups while 53-71 are major consumers with 2.2 cups a day (Group, 2020). Demographics with the young population will impact the business negatively. Further technological changes about coffee grading and government regulations will affect the business significantly.
4 Industry – macro What industry will you compete in?
Is it easy or difficult for companies to enter this industry?
Do suppliers have the power to set terms & conditions?
Do buyers have the power to set terms & conditions?
Is it easy or difficult for substitute products to steal your market?
Is competitive rivalry intense or genteel?
5 Industry – micro Do you possess proprietary elements that other firms cannot likely imitate or duplicate?
Can your business develop and employ superior organisational processes, capabilities or resources?
In what ways from your customers’ perspective will your offering be better, faster, cheaper etc. than competitors?
Is your business model economically sustainable? Can you show you won’t run out of cash quickly?
6 Team – Mission, aspiration, risk propensity What’s your entrepreneurial mission?
What level of aspirations do you have for your entrepreneurial dream?
What sort of risk are you/are you not willing to take?
In what ways do your mission, your aspirations or risk propensity add new elements of risk to the venture?
7 Team – Can you and your team execute? What are the critical success factors in your industry?
Can you demonstrate that your team can execute on these CSFs?
Have you identified what CSFs your team is not well prepared to meet?
What risks do answers to the above questions add to your risk list?