{Starting a Business I} Forecasting

My head hurts just looking at the rubric for the next paper due in my Starting a Business I (entrepreneurship) class.  This part of the project contains the Revenue and Expense Forecast.  It was easy enough for me to figure out what potential revenue flows we might have and what expenses we might have for my business concept, but getting them all down in a spreadsheet is the nightmare.  Luckily, I have a partner that digs this stuff and is taking the lead on managing it...I'm just the data collector and industry expert.

A little background, if you look at the MSE page on my blog, you'll see my inspiration.  The whole point of going to graduate school was to attain a higher level degree (which is something I've wanted to do for most of my life but never really knew what specialty it would be) but also to develop a detailed business plan that I could take with and run as soon as I graduated (or sooner).  Luckily, our first class was Starting a Business I and we jumped right into developing our "opportunities."  This has made my experience thus far very rewarding since all the hard work I'm putting in will directly influence my ultimate career goal of one day owning and operating a fabulously unique eco-chic event venue.

I am very excited to research the "competitors" in my market.  Thanks to Cameron Fox of iEntertainment, a fellow NACE board member, I got a strong list of similar types of event venues in Dallas / Fort Worth to research.  I put "competitors" in quotations because I don't really feel there is a competitor that will be exactly like my idea.  Sure, there are beautifully restored historic venues (where you can't touch the furniture or serve red wine) and venues that make some efforts to be eco-friendly (like by using sustainable hard woods such as bamboo), however, I feel that the flexibility and modern styling of my imaginary event space will make it stand out as truly unique.  One point I would like to make is that anyone making strong eco-efforts to reduce waste should be applauded and not be viewed as a competitor.  Go ahead...copy me!  I intend to model my business after other venues spotted around the country striving to do the exact same thing.  But, I digress...

Financials.  Right.  Now that the Super Bowl is over and all our fellow event professionals can breathe again, I'll continue trying to fill in the blanks of how this whole operation will work and how to make money off of it. If you have any ideas, comment away!