Entrepreneurship Bundle

The Entrepreneurship Simternship gives students hands-on, educational experiences with key skills that students need in order to develop into successful entrepreneurs. 

In the simulation, students take on the role of CEO for Buhi Supply Co., a startup backpack company. They have recently been accepted into the Altruistic Angels startup cohort which will help fund the business as well as provide training to help it develop. Students will make important business decisions designed to help Buhi grow from a business idea to a successful retailer.

Throughout the simulation, students will learn how to conduct market research, negotiate with manufacturers, set retail prices, advertise, hire employees, forecast sales and inventory, petition for more investors, read sales reports, and much, much more.

In the simulation, task introductions and information about the tasks students complete as they build Buhi are communicated by one of Altruistic Angels’ investment partners named Carla  Ferreira. Each round begins with a video overview from her where she outlines the skillbuilding activities for that round. Carla will also send memos containing additional information to assist in round completion, via the Inbox.

Round 1: Purchase Market Research
Students are welcomed into the Altruistic Angels startup cohort where they will receive instruction on how to build their new business Buhi Supply Co. To get started, they will respond to questions from fellow cohorts. Then, they will review and purchase various market research reports they feel will help inform their decisions regarding a target persona. Finally, students will create a five-question survey to help them gain further insights into their target market.

Round 2: Identify Target Persona
Carla, in an effort to show students her support, provides a competitive research document. This document lets students see what other backpack companies are focused on in terms of their price, key features, selling proposition, target market, market share, marketing strategy, distribution channels, online quality rating, strengths, and weaknesses. Students are to use this document, and others Carla provides, to create a target persona and value proposition.

Round 3: Order Sample Backpacks
In this round, Carla begins by presenting students with the ideal target persona and value proposition. As she does, she also introduces them to the idea that they can use the persona they came up with as a potential secondary target. This potential secondary target persona won’t come up later in the simulation, but it is an important idea for students as they prepare to create their own businesses.  

Now that students know who they are targeting and how to get their attention, they can move forward evaluating potential backpack manufacturers, purchasing samples from manufacturers, and building Buhi’s retail website.

Round 4: Forecast and Purchase Inventory
This is where Buhi really starts to take off! Now that students have collected information about a target persona, research data, and sample backpack performance data, it’s time to choose a  manufacturer and create a custom backpack. After they create their custom backpack, students will get the opportunity to practice forecasting inventory and placing their first purchase order. While they wait for the backpacks to arrive, they will select an initial retail price for their backpacks and begin making advertising decisions.

Round 5: Optimize Pricing
Students will reflect on the results of the last 12 weeks of business and see where they can improve in terms of their sales and profit. Since all of their efforts impact their sales and profit, they will have the opportunity to forecast, place another purchase order, optimize their retail price, and make adjustments to their ad spend. This round is all about business optimization.

Round 6: Craft an Investor Pitch
Up to this point, Altruistic Angels has been an investor and advisor to Buhi. Altruistic Angels begins offering training to its budding entrepreneurs. Students have been putting in a lot of work to make sure their inventory is where it should be, and they will continue doing that. Similarly, they will also continue to optimize their retail price as well as their advertising decisions. But it may be that some of them have begun to feel the financial stress of running a business. To help solve for that, Altruistic Angels will coach them through how to create an investor pitch to attract more money. After creating their own pitch videos, students have the opportunity to peer review others’  videos.

Round 7: Select Distribution Channels
With Buhi’s online presence established and becoming optimized, Carla informs students that it’s time to start expanding into brick-and-mortar stores. She also informs them that since everyone at  Altruistic Angels is so impressed with their hard work, Altruistic Angels is extending the students a  credit line with a low interest rate. This is great since any credit students have drawn upon to this point has come from a high-interest credit card.  

Also, since Buhi is relatively new, Carla explains that it will be best for students to craft an email and send it to possible brick-and-mortar retail partners. To facilitate this, she sends a document titled Email Best Practices that students can use to create their emails.  

Before students write their emails, they are encouraged to forecast and order a slightly larger quantity of backpacks to prepare for selling in brick-and-mortar stores. Once this is complete, they have the opportunity to continue optimizing their retail price and advertising spending.

Round 8: Hire Employees
Carla informs students that several stores have responded positively to their email. They now get to choose three stores in which they will begin selling backpacks. Additionally, things are getting busy at Buhi. To ameliorate that, Carla suggests students hire additional employees. But before they choose their retail partners and hire help, they get to forecast and complete another purchase order, optimize their retail price, and optimize their advertising. 

To evaluate the stores, students are shown each store’s amount of traffic, customer segments,  and revenue per unit.

Round 9: Craft Business Sales Pitch
Carla informs students that their time in the Altruistic Angels cohort is swiftly coming to an end. For that reason, she offers another training opportunity. This one focuses on preparing students to sell Buhi, should they choose to at some future point. Carla explains that, like when students made pitches to attract investors, they will create a video pitching Buhi. She provides them with a guide to selling a business document that they can use to ensure they include everything they need in a business pitch video. This also acts as the rubric for the peer reviews that will occur after the videos are saved. In addition to the business pitch video, Carla encourages students to continue optimizing their forecasting and purchase orders, retail price, advertising, and retail stores.

Round 10: Optimize Your Business
Students’ time at Altruistic Angels is nearly at an end. As a result, Carla encourages them to continue what they have been doing up to this point by dialing in their forecasting and purchase order, optimizing their retail price and ad spending, and verifying which brick-and-mortar stores they want to work with.  

Once students have completed these final activities, they will be offered a final business valuation. This valuation will indicate Buhi’s current worth as well as show students’ performance as CEOs of Buhi. Using the valuation, students can see which decisions they made had the most dramatic effects on Buhi’s sales, both positively and negatively. This way, when they start their own businesses, they will be better prepared to make consistently beneficial decisions.

• Applying tactics for self-reflection and exploration that support entrepreneurial behaviors

• Performing market research to determine an ideal target market

• Creating a target persona and value proposition statement based on research analysis

• Ordering sample products and testing their performance in the market

• Managing a budget that includes placing product orders, ad spending, and hiring employees

• Managing inventory based on forecasting and sales performance

• Securing additional investment funds based on business valuation and equity

• Peer-reviewing investment pitches

• Choosing brick-and-mortar stores to sell your backpacks

• Hiring an employee