Writing a Business Plan: The Total Term Assignment1

In the 1990s hundreds of thousands of people worldwide will start businesses. In the United States alone, approximately 2,500 new businesses a day were started in 1990, according to The State of Small Busi-ness: A Report to the Resident (1991). Many of these enterprises had their humble beginnings on a piece of paper: the business plan. This article describes what business plans are and how we can use them in class for a team writing assignment. USES OF THE BUSINESS PLAN In a business plan, the would-be entrepreneur tries to persuade others to support his or her ideas for creating a new product, starting a new service, or otherwise break-ing a new trail in the economic jungle. Besides starting a venture, business plans are also