Contents

Page
Project Summary 3

Promoters 4-5
Product 6
Production 7-8

Marketing 9-12

Finance 13-17

Project Summary
Promoters
All the team have a big interest in the world of sport. With Richards game being squash and football and hurling lee’s being football and Gaelic Hugh’s being rugby and Ciara’s being football.
Product
The product which this business plan is about is a product which we intend to call Mr Grip. Mr Grip is a grip for sports products that takes a long time to wear down compared to other grips. We came up with this when Richard was telling us that he always has to buy grip for his squash racket at least once every 2 months depending on the use and this can be very costly. So we came up with a plan to make a grip that lasts at least twice as longer as the regular grip and that it is a lot more grip on it than other so it has a lot more grip on it than other grips. We’re also going to make them in every county colour’s for the hurling teams around the country. Also different colours so people can choose their favourite colours.
Markets
The target market which we are going to target is the sports market that consists of hurling, squash, tennis, hockey and all other sports that may need grip.
Investment
To make this grip we need quite a bit of money to make it as good as we say it will. Will need money to market our product to get it know to the public, research- to find the suitable material to make our product the best and to get knowledge on why do grips wear down so fast, manufacturing cost- how much is it going to make us to make one of the product, Exporting- if we decide to
Short Overview of key Issues * Getting the grip to be the best- We will have to do a lot of research on which materials will be the best for our product. * Competition- We will have to look around to see who will be our main competitors in this market and is our product better value and a better product than theirs. * Marketing- How are we going to get people to know about our product e.g. advertising etc?

Promoters

The promoters for this product are as follows: * Richard Lynn, 2nd year student in Institute of Technology Sligo, course Recreation and leisure.

* Hugh Connolly, 2nd year student in Institute of Technology Sligo, course Recreation and leisure.

* Lee Cassells, 2nd year student in Institute of Technology Sligo, course Recreation and leisure.

* Ciara Garvey, 2nd year student in Institute of Technology Sligo, course Recreation and leisure.
Background Information
We are all currently heavily involved in sports which link us to this product. Sport is our main interest and we all have a good background and knowledge of this area so this is where we wanted to focus our project on.
The idea for this product came about through Richard. Richard currently plays hurling and squash, two sports that both require a good grip to enable you to get the most out of your squash racket and hurl. Richard found himself buying new grips every month for both sports and when you replace an old grip it takes time to get use to the new grip that is put on because the grip must soften first before you can really get use to it and it becomes comfortable to hold and play with. This is where the idea came in, why not develop a new grip that does not wear and tear so easily and lasts a lot longer than a month. We felt that this was a great idea because a variety of sports do need a good quality grip and from carrying out research we found that a great number of athletes that play such sports as, tennis, squash, racket ball, hurling and even javelin and pole vaulting all feel the same way about grips that are in the current market, they are simply not good enough and improvements need to be made on them. Comfort and long lasting were the main areas where these athletes felt the improvements need to be made. We feel that if we produced a new product, a new type of grip to suit the sports of all these athletes we really could make a nice profit and revenue from it. We can target a great number of sports with this new product and also enter the European market.
Management Structure 1. Manager director - Richard Lynn 2. Marketing director – Ciara Garvey 3. Finance Managers – Lee Cassells, Hugh Connolly 4. Experience: Richard currently plays hurling and squash, two sports that both require a good grip to enable you to get the most out of your squash racket and hurls.

Product

Name of Product: Mr Grip
Mr Grip is a new improved advance type of grip for popular sports such as, tennis, hurling, squash, table tennis, badminton, racket ball etc. It’s an advance grip which differs from other grips that are out in the market at this time. The grip is a combination of strong durable and long lasting rubber specially designed to withstand wear and tear and also comfortable soft smooth leather for griping comfort. This will be the most unique grip in production and will be more value to customers with Mr Grip costing around the six euro region.
Material
Rubber: Python rubber will be used in the production of this grip. Best rubber grip available. Doesn't twist in hand when wet and does not wear and tear easily. We feel that it’s the best and strongest rubber in production at this time and is that perfect choice to use for our grip to produce the quality and performance that we want.
Leather: Reconstituted Leather: is the type of leather we will be using and combining with the python rubber to create our new advance grip. Reconstituted leather is an artificial material composed of 80% to 100% leather fibres. It consists of fibres obtained from macerated hide pieces bonded together with latex binders constructed into a fibrous mat to create a look and feel that can be identical to that of a genuine leather but at a fraction of the cost .A leather grip is more honest than a synthetic base grip which is the most common used grip in the market at this time. Meaning, a leather grip will give you a truer feel for the actual size of your grip, and you'll feel the bevels of your grip more prominently with a leather grip, than with a synthetic grip. This holds true even after one applies an over grip over a leather base grip. Since many players use different grips for many essential shots, one can see why being better able to define and feel out the grip's angles is a very good thing and with the combination of python rubber, the grip is more reinforced and will last longer and will not wear and tear easily.
Internationally Traded
We feel that this product can be expanded into national and international markets as this product applies to several international sports across the board. Areas that we hope to explore are sports such as, tennis, hurling, squash, racquetball, javelin, and golf. These are all worldwide professional sports.

Production
Process description
We hope to order in raw materials such as the python rubber and Reconstituted Leather which are our two main materials. The tools which we need to manufacture the grip our heat shelve which will be made up of our two chosen materials and a heat gun and we hope to start off creating the grips in Lee’s home garage and hopefully then expand in the near future to our own premises.
To create the grip we first decided to pick a sport that we would aim the grip at first so we decided to start off with hurling because it is a popular Irish sport and we want to aim our grip to the Irish markets first. We then would need to purchase a Hurley to test our grip on. We would tear off the current grip that would be on the Hurley and replace it with our heat shelves which is a combination of our two materials. We then slide the heat shelve over the handle of the Hurley and then use the heat gun to heat the shelve over the Hurley handle and melt down to stick to the Hurley. We then let it cool and when it has cooled the new grip is formed.
Proposed level of output
Year 1
We hope for the first year to test out new advanced grip on hurling teams in our home county Galway. We wish to provide our grip to all the sporting shops in Galway in the first year and hopefully by then our grip will be recognised as good quality and a good buy and then we can expand to other counties and to big markets. For the first year hope to provided 25 sporting shops in the Galway area with 40 each. We hope to make 4000 grips for our first year.
Year 2
We hope to expand out of the Galway region with our product to the remaining Connacht counties attracting the major sporting shops in these areas such as Elevrlys, Lifestyle sports and Sports world. We hope to produce 10000 grips for these areas.
Year 3
We hope to expand our product nationally in our third year. We hope to have our product available in all 32 counties. We also hope to have a website created and up and running at this stage as well where our product can be bought online. Our aim is to produce 150000 grips for this year as we feel there will be a bigger demand for our product as hurling is a much bigger sport outside the west of Ireland.

Year 4
Our aim for this is to hopefully expand into other sports across Ireland which is suitable for our product such as golf, tennis and squash. We wish to focus on these sports and expand our market targets. We hope to visit golf, squash and tennis clubs around Ireland to promote our grip. We hope to produce 300000 grips for this year.
Year 5
For year 5 we hope to expand in to the international markets with our product. We feel by this stage we will have enough marketing experience and managing skills to do so. We hope to expand to Europe and the America market hoping to make our product at the top of list in its competition. Investment details To get the product up and running for the first and second year we would hope to invest ourselves to purchase raw materials and tools for producing our product. In year three would hope to receive investment from AWG investment fund, they can invest up to 300 – 600 thousand for expanding businesses which we hope to be at this stage. With this investment we hope to expand into the international market. List of equipment * Python rubber * Reconstituted Leather * Heat gun * Packaging * Courier * Snips

Employment For the first two years, we feel that we should be well capable of controlling, manufacturing, marketing and promoting the product between the four of us. We will hire a trained accountant to manage the finance area of our product for every year. Year three, four and five we will need to employ more people in the manufacturing side and also the marketing and promoting as they will be a higher demand for our product. We hope to employ up to 15 new employees.
Material composed of 80% to 100% (into a fibrous mat to create a look and feel that can be identical to that of genuine leather but at a fraction of the cost.

Marketing
We feel our product is unique because the grips out the market today for Hurley’s or other sports equipment aren’t very durable. Hurley grips are awful quick to wear down and athletes find themselves going through a few grips. The grips aren’t very dear but why go through a few if there was one that would last you a year or so. It would make life a lot easier.
We know there is a demand for the product because athletes requiring grips for javelin or squash for instance, are going to be competing on a professional level, so they are full time athletes and even if they aren’t they still need a grip for their equipment to maximise performance. The demand is massive because there are so many sports requiring grip for their equipment: tennis, squash, hurling, racquet ball to name just a few.
The competitive edge we will hold over our competitors would be that the grip is a hard wearing one. Hurley grips that are on the market now wear away fairly easily leading to you forking out a few times a year to replace the grip. It’s not like you can do without a grip for Hurley as weather conditions won’t allow so you are backed into a corner to buy another replacement. Grips out there on today’s market can’t handle the wear and tear they are subject to. Athletes expect their equipment to be physically strong so why not the accessories.

We intend to market our product at six euro a grip. This is in comparison to competitors four euro for Hurley grips, tennis grips from at nine euro (varies) and squash grips again from eight euro. We would only be selling our product at two euro dearer than a Hurley grip that wears very easily.
Our product has the ability to be sold both at home and abroad. The sports that require grips are played all over the world so there is a potentially big market. I know hurling is only played in Ireland but the same grip that would do a Hurley will do a squash racquet or javelin. We won’t be limiting ourselves to certain equipment. We could sell the grips in any sports shop worldwide. Potential customers are sportsmen and women of any age and of any level of experience. You don’t have to be a professional to use a squash racquet. A potential customer could be a middle aged woman who plays squash as a hobby or a kid that likes to just hit the ball up and down the road or street. Sports equipment like tennis racquets are always going to need grips if the athlete is going to succeed so there is always going to be growth in this sector. An athlete isn’t going to jeopardise their chance of winning by not wearing a grip on their equipment.
The product can be distributed by shipping to different countries where the grip is in demand. The potential buyer will need to be buying in bulk though for the export to be worthwhile.
We intend to let people know about our product by word of mouth, billboards at different national and international games and celebrity endorsement would be a huge bonus. If we got a celebrity like Sean Og O’Hailpin to back the grip it would really take off. Kids would look up to him and be in the frame of mind that if it is good enough for him to use, it would be good enough for them.

There were a lot of questions we had to ask ourselves if we are going to succeed in this product they are as follows:
What is unique about your product/service?
It is a grip that lasts for a much longer time than the normal grip its better value than most of the other grips on the market and you don’t have to buy it as many times.
How do you know there will be a demand for your product/service?
There are so many sports that use grips like hurling golf etc all these grips have one thing in common there good but they don’t last as long as the athlete needs them to and they have to be buying a new grip every time. With our product the grip lasts a lot longer due to our extensive research in getting a grip that takes a long time to wear down which adds better value for money which everyone is looking for in today’s harsh economic climate. Also a lot of athletes complain about their grip as it is not a very comfortable feel we believe that an athlete that’s comfortable performs a lot better than an athlete that is not comfortable. So our product will be more demand able

What competitive edge will you have over competing products service?
Our grip is a longer durable more comfortable grip than other grips on the market the fact that it lasts longer is a good boost for us when competing against the other companies that are doing the same thing as us.
At what price will you sell your product and how will this compare with your competitors?
We intend to sell our product at €6 this is around the same price as our competitors who are selling grips in the country the fact that it is a better grip at the same value is going to help our market
Where do you intend to sell your product/service i.e. home or export market? Name potential customers
At the present we intend to sell our product just around Ireland starting off small around our hometowns and expanding as word of mouth and advertising helps us to grow. We are also going to go to local gaa clubs and sports clubs offer them this grip at a cost price and let them promote us to get us known as a business that helps the local clubs. We intend to export our product abroad in the future but that depends on how we get on in our 5 year plan if we do well we will. Our potential customers to sell this product to sports shops gaa clubs and other clubs that sport require grip in.
What do you know about the market you propose to sell into: size growth potential, trends structure?
Richard knows the market that we are proposing to sell in as he has played the sports. The market for grip is a huge market as there are a lot of sports that require grip and a comfortable grip that will make the buyer more comfortable in their sport. The sporting market is growing everyday and it is becoming more and more popular as new people join they need grip for the equipment so that is where we come in to help. No matter how bad the economy get people are always going to play sport so it is not a market that if your top you’re going to quickly decline as long as your keep spicing things up and adding new things to your product and go into different sporting areas such as gloves etc How are the products to be distributed in the market? Well we intend to go around to the gaa clubs off Galway first to promote our product to them and offer them discounts on bulk orders so that when they use it will they will be happy and promote our product to all their other players and such. We also intend to target the big sports retail store like sports world Elvery’s and others to sell our product in their shops whether it be in a trial basis or whatever agreement we come to.

How do you propose to let people know about your product/service (advertising/promotions/merchandising/website?)
We intend to firstly get a local team and give the whole team the grip on a trial run to see what they think of it then were going to ask them will a few of them help us to advertise on the radio telling listeners about the grip and how great it is to make it know that it is a good grip so that people when they hear Mr Grip will associate us as a good value good grip product.
We are also going to come up with a website for our grip that is easily assessable and promotes the sports shops we sell our product to keep our strong link with our product also you can buy our product online which will broaden our market to all over the world.
Another Way of marketing for our product was a questionnaire this is how we came up with the idea and how we can meet the expectations of all the gaa clubs around the country the questionnaire is as follows. 1. Do you Feel that today’s grips meet with the standards off top hurlers? Yes No If not Please Explain

2. How Many times a year would you get a new grip for your Hurley? Once a year 3-4 times a year’s 5-7 times a year More?

3. What do you think can be done to improve the grip of today?

4. Do you feel that the Our grip is a lot better than other grips? Yes No If not please explain

Finance

Fixed assets investment
We will need have finance for the following areas of fixed asset * Premises * Tools * Equipment

Working capital requirements
Some of the working capital requirements are as follows: * Staff pay , * Bills e.g. electricity etc * Stock intake * Rent of premises

Start up payments
Legal £1500
Insurance £200
Material £500
Machinery £200
Total £2400

Total investment required
We feel for the first year it will cost £3000 to get the business and product up and running. We plan to invest this money between ourselves.
Total investment funded
There are 50 G.A.A clubs in Galway and we hope that our grip will be used by 60% of these clubs in Galway.

This is how our first year sales will work out
Expenses
* Start up expenses – £3000 * Bills - £12000
Total expenses £15000

Income * Grips sold £18000 * Gross Profit £18000

Net Profit
Gross profit £18,000
Total expenses £15,000
Net profit £3,000

For the second year we are hoping to expand out of the Galway area and into the rest of Connacht with our product, attracting the major sporting shops in these areas such as Elevrlys, Lifestyle sports and Sports world. We hope to produce 10000 grips for these areas.
Expenses
* Stock – £3000 * Bills - £20000
Total expenses £23000

Income * Grips sold £50000 * Gross profit £50000

Net profit
Gross profit £50000
Total expenses £23000
Net profit £27000

For year 3 will hope to expand again into a national market. We also hope to move into a bigger premises. For this year we aim to produce 150000 grips for the Irish market.

Expenses * Stock – £20000 * Bills - £40000 * Rent- £15000 * Staff £19,200
Total expenses £94200

Income * Grips sold £750000 * Gross profit £750000

Net profit
Gross profit £75, 0000
Total expenses £94200
Net profit £655,800

For year 4 we wish to expand into other sports across Ireland which is suitable for our product such as golf, tennis and squash. We wish to focus on these sports and expand our market targets. We hope to visit golf, squash and tennis clubs around Ireland to promote our grip. We hope to produce 300000 grips for this year.

Expenses * Stock – £200000 * Bills - £60000 * Rent- £15000
Total expenses £275000

Income * Grips sold £1,500,000 * Gross profit £1,5000,00

Net profit
Gross profit £1,500,000
Total expenses £275,000
Net profit £1,225,000

Year 5 we aim to reach the European markets with our product. We feel by this stage we will have enough marketing experience and managing skills to do so. We hope to expand to Europe and the America market hoping to make our product at the top of list in its competition. We hope to sell 600000 grips for the first year in the European market.
Expenses
* Stock – £750000 * Bills - £100000 * Rent- £80000
Total expenses £930000

Income * Grips sold £30,000000 * Gross profit £30,000000

Net profit
Gross profit £30, 000000
Total expenses £930000
Net profit £20,700,000