Assignment #1—Description of Venture
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
July 17, 2011

1. Introduce the company and the product/service idea for the new venture.
If you live in a highly industrialized city or region of the country that has many factories, some individuals do not even know what goes on inside these industries. This venture, Factory Tour Guides will be profitable for cities and/or regions. Factory tours will become extremely popular in the next decade, as more and more people are seeking different and interesting ways to spend their hard-earned vacation dollars. The first step in establishing a factory tour business is to find companies that will permit tours of their factories. This is not very hard to accomplish as the companies can be compensated by way of shared tour revenues. Often factories will sell their manufactured goods to the tourists at wholesale or factory-direct prices. A good example of a manufactured factory that would benefit greatly from this factory tour business would be electronics, oriental rugs, computer direct factories, and the list goes on. Factory Tours can be a home based operated business and can also be operated part-time. The estimated start-up cost can range from $10,000 to $50,000 (Entrepreneur). Factory tours have been around for centuries and the industry is growing. Many tourists have enjoyed touring tire factories, potato chip factories, coffee plantations as well as coal mines. With the strong work ethics in America, vacations are not being taken as much as in the past. With factory tours many individuals can take a vacation, learn about the many different industries, and enjoy themselves all at the same time.
2. Discuss the market opportunity for the product/service.
The market focus will be tourists from other cities and/or regions. In many small communities and even some larger cities, there are not as many factories as there are in other cities/regions; therefore, many people do not get the opportunity to visit factories to get the full benefits of touring them and seeing exactly what goes on inside. A good example of a factory tour that comes to my mind is the movie, “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. The children and parents were very excited to tour the factory and find out just how Mr. Wonka makes such wonderful chocolate. This is the kind of tour, I would certainly enjoy. Many people do not know how cars are assembled, or even how the tires on the cars are made. This would make for a great tour idea. Factory tours educate the public about their products, show pride and cultivate brand loyalty.
3. Discuss the market entry strategy to either a foreign, domestic, or both market.
The market entry strategy could be both markets because there are so many factories in the United States as well as in the foreign market. The more informational factories for individuals living in the states would be the foreign market. This would be because living in the United States and using foreign products and equipment, enjoying foreign cuisine, driving foreign cars, all of this information would greatly benefit and would also be extremely interesting to see how these things are manufactured. The wine industry in Italy would be great for the wine connoisseur. So the market would certainly be both foreign and domestic. From the Wisconsin Master Cheese maker with his many designer cheeses made with only the finest quality ingredient to the most elegant Lamborghini ever made or the Koenigsegg Trevita that is priced at $2.21 million and only three of these will be made, touring these factories would just leave the tourists in admiration of all the interesting information that can be obtained from factory tours.
4. Discuss the strategies for minimizing personal risk with the new venture.
After considering unusual events, which could negatively impact your company, and have purchased suitable business insurance, it is now time to turn the attention to reducing the risk of operating a business.
Risk management can limit the possible financial losses caused by unsuccessful normal business operations. It is necessary to contemplate the things which could go wrong within the business and to estimate the financial cost if these events happen. Then plans can be made to intelligently reduce the financial exposure caused by these events. Or, try to avoid the event entirely [ (Lowe, 2008) ].
Large capital expenditures often represent big financial risk to small companies. The danger is that the capital investment will not yield the desired return, increase in efficiency, cost savings, or future revenue will not justify the capital investment [ (Lowe, 2008) ]. With starting a new business, the task of raising financial resources to supplement personal savings is sometimes a challenge. Appeals to bankers, individual investors, or venture capitalists are some directions to take. Business plan serves as the calling card when approaching these sources of financing. [ (Lowe, 2008) ]

References:
Entrepreneur. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2011, from Business Ideas: http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessideas.html
Lowe, E. (2008). eSmall Office. Retrieved July 16, 2011, from How to Identify a Target Market and Prepare a Customer Profile: http://www.esmalloffice.com/SBR_template.cfm?DocNumber=PL12_2000.htm#identifying