笃师范文
Business Plan for
The Chinese Poems, Proverbs and Idioms to English Translation Online Course
Statement of Mission
The Chinese Poems, Proverbs and Idioms to English Translation Course will aim to satisfy a growing literacy need for Chinese classics among Chinese people in the past year and for fine English translations of Chinese classics among English speakers who are of Chinese origin or are interested in the Chinese literature, as well as translators and interpreters.
Personnel
The course will be a one-man shop conducted by Annie Qu, a simultaneous interpreter, an English writer and a Chinese classics pundit.
Market Analysis
Borrowing statistics from the high-level app-based foreign language training school – Gambition, Chinese – English translation skills and relevant trainings are in high demand. Meanwhile, the popularity of China’s Poems Gala and the National Chinese Idiom Vocabulary Competition among TV viewers as demonstrated by the number of quotes from these reality shows floating on Wechat moments, strongly indicates a rising popular interest in the classical Chinese literature. Personally, the author has received multiple random promotional invites within a month to various study groups focused on close-reading Chinese poems.
As much as close-reading Chinese poems can be an enriching and edifying activity that fits the “knowledge net celebrity “ fad, there is no lack of talent able to lead such groups. Yet it has been witnessed a scant supply of decent English translations for this genre, since such an undertaking poses the highest requirements simultaneously on the translator’s Chinese and English competencies. With translators of this caliber rarely encountered, even fewer are prepared and willing to coach up-and-coming translators and interpreters to have a stab at such works.
Therefore, the online course directly targets a niche market of readers/students that demand quality translation works and is equally interested in self-development along this direction.
Product and Approach
The course will be hosted in a Wechat group with a 3-month duration of daily exercises, and the daily content comprises 1) close-reading and analysis of the poem or proverbs of the day 2) translation into English 3) model answer provided and feedback given.
Users are recruited through marketing exercises on Jianshu-a self-publishing platform, with a Wechat public account and on Lizhi- a podcast production and media platform. A considerable time and effort need to be invested to build up a following-the pre-marketing stage, in order to focus the marketing resources on our influence circle where we will much more likely to be heard.
Economic Projections
As the project doesn't require significant physical resources, hence the cost is generated mostly by the time consumed, a.k.a opportunity cost for Annie Qu.
In terms of the timeline, it will run in three phases: 30 days in content preparation which coincides the latter half of the pre-marketing phase that will span 60 days, and then 90 days for the actual course, during which one hour a day will be spent in refining the content and another hour given to interactions with the students.
In terms of hours of concentrated work toward the project, the content preparation part should take 270 hours which are staggered over 120 days, the marketing part will cost 75 hours and 90 hours over 90 days during the running of the course.
The time cost hence comes down to (90+75+270) * 400 (Annie's hourly rate) RMB.
When it comes to the revenue forecast cast, I see benefits come in three directions :1) highly predictable cash value of 3 yuan fee a day charged of each student times the size of the group. The group is projected to consist of about 10 from the wechat public account ( based on the projection that 1000 followers gained over 60 days ) , 100 from the wechat moments (10% of my wechat friends circle), and 30 from Lizhi( given the fan base grow to 3000 from the current 2100 over 60 days). 1% is the rule-of-thumb convention rate for self-media products among followers.
2) intellectual property potentially created- a book or two will have the base to make publishing .
3) social benefits- public education
2017.04.15 群消息整理
【安妮说】
It take a leap of faith to put yourself in the shoes of a business starter. Not necessarily background information or training. I have never received any training in doing business. I am just writing down things that make sense for a business I care about to survive. Things that make sense to me.
What I really break here is our limited thinking.
As if we have to learn how to write a business plan to know how to do business. Not that got it backward.
We consider how to start to a business and then write a business plan based on what we think. Anyone can start a business with some capital. And they surely can cook up a business idea which might get them the initial capital they need.
You just need to dig into what you know the most. And / or what you are passionate about. The rest is the budgeting. Budgeting is simple: what you think you need to spend to keep it running. And what you might earn when it is running.
Think about selling lemonade. All the billionaires have tried selling lemonades when they were 14 or 15. So no excuse there that you didn't study business or you are a math student or whatever. It is not learned in books. It is ALL common sense and a lot of planning = thinking. When you are working in a big company. At the beginning, that business is new to you regardless how much prior knowledge you had. It is always new.
Zhefeng, if as a seasoned white color person who has training in both computer science and law and who is working in a big company and can't have a business plan about things, then you don't need much help from a business writing textbook or formulas, which you could easily google out by the way, what you need is belief in your own thinking.
As long as you seriously considered it. Your writing your plan won't be way off. Just do it.
Don't tell me you have to prepare yourself first this way that way get a MBA or whatever ... I heard enough excuses. Just step into the unfamiliar field.
不能等一出手什么都是顺的才出手。
Business plan 也是在marketing.
我知道怎么样大家就写的出business plan了，把这个公司的历史数据产品描述市场分析统统给我们 我们就能整合出来一个商业企划书了，但是那样不是大家都会干嘛。还是没有在思维上有所突破。只不过练了练模版。
我写任何文字如果不personal 就无法有深刻体会和飞跃。
会写广告文案的话你就是市场上最大需求的人才。因为会写文案的人把精华展现到了眼前。
Writers can make the world and change the world. Because they touch hearts and shape minds. They influence People. They are now the main engine of commerce.
Helping a company sell their products is not what my life is about.
2017.04.14 群消息整理
【笃师问答】
Q: （by 青春正能量 A11169）感觉大家，尤其是英专的妹纸，对于做生意都不太在行，反正我感觉就我个人而言是真不知道咋做，一是没什么想法，有想法也是没啥创意的想法，二是有想法但是完全没有可行性计划，对市场客户群、同类产品、以及价格成本和产品需要多久才能做出来都不了解，也没有调研过，所以做不出什么好的plan，数据太虚了，没有说服力，感觉这个瓶颈很明显。
A: 那么就设计一个英语学习群的商业计划，不需要数据。有的时候就是借用你的个人经验，你的朋友圈统计数据，你的印象，不需要具体数字的数据，你对市场需求的证明要求不是那么严格。
A plan is always better than no plan. And so many people try to start and did an English teaching business with some success, without any planning. If you give it any thought, you are already ahead of them. Don't be satisfied with analyzing what you lack.
（by B17065-smuglyanka）还是多实践点，business plan 没有内容支撑不起来的~
2017.04.12~13 群消息整理
【笃师问答】
Q：问个问题~ 笃师示范里面的pricing到底是指什么？感觉和我理解的pricing不太一样...我以为pricing是比如market penetrating/skimming pricing或者是其他的一些price adjustment strategies..为什么还包括了estimated customer base？
A：根据不同行业，这个pricing应该有不同的角度。对我来说更多是算清楚成本（包括运营时间，准备时段）和收益（包括边缘社会效应），再应该加上市场接受度（要测试），来做的利益最大化的定价。也应该包括对目标客户的购买力，兴趣，以及对竞争者价格（市场）的分析。More like financial projections in some business plans.
Q：表示还是不大懂这个business plan~
A：那可能是你还没想过怎么做生意，任何工作都是在做生意，从某种意义上来说。但如果能有个小创业企划或者小的微店，就会更明白business plan 的本质。
【点评区】
I
@ 香香
Business plan in starting a shop selling healthy and sugar-free cupcakes
1. Purpose: (Demand)
In nearly two years, people focus on healthy lifestyle much. For women, losing weight is also an important task, although they will be deduced to all kinds of sweets that may destroy the efforts to lose weight. In today’s world, women are facing the dilemma now. So we want to give people a kind of healthy but delicious cupcake to tackle the dilemma and save women from the “hell”.
Products:
Ingredients:
1. Red date
2. Flour of sweet potatoes
3. Red beans
We use the ingredients from nature with high quality. In addition, we also choose the ingredients with lowest calorie with the value of maintaining healthy lifestyle and controlling weight.
Pricing:
Cost analysis (operational cost, marketing cost)
1. Renting the shop: Because we choose to open in a place that is waiting to be rent and in a place where people pass by every day, the amount for rent will be normal not too high and too low.
2. Buying the ingredients: We choose to use wholesale to buy ingredients from farmers with reputation. The cost will not be too high but the quality will be great.
3. Advertising: When we open the store, we will invite customers to have a free try. Later on, we will sell at the normal price. The cost for advertisement will not be high.
4. Employing: This is the largest part of spending. We should employ two full-time employees to make cupcakes from time to time.
5. Time: The employer should spend whole day in the shop in charge of money issues. So it will take much time to do the business.
Estimated customer base: People who want to go to supermarket to buy grocery and pass by
Benefit desired (expected economic profits): 10000 RMB for a month
Approach:
Rent a shop, buy some machines
Products (different kinds of cupcakes with different levels of sugar)
Marketing (Wechat Group, Alipay, online ordering, posters)
点评By 安妮
减肥产品很多，你和竞争者的differential points are?
Why is yours uniquely solving a problem.
Think on that and put the details in tomorrow.
II
@ 子骐
点评By 安妮
你的这个business idea是不是要研发健康食品，还是要录个健身视频做个中国郑多燕，还是要开个健身场所~？
那你是要从知识网红的角度来给搭配和成分分析，也就是你的知识的整合出来的“课程”或者“咨询”类产品；还是你要组合一帮人进行食品实验，然后做供餐服务——相当于一个餐厅或者catering 服务；还是要制造健康快餐产品，真空包装好的，可以进入超市的。我没太看懂你的具体的产品。
要是制造品牌性的成分固定的包装好的成品，是最复杂的一个计划。你也可以模仿Martha Stewart，以博客或者任何内容自媒体开始，最后集成书。然后你的品牌就建成了，彼时做什么都可以，就有整合资源来找你合作。同时你的产品就是你的前期知识和你的实验（做菜）的présentation。
知识产权是一本万利的生意，只要是清晰defined 就可以。
Network is always the key to mega business but sometimes it can be built up through generations from scratch.Once in while it is built within one generation , like Ma Yun.
