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General Business: Idea - Mixing Education with Service

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      CommentAuthorKMulligan
    • CommentTimeAug 10th 2005 edited
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    Yet another business idea:

    Take a group of 5-10 college business students (or young entrepreneurs), and offer business analysis services to small and medium sized businesses. Essentially, allowing each business to become a case study that is mutually profitable.

    Start charging at $200-500 per analysis. The business sends in their financial statements, newsworthy pieces of info, and anything else they consider important to their business. The consultants go over the information, and give a fresh perspective -- "why aren't you marketing to [b]x[/b] target segment?", "why don't you use open source to reduce your software expenses?", etc.

    The consultants get an education on business in the real world (plus some cash), the business gets a well thought out, multi-angled look at the business, and the founders profit.

    This idea:
    -scales easily
    -is not limited to a geographic area
    -relatively low levels of capital needed to start

    If anyone is interested in partnering on this, please PM or email me: web [at] kmulligan [dot] net

    Cheers!

    My Personal Finance Blog
    • CommentAuthorsarafina
    • CommentTimeAug 10th 2005 edited
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    The only problem is the lack of specific knowledge/experience the college students have.

    Having a real business send them financial statements would be like a hs student getting their essay paper proof read by a kid in middle school.

    There's not much value in that. I don't see business PAYING for those type of services from your group considering most of what you learn in an undergrad business program is rudimentary knowledge anyway.

    With the services you suggest they provide, I don't see it working unless they're MBA students and already have real life work experience in respective industries.

    Maybe you can offer other services and products such as shredding, mailing, posting, graphic design etc. for the undergrad students.

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      CommentAuthorKMulligan
    • CommentTimeAug 10th 2005 edited
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    Sarafina, I agree, but also disagree. College aged students or entrepreneurs are not going to have a lot of business experience in the real world. That doesn't make them completely useless, either.

    I guess I was seeing this sort of as a business like the Harvard Business School's Case Studies, of which I have done many in my classes during my undergraduate studies. Essentially the same thing, but with a smaller business that obviously hasn't been printed in Harvard's case studies.

    Thanks for the feedback, though.

    My Personal Finance Blog
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      CommentAuthorryanj
    • CommentTimeAug 10th 2005 edited
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    I would do it as a white paper on the company. You could then charge the company for the expenses involved for doing that white paper. Paying the students, or doing it for profit probably wouldn't work though. By the way, the harvard business review studies are done by the MBA students, who average 7 years of relevant work experience.

    RyanGlasgow.net | Blogging Startups, News, Entrepreneurship, and Web Dev
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      CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeAug 10th 2005 edited
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    Sounds like a great idea for a program director at a school to start just as a new way for the kids to learn, but I don't see it working out as a business.

    Proud founder of YGG

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