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Star t Y our Own Business

Competitive Where will your competitive advantages
advantages come from (e.g., product/service uniqueness,
and lowest cost provider, entry into an untapped
differentiators market niche, strong customer relationships,
access to channels of distribution, unique
competencies, proprietary know-how,
barriers to future competitor threats, fi rst
mover advantage)?
Do you have an opportunity based on
inexorable trends, such as global market
expansion, energy shortages, disruptive
technology, new business methodology, the
disruption of your competitors through the
application of information technology,
channels of outsourcing, resource short-
ages, or others?

Fatal Flaws Are there particular defects in your business
(defects that that cannot be surmounted—overpowering
cannot be competition, cost of market entry, small size
changed) of market, lack of customer need/want,
inability to deliver products and services at
acceptable prices, or others?

*Note: A blank version of this exhibit can be downloaded from www.trumpuniversity.com/
wealthbuilding101 for your personal use.

This is an important checklist. Pause here. Mark this page and put each
one of your ideas and potential opportunities through this checklist. Reach a
Go/No-Go decision.

Step 3: Develop an Effective Executive Summary

Once you have identified a bona fide opportunity, you are on your way. No
journey of any consequence, however, begins without a plan; the same applies
to starting and operating a business. If you want to get where you intend to
go, you need a road map. Without it, the outcome of all your labors will be
strictly random—and probably disappointing. Generally a business plan is a
lengthy document and the product of a great deal of research and effort. At
this point, however, you don’t need a complete business plan; a mini-plan or
Executive Summary is enough. Here is an example of an effective Executive
Summary for The Beading Café, excerpted from my book, Trump University
Entrepreneurship 101 (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007).

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