Expanding a smoothie business' business plan

**CharlieB** · 02-22-2011 05:52 AM

Hi

I've just found out that a local smoothie bar in London has just been listed for sale at £55,000 and this has got my interest as i've suddenly thought of a few new things I can introduce to help it improve its profitability. For my Business Management course I have to make a business plan for a minimum of £250k investment and I would like to use this smoothie business for my project so at least I have a business plan should I decide to buy the bar for real. However my question is: If it would cost me £55,000 to buy how easy and realistic would it be to make up the extra £200k needed for my project? The project business plan has to be credible so I was just wondering if this would be a sensible business to use or would it look stupid saying I need an extra £200k to do whatever I want with? (if this is the case I would plan on increasing marketing, stock and opening a smaller store or two, but obviously the numbers have to be ran first.)

If I did buy it out I would plan on expanding the range of smoothies, possibly rebranding them and expanding to corporate markets by offering offices a free smoothie dispenser and then they buy the actual smoothie as a bulk order each week.

Please tear any of this apart if its unrealistic or pointless.

The profit forecast for the next 2 years is £15k in year one and £25K year two.

Thanks for reading

Charlie

**CharlieB** · 02-26-2011 07:10 AM

alternatively would it be realistic to use a website idea of mine for my project even though it's a minimum of 250K investment? Is it realistic to spend 250k on a website, could this be done by including offices, extra staff, marketing etc?

**bozzie123** · 02-26-2011 07:41 AM

email nboswell90 at gmail.com or PM me, i may be able to provide some ideas

**akula** · 02-26-2011 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by CharlieB

However my question is: If it would cost me £55,000 to buy how easy and realistic would it be to make up the extra £200k needed for my project?

hi..i'm sorry I don't understand the questions
please advise if this is correct:

1) you want to invest 55k into a venture
2) your required rate of return is 200k or 364% over 3 years = appx. 51.6% return p.a. compounded
3) you are asking if the annual rate of return is realistic?

is that correct?

**CharlieB** · 02-26-2011 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by akula

hi..i'm sorry I don't understand the questions
please advise if this is correct:

1) you want to invest 55k into a venture
2) your required rate of return is 200k or 364% over 3 years = appx. 51.6% return p.a. compounded
3) you are asking if the annual rate of return is realistic?

is that correct?

Sorry I haven't explained it very well.

For my business management course I have a project where I have to design a business plan for either a business idea of myself or an existing business for a fantasy investment of a minimum of £250k. I have an idea of mine I could use and also I've recently found a local smoothie business listed for sale for £55k. This got me exited as I started thinking of different ways of how I could increase the predicted £15k profit, I contacted them saying that I was interested but I would like their permission to use them for my project. Effectively killing two birds with one stone so if I do use them for my project and the market research comes back encouraging then I can use the business plan from the project to convince the bank for a loan, rather than make a new one.

However they haven't responded to me so i'm having to think about a back up idea and one of the ones I cam up with which I have posted on YE before is:

A website for small business investors and entrepreneurs to meet and the entrepreneurs pitch for investment via a video (we also have to do this for my project which is where the idea came from). The entrepreneur would have a profile page for their company with lots of information including links to accounts and any financial ratios which would be relevant.

However as my project requires a minimum investment of £250k i'm not sure if it would be realistic to say:

I want £250k to buy a £55k smoothie bar so I can rapidly expand by opening more branches for example

or I want £250k to build the website idea when I think to hire a web designer it would cost only around £3000. So what do I use the rest of the money on realistically? Marketing? Buy office space? or would these just increase the risk to the 'fantasy investor' and look like you are moving too fast too quickly?

To summarise i'm asking if its realistic to go to the bank asking to borrow a lot more than you actually need? I don't want to be marked down in my coursework for being unrealistic.

Thanks

Charlie