Advertising Your Product and Company - Lemonade Stand

Now that you have done the research of what you will sell, where you will sell it, and how much it will cost to operate, you will need to convince investors to give you money to start your company.

You will have two minutes to give a presentation to your classmates.  How you spend these two minutes is entirely up to you, but keep in mind that your classmates will be making a decision of what to do with their money based on how well you have planned out your business.  People don't like to invest in businesses that don't have a good plan!

Another portion of what will make a convincing presentation is if you already have an advertisement for your product.  Like I mentioned, there are no requirements for the two minute presentation, but I believe that having an advertisement for your product will help you attract investors.
I know what you are thinking: "But wait! How will I be graded on this assignment?"  Answer: I will not be grading the actual presentations.

How you will earn your grade:
Your classmates will be given a sum of money to invest in a limited number of companies.  Your grade will be based on whether you convince enough of your fellow students to invest in your company, and the investments you collect are more than your expenses.

Creating a Business

As you create your business plan, you can use my business plan for guidance.  Download my document and save it in your student drive for future reference.

Step 1

Start Your Business Plan

Open a Microsoft Excel document and save using the class saving guidelines. (File name: "YourNameBusinessPlan")

At the bottom of your document, you will see that there are already three sheets that have been created.  Rename Sheet 1 to Overview.

Come up with a product that you would like to sell.  When deciding on a product to sell, keep the following in mind:

• Is this a product you know something about, and/or would be willing to learn more about?
• Is this a product that you can feel passionate about?
• Is this a product that people would buy?

If your answer is yes to all of the above (and your product is school appropriate), you have found your product!  Enter in the following in your Business Plan Document on the Overview page: "Product: [your product]"

Navigate to the Lemonade Stand Project Spreadsheet and fill in your information.

Step 2

Find a Market

Now that you have found a product to sell, you will need to find the best location to sell your product.

• Come up with a place that you would like to sell your product (SE Portland? Beijing? San Francisco? North Dakota?)
• Navigate to maps.google.com
• Search for your place.  My place is Boulder, Colorado.  After searching for your place, the map screen will show a zoomed out picture of your chosen location.

View Larger Map

• You should now search nearby for vendors that sell products similar to yours. I clicked on "Search nearby", then entered in "Mountain Bike"
• I have found that there are about 10 vendors in Boulder that sell mountain bikes. Side note: this could mean one of two things: either there are too many mountain bike shops in Boulder (too much supply), or there are a lot of people who want to ride mountain bikes (high demand).
• Bonus point! (Not required) In your business plan overview sheet, defend why your product supplies the demand in your chosen location.

View Larger Map

Step 3

Market Research

You will need to do some research to find out how much to charge for your product.

• In your Business Plan Excel document, rename Sheet 2 to "Market Research"
• Accross the top row (Row 1) of your Market Research sheet, create the following headers, one per cell:
• Company
• Product
• Price
• Fill in the Market Research sheet by searching the shops you found in your area.
• My first shop I found is "Redstone Cyclery" in Boulder.
• I went to their website and found a mountain bike for sale, then entered the information in my Market Research:
• Under the Company column, I entered "Redstone Cyclery"
• Under the Product column, I entered "Tomac Primer 220 Mountain Bike"
• Under the Price column, I entered "$2,349.00"
• I repeated this process for as many companies in the area that I could.
• Once you have at least 5 companies and products recorded, find the average price of the products in your area by selecting all the prices in the price column, then clicking the Sum key drop down menu, and selecting "Average".
• The average price of a mountain bike in Boulder is $2,399.20.
• Let's assume that to purchase your product from a supplier, you will pay half of the price you will sell the product for.
• I used the Sum key again to automatically divide the average price in half =SUM(C8/2)  This will be useful later if I find that the price of bikes changes and I need my calculations to stay current.
• Now that you have divided the average price of your product in half, you have found out the cost of the product.

Step 4

If you have finished all of the steps above, it is time to use Excel to Calculate your Expenses

Lemonade Stand Class Spreadsheet Guidelines

Google Docs is a great place to compile information from a large group of people, say, three computer technology classes.

I have created a Google Document where you can enter your information about your Lemonade Stand Project so that others can see your work.  Before you enter your information, however, we should observe a few guidelines:

1. This document can be edited by anyone.  Please respect others' work.
2. Do not delete or edit others' work.

Here is the link to the Lemonade Stand Project Spreadsheet.

What's My Grade? Microsoft Excel Assignment

Microsoft Excel is a very powerful tool.  Like many powerful tools, it is also sometimes complicated.  While this is an individual assignment, you may need to work with your neighbors if you get stuck.  Asking a question in Google and using the Help menu are good, too!

-Open Microsoft Excel, and save your file using the class saving guidelines.

-As your header, add a title (What's My Grade?), name, and class.

-Across your first row, create some column headings: Assignment, Earned, Possible, Percentage


-Format your first row in Bold.

-Log in to EdLine, and record your assignment names in your first column under Assignment


-Enter in your earned credit for each assignment in the Earned column.

-Enter in the total possible points in the Possible column.

-Now format your Percentage column.

1. Right click on the letter above the column to highlight the entire column.
2. Select "Format"
3. Under the "Number" section, select "Percentage"
4. Click OK

-Now find the percentage earned for each assignment.

1. Select the top most cell in the percentage column that is in the same row as your top assignment.
2. Click the sum key.  The sum key is represented by the greek letter Sigma: 
3. Note that the automatic function of the sum key is to sum or add a string of numbers together.  It probably looks something like this: =SUM(B2:C2). Excel guesses which numbers you want to add and highlights those cells.  In this case Excel has probably chosen both the Earned and Possible points to add together.  Unfortunately adding the two numbers together will not give us meaningful information so we need to...
4. Edit the function.  We find the percentage of a number by dividing.  So you convert this sentence: "I earned 6 out of 10 points for First Assignment" to a function like so: 6/10.
5. But what if we resubmit the assignment for more credit?  We want to be able to enter in the new number in the correct box and have the percentage represent the new number.  So change the function in your selected box to =SUM(B2/C2), then press enter.
6. You should now see the percentage in the box you edited!
7. Okay, how about the other assignments percentages?  Do I have to redo the same process for every assignment? No, you don't!
8. Hover your mouse cursor over the lower right corner of the cell you just added the function to.
9. Your cursor should turn to a solid black cross.
10. If you drag the cross down and release, it will copy the function to every cell you highlight.

-Okay time for your totals.  Use the Sum function to total up your Earned, Possible, and Percentages columns with separate totals.

-Download my template to see what your file should look like.

-If your document looks like mine (including functions!),  you may save, then attach to a professional email to teacherlatorre@gmail.com No earlier than the last 10 minutes of class!.  If you finish the minimum requirements before the last ten minutes, add a sheet to your document and repeat the process for all of your classes.

Cyberbullying Project Reflection (Individual)

Your reflection should be written on a Word document then sent as an attachment to teacherlatorre@gmail.com.
Use the same format that your group used for the Proposal.
Please include:
-An appropriate file name
-Date
-To
-From
-What happened?
-Was this a success? Why or why not?
-Include a compliment to one of your group members for something they helped your group to accomplish.
-Finally, assign yourself, your group members, and your group over all a grade (A-D).  Defend and explain your decision.  It should look like this:

[example]:
Grade
Mr. LaTorre (me): A-
I worked hard but there was one day I was tired and did not help out as much.

Phillip Group guy: A+
Phillip did a ton of work, and even got some things done outside of class.

Gene Group guy: B-
Gene wanted to do another topic, and it took all day to get him to help.  Eventually he was really good at doing research and adding it to our project.

Group Grade: A
We worked well together even though we had some disagreements.  We learned a lot about cyberbullying, and were able to compile our facts into a presentation that made sence and was educational to others.

Cyber Bullying Presentation

Once you have completed the action portion of your project, you will need to create a Microsoft Powerpoint file to share your project with the class.

Steps:

1. Choose one group member to navigate to docs.google.com, and create a presentation document.
2. Add all group members to the document as editors.
3. Using the rather plain presentation below as your template, create a much more creative presentation to share with the class that will describe your project.
4. Download your Google presentation as a PowerPoint presentation, using the class saving guidelines.
5. Attach your file to a professional email from your Outlook account to teacherlatorre@gmail.com

Follow this example while creating your presentation:



Grading for this assignment:

• Students will be graded as a group, not individually for this portion of the project.
• I will be looking for the following components in determining your grade for the presentation:
• Title Page (group members listed?)
• Project Overview (how did your group decide what to do?)
• Action (Is it clear what your group has done?)
• Outcome (All questions answered?)
• Conclusion (lessons learned)
• Thank You/Questions page
• Works Cited (MLA format)
• Proper spelling and grammar
• Each of the above requirements is worth 5 points each, totalling 40 points for the presentation.

Elementary Presenters

If your group is hoping to present at an elementary school, please fill in your information in the spreadsheet here.

Cyberbullying Group Project Overview

In small groups (3 members), you will conduct a project to learn more about cyberbullying.  You may focus on causes, effects, history, culture, awareness, technology, or other aspects of cyberbullying.  The learning in this project will not be guided by the teacher - each group will need to be their own guide (I am available to help you when you need it, however).

Project goals:

• Collaborate using Google Documents and email.
• Discover more about cyber culture.

Project components:

• Proposal
• Action
• Presentation
• Works Cited
• Reflection

Grading:

• Each of the project components will be graded according to whether the group each individual follow instructions.
• Group members will assign each other collaboration grades
• Individuals will assign themselves an overall grade
• The teacher will assign an effort and participation grade

Cyberbullying Project: Action

This portion of the project may be interpreted freely.  The only way that this portion of the project is graded is whether it appears that the group spent the allotted time working on their project or not.

Some action portions of the Cyberbullying Project by past students:

• Create a presentation and leading a discussion in an elementary classroom.
• Make an informational video.
• Create informational posters to hang about the school.
• Create an informational model.
• Write an article to submit to a local paper.
• Write a research essay.
• Create a board game.

Cyberbullying Project Research Requirement

You will need to gather information from several sources to ensure that the information you use in your project is accurate and meaningful.

While gathering information for your project, you must use information using the following resources:

1) At least one article found using Gale Power Search

2) At least one article found using SIRS Knowledge Source OR Opposing Viewpoints

3) At least one news article found using Google News

4) At least one website that you trust as a reputable source

As you collect information, be sure you keep your sources in a works cited page.  Let me know which requirement you are fulfilling in your works cited page by including the resource where you found the article.  For example:

Works Cited

1. Acohido, Byron. "Hackers Invade iTunes Accounts." USA TODAY. 26 Aug 2010: B.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 07 May 2012. (Found using SIRS Knowledge Source)
2. Molina, Brett. "Study: More People Using Cellphones for Real-time Info." USA Today. Gannett, 07 May 2012. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/05/study-more-people-using-cell-phones-for-real-time-info/1>. (Found using Google News)