From Inspiration to Reality- Starting a Business Today

In today’s age of large corporations and superstores consuming the marketplace, small businesses must fight to stay afloat. In order to compete with these market giants, understanding the industry and establishing goals for the future are increasingly important. These ideals are especially essential for a small business initially entering the marketplace. This is the essence of my senior honors project.During my career at URI, I combined my passion for pool and my business administration major to create a New England 9 Ball Tour. For the past three years, I have operated, managed, and promoted this successful tour which draws players from around the New England area to tournaments. Despite the fact that it has grown into a well-known entity in the New England pool world, I was unsure of my potential future goals, strategies in the market, and my internal competitive advantages.Through my honors project I have created a business plan and strategic analysis of the “Rack ‘EM Up” New England 9 Ball Tour. The business plan breaks down the tour into the various stages of a company, describing the management practices, mission statement, and competitors. The strategic analysis examines the external market including growth rate of industry, direct competitors, substitutes, and changes in the environment. These concepts are then compared to the internal development and goals of the “Rack ‘EM Up” New England 9 Ball Tour in order to determine a strategic plan for future years.My honors project incorporates the various aspects of understanding and running a business into an actual written document. This business proposal and strategic analysis are based on a real life example in order to put these concepts and practices to use. It will become the blueprint for my venture and its future success.