The Business Plan 183Babyyourway.com Business Plan
History and Current Situation
Babyyourway.com uses a parallel competition entry wedge strategy. We are taking an already
popular market niche (children’s apparel) and placing a more focused emphasis on providing a
customized, online approach. Many companies and Web sites offer bibs, but none of them offer
a genuinely customized experience, allowing the purchaser to build a truly unique bib. We do
not have to spend significant resources educating customers about bibs, onesies, burp cloths,
etc., since we are not offering new product lines. Instead we are applying personalized touches
to existing products. We will focus our efforts on communicating the value of the products and
services we provide on our site, and on making the site award-winning for its ease of use.
The Product. Babyyourway.com will be an online retailer filling a horizontal niche in the online
sales of custom baby bibs and apparel. Initial focus will be placed on a limited line of children’s
elevator ride) with a plan to manufacture den-
tures with implanted GPS computer chips.
Their prize was a meeting with venture capi-
talists, but the investors doubted that the
product would succeed in the marketplace.
They were much more positive about the
Prices’ other idea, a revolutionary way to
make and store denture molds. Altadonics,
the company the family created, now distrib-
utes new denture mold kits to dentists in
North Carolina.
In 2002 entrepreneur Joern Kallmeyer
made it to the semifinals of MIT’s $50K
Entrepreneurship Competition with his plan
for a company to manufacture ceramic heat
exchangers that would recycle heat produced
by engines. His plan didn’t win, largelybecause the judges misunderstood
Kallmeyer: He didn’t intend to produce the
heat exchanger himself, but to license it to
other manufacturers. The entrepreneur took
the rejection in stride. “This [feedback] was
so important because the judges act as a
sounding board for how investors might
react,” he says. Kallmeyer submitted a
reworked plan to the UC-Berkley Haas Social
Venture Competition and won $25,000. His
new plan has helped him raise an additional
$1.75 million.
SOURCE:Adapted from Jennifer Merritt, “Big Plans on
Campus,” Business Week Small Biz, Fall 2004: 57; and
from Steve Manning, Lindquist Center for
Entrepreneurship. Retrieved from the Web June 27, 2006.
http://www.lcb.uoregon.edu/Ice/Manning.html, and http://www.inva-
siveplantcontrol.com.Case Questions
1.Identify three business plan competitions to which you could submit your business
plan. Why did you select these particular competitions?- If you were to submit a plan to a competition, what particular kind of feedback would
you be looking for? - In addition to feedback for your plan, what else could you learn from participating in
a business plan competition or from researching competitions on the Internet?
APPENDIX