Written by successful entrepreneurs, the 2004 FastTrac college series, Planning and Growing a Business Venture, offers a comprehensive package of instructional materials to guide students in new venture creation and growth.

At the heart of this series is the text, Planning and Growing a Business Venture, which offers a practical, hands-on approach to entrepreneurship and leads students through the process of writing either a feasibility plan or a business plan. With over 400 pages of information, examples, and exercises, this text covers such topics as identifying business opportunities and concept development to market penetration and financial statements. In addition to traditional topics, this series expands your students' horizons through coverage of emerging entrepreneurial topics such as e-commerce, international business opportunities, and the speed of change in the business environment.  Chapters begin with learner objectives and end with exercises that reinforce key concepts.

To supplement the text, students can use The Business Mentor^TM CD-ROM and The Venture Planning Workbook^TM for guidance, inspiration and resources as they test business concepts and create feasibility plans and business plans.

A strong technology component, The Business Mentor^TM CD-ROM, helps students

• save time writing a feasibility plan or business plan through the use of preformatted text and spreadsheet templates based on Planning and Growing a Business Venture.
• think through the planning process by considering pertinent, timely tips from other successful entrepreneurs and distinguished business coaches.
• access a variety of resources and on-line links to entrepreneurial information through the CD-ROM.

With the planning tools, students may work sequentially or go directly to the sections that meet specific, immediate needs.

The Venture Planning Workbook is also a tool to help students develop their planning skills. One of the biggest problems for students is trying to write feasibility and business plans when they don't know what questions or issues need to be addressed. The Workbook gives students focus and the question and answer format maps directly to the templates on The Business Mentor^TM CD-ROM.

The integrated 2004 FastTrac package, developed and written by entrepreneurs, provides everything you and your students need:

• Planning and Growing a Business Venture, student textbook
• The Venture Planning Workbook
• The Business Mentor^TM CD-ROM
• Instructor's Manual
• Overhead slides in PowerPoint^TM format
• Case studies

 With this text you have the flexibility of selecting material to use in a single course or to use the same text for two complementary courses—eliminating redundancy and saving students money. Our highly praised Planning Workbook, updated for use with the new The Business Mentor^TM CD-ROM, is offered as a companion planning tool for your students.

FastTrac provides your students with an in-depth view of the world of entrepreneurship and helps your students develop professional business planning skills.

Planning and Growing a Business Venture: The course outline

The following topics are covered in the text:

• Entrepreneurs' personal and business criteria
• Entrepreneurial characteristics
• Entrepreneurial myths
• Identifying venture opportunities
• Entrepreneurial entry strategies
• Buying a business
• Business valuation
• Format and writing tips for feasibility and business plans
• Concept development
• Model business
• Building the management team and infrastructure
• Legal forms of organization
• Intellectual property
• Contracts and leases
• Protecting business interests
• Government regulations
• Market research for new ventures
• Analyzing the market
• Pricing
• Market penetration
• Budgeting
• Financial statements
• Financial ratios
• Money needs
• Traditional and alternative money sources
• The entrepreneur and the community