Alex's First Business Plan

Maybe I shouldn't say it's his first business plan, but it is the most detailed that he's done so far. I left very early Friday morning for a conference in Florence, SC. I was only gone 36 hours, leaving Art and Alex alone together. Not enough time for Alex to complete his MBA, but I guess he got a start on it.

Those of you who know Alex understand that he talks. And when I say he talks, I mean A LOT. Sometime in the middle of the day on Saturday he told Art that his throat was kind of dry. Art mentioned that it was probably because he hadn't stopped talking since he woke up that morning. (From past experience, that's entirely possible.) While following Art around while he tried to complete chores, yardwork, gardening, etc. on Friday, Alex explained his plan for a business that he wanted to open. He used to tell us he was going to open a restaurant, but the only real planning he did was to collect paint chips from Lowe's for the decor (my word, not his).

Apparently, this time, Art just asked him questions and gave helpful tips to move his plan along. Art told Alex that he needed to answer some key questions to put this business plan into action. First, who would be involved, and where they willing to participate? (I'm inserting Alex's notecards that I found when I got home last night.)

I don't know why I get a title but Art is mentioned by name.

He did a quick survey of stakeholders and got a positive response from all members of the household. Next came:

On to specifics, when would we sell snacks?

I don't know if he was trying to get out of homework, or making it convenient for the working members of the household. He then moved on to how he would sell the snacks:

This is the artist's rendering of his restaurant/snack shop, Tiger Snacks. Note the drive thru sign and arrow. This is "how" he would sell snacks.

He mulled his marketing campaign, business name and logo:

(Should I tell him about the copyright restrictions on the official tiger paw?) He drew three different pictures of the shop and signage placement but the above design apparently won out. Here's his logo and motto, with a slight spelling error: "Where Tigers Eat" - for non-Clemson residents, he means Clemson fans, not actual Tigers - I asked, just in case. The logo is a tiger paw with a cheese cracker in the center.

The final slide from his presentation? It covers the motivation for this particular business venture:

Cold, hard cash. Today he went over the personnel chart. Alex told me that he would be the assistant manager, Art the manager and I could be a "cash register lady." I asked why Art was the boss instead of him. He told me that he thought he was a little young to be the manager. Oh, of course.

What lessons can we learn from this particular plan? 1) I shouldn't leave the guys alone for more than a few hours. 2) When you buy 500 blank index cards from the office supply store, be prepared for Alex to use them. He's also designed his own Pokemon cards with them. 3) The kid may be an evil genius, and we all may be working for him some day!