"Shark Tank" Business Project and Presentation

Based off the hit TV Show “Shark Tank,” student’s innovation, teamwork, problem solving and critical thinking skills are put to the test by creating a new business in your local market and developing a business plan to sell to an adult panel (aka the shark tank or instructor). This project does it all! It serves as a great way to connect community and business partnerships into the classroom as they can serve as mentors or as a “shark.” The project starts with student choice and they work to develop the plan as a group as you guide and coach them in the process.

The project covers many standards for business, economics, personal finance, math, and social studies classes. Give your students an engaging, real-world project that promotes the highest levels of learning. The project is a must for future business students and relevant to all students as the power of business ownership is learned first-hand. Students decide on staffing, wages, hours, legal requirements, location, profit, menus, and many of the other decisions that business owners would have to make if they planned on starting a business.

The following are the topics covered in the project. Each topic has assignments and grading rubrics for the students to successfully manage the project.

Different Portions of the project

PART 1- Executive Summary:

Part 2 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis

Part 3 Location & Layout

Part 4: Legal Requirements

Part 5: Startup expenses

Part 6 Management and Organization:

Part 7- Pricing Strategy Competition Analysis

Part 8 Meu

PART 9- Projected Total Sales

Part 10 Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

COGS Sample

Part 11 Payroll Costs

Sample Payroll Charts

Part 12 Ongoing Costs

Sample ongoing costs

Part 13- Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy

Part 14: Loan or Investment Proposal

Part 15: Net Revenue

Part 15: Operating Expense

I use the project as a nine weeks project and we work on it once a week until the last couple weeks of the nine weeks. Have students learn entrepreneurship with this hands-on project. This project could be shortened or lengthened to fit your needs and has all the rubrics to make grading easy. I bring in a local business owner to teach labor costs, payroll, gross sales and net revenue and they serve as a shark.