oosely based in principle on the movie, Brewster’s Millions starring Richard Pryor, this exercise is designed to push your thinking about what it means to grow your business. More specifically, we want you to think about your business in the largest scope possible so that you will be encouraged to push through mindset barriers to optimum success.

What to Do (and How to Do It):

Prior to beginning this exercise, review Chapter 16 in the text, and review the short video, Brewster’s Millions 1985 ‘Look at All That Money…’ (Links to an external site.) (Jet-One, 2014).

Similar to the plot in the movie; you will be given an initial sum of money as dictated by the terms of the will of your recently departed Uncle Rich. The funds must be spent within a prescribed amount of time on ideas to grow your business.

In this exercise, you are going to draw two pictures of the visions you have for your business; one at the beginning as a baseline reference and another at the end of the exercise.

• Using the business idea that you described in your Week 3 Interactive 2: My Business Canvas Model, complete the following steps:
  • Draw a picture in any way you would like using Web Whiteboard (Links to an external site.) to describe what you envision your business will look like in five years if you follow your current business plan. You may include prompts such as the size of revenues, number of employees, scope and scale of the market, and so forth, as best describes your vision.
  • According to the terms of Uncle Rich’s will, $50,000 has been donated to your business. You will not have to pay the money back providing you spend this money within the next six months on great ideas for growing your business. Make a list of the five most critical things you would do with this money to grow your business.
  • Emboldened by the decisions you have made, the attorney has donated additional funds, this time in the form of a check for $500,000 with the same proviso that it must be spent within the next six months on really great ideas. Make a new list of the five most critical things, in addition to those on your first list that you would use this money for to grow your business even further.
  • Thoroughly enchanted by your entrepreneurial decision making, the attorney has decided to authorize an additional $5 million with the usual stipulation that all of the money be spent within the next six months. So, make a third list, in addition to the previous two, of the five most critical things you would like to have to grow your business as much as possible.
  • Taking into account the effects of the investments that have been made, draw a picture of the vision you now have of the business on a new page using the Web Whiteboard app.
• Compare the two visions of your business, and respond to the following questions:
  • What were the key thoughts you had in drawing your original picture? What led you to this vision?
  • What was different about the new vision as compared to the original? Explain.
  • What was on the first list? The second? The third? Were there any themes or patterns that you noticed about the items on the lists that stand out to you?
• Post a summary of your analysis to the discussion forum for Interactivity 1: Uncle Rich’s Will, along with links to both of your Web Whiteboard drawings.
  • Review and respond to the posts of at least two classmates by Day 7.
  • For each response, provide a brief analysis of how effective you believe the additional resources would be for growing the business.
  • What suggestions might you make to further optimize the growth of the business?