Business plan analysis and evaluation

¶ … Financials

How does Little Monsters propose to make money for its investors? Do you feel this is a strong offer and a reasonable strategy? Explain your position.

The Little Monsters business plan proposes to make money for its investors by deriving a profit from sales of their cutting-edge trans-dermal supplementary nutritional patch. The group suggests that their product will ride on the coattails of other popular vitamin and mineral supplements for children. Their marketing plan indicates that they are confident that widespread adoption of the new product will take place over a period of about nine months, with sales exceeding expenses by the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2012. The group looks for image and character licensing to boost sales once agreements have been realized with celebrities or media and design studios.

The Little Monsters vitamin and mineral transdermal patch uses new technology that principally sells on the basis of convenience and product cache. The transdermal technology is somewhat new and few patch products are currently in use for adults. Consumer reticence to use a product on their children that they don't yet use on themselves is likely to be high. In most consumers' minds, the patch technology is associated with anti-smoking (nicotine) patches and female hormones primarily used for birth control. The use of B-12 transdermal patches is likely to known only to a small niche of the target market involved in the more demanding athletic activities. Although consumers may have concerns about the orally-ingested vitamin and mineral nutritional supplements for children that are currently on the market, those products have a long history and have changed only marginally over the past several decades. For example, the supplements now come in chewable and gummy forms. I think it is highly unlikely that the product will be adopted by parents as a substitute for orally-ingested children's vitamin and mineral nutritional supplements.

2. Do the financial statements support the body of the plan and do they seem realistic based on the body of the plan?

Advertising is going to be a major part of the marketing plan because parents need to be convinced of the safety of the transdermal patch for use with children. The business plan allots approximately $150,000 for print, media, and signage advertising costs for the first year. Forecast expenditures on advertising for subsequent years increase radically across a five-year period, as follows: FY1 $150,000; FY2 $187,000; FY3 $400,000; FY4 $500,000; FY5 $750,000. Advertising expenses are expected to increase along with production costs in response to increased demand. It is rational to expect advertising costs to be greater in the first several years of a product launch, particularly when the product has a credibility hurdle to overcome. Possibly, social media and word-of-mouth can help to stimulate growth sufficiently to make a moderate advertising budget work for the first few years. The Income Statement for Fiscal Year 2012 only shows income for only three months. Advertising costs jump in October, apparently in expectation that the fit of the Little Monsters theme with Halloween will cause seasonal lift of the brand. For example, in 2012, advertising rose from in $4,914 in September to $30, 214, with a similar pattern in subsequent years.