Your company choice can be a new venture or existing business, but should not be a large corporation. Company or product/service selections that are pertinent and meaningful to you make the best projects, so if appropriate, your own company or a small local business makes a good choice. Local small businesses often have minimal marketing budgets, so this could be a chance to help a business in your own community, while gaining practical experience. Also, for you future entrepreneurs, this is a great chance to put some strategy to paper, or to use your new knowledge to take your hobby to the next level. Or, maybe you have a vision of some unmet need (product, service, or business), or feel a particular company is on the wrong path. Your dissatisfaction can breed great ideas! All information in your projects will be kept confidential, unless you provide permission to use for examples in future classes.

Thinking too small is never an issue when it comes to your business choice. Sometimes students bite off more than they can chew by choosing a company so large that they are dealing with many products and many target markets. In this regard, smaller is better, which is why large corporations are not appropriate for this project. You will need to do some forecasting and make financial projections. When we are starting a business from scratch, we use industry research, market/demographic research, competitive information and benchmarks, and make informed assumptions.