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Success Guide — GoVenture Entrepreneur, Full Business

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https://coda.io/@mediaspark/success-guide-goventure-entrepreneur⁠

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👈1. Start Here!

This Success Guide will help you be successful playing the GoVenture Entrepreneur Full Business. Start by Watching this 4-Minute Video:

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You may also want to watch this detailed video of the lead designer of GoVenture playing the simulation:

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2. Your First Days In Business

Things you should NOT do ...

Do not buy the higher-capacity Site and Equipment — they are too expensive for a new business and you can upgrade later when you need to and can afford to.

Do not expect to accomplish many (or any) sales in your first week. You have no inventory to sell and there is much business information for you to review.

Do not schedule your business to open until you have made key decisions and have inventory available to sell.

Do not hire employees right away. Run the business yourself for a while as you experiment with pricing and inventory management. Determine the best balance to achieve profitability before hiring employees. You will lose customers due to slow service and that’s ok at the start.

Do not invest in advertising until your operations are efficient and you are confident in your ability to be profitable.

Things you SHOULD do …

Frequently slow down and speed up the simulation clock based on what you want to accomplish. Slow down the clock when you first start.

Review every screen of the simulation to discover the information and options that are available to you. Read the help text at the bottom of every screen.

Review your products and decide on the type of business you want to operate — low price with low quality, or high price with high quality, or somewhere in between. You can adjust your strategy over time.

Review suppliers and order inventory to match your target price and quality. Inventory takes days to arrive so plan to open for business no sooner than the day after the inventory arrives.

Adjust product prices based on your cost of goods and target profit.

Review your payables. If you can afford to pay some or all of the bills now, do so to improve your business reputation.

Once your inventory is available, set your hours of operation to match the highest customer traffic days and times for your location — review the Customer Profiles report. You need to be open at least 30 - 40 hours per week to achieve profitability.

Manage your home time carefully to avoid reducing your health, particularly during the first week in business when you have more control over your time.

Review the Performance Report and the Skill Score to discover how your success is measured.

More things to consider …

Review the

Help & User Guide⁠

to better understand customer feedback and how business metrics are calculated.

Managing inventory is difficult. Good planning and consistent processes are necessary to achieve success. You must have enough inventory available to sell, but not so much that it will remain unsold long enough to spoil. Some inventory items must be ordered frequently in lower quantities, while others can be ordered in larger quantities less frequently. Create a plan and process to maximize sales and customer satisfaction, while minimizing shipping costs and spoilage.

If you run out of inventory, schedule your business to be closed until inventory arrives. Staying open without inventory will negatively affect your customer satisfaction.

Well before you decide to invest money in advertising, begin setting your Targeting, Messaging, and Media options so that you have time to experiment and optimize your results.

When you are ready to hire employees, hire only one employee and schedule them to work during the busiest hours. You should see a reduction in the number of customers lost due to slow service. You should also see an increase in revenue now that more customers are served. Experiment until your profit is high enough to cover the extra expense of having an employee. If your net profit is growing, consider hiring more employees, continuing to experiment with one or two more employees at a time during your busiest hours. Maintain profitability as you grow.

Advice for specific business types like Dental Practice, Fitness Gym, and others.

Fitness Gym

Your business hours are set to 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. These hours cannot be changed. Employees hired will be automatically scheduled to match these hours. Note that you have to click a link on the SCHEDULE screen for your business to open— this gives you time to get your business set up before you open for customers.

Coworking Space

Your business hours are set to 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. These hours cannot be changed. Employees hired will be automatically scheduled to match these hours. Note that you have to click a link on the SCHEDULE screen for your business to open— this gives you time to get your business set up before you open for customers.

Microstay Hotel

A hotel that rents rooms by the hour for individuals seeking brief stays, meetings, meditation, or rest during the day.

Customers can choose a Basic room or one of 4 upgraded rooms. Customers who rent a room may also choose to purchase nearby parking.

Bicycle and Skateboard Shop

A specialized retail store that assembles, sells, and services bicycles and skateboards.

You assemble the bicycles when they are ordered.

Skateboards and electric bicycles are made by other companies and come pre-assembled, so you are only reselling and servicing these products.

Dental Practice

You are a dentist who is starting your own Dental Practice.

Skills needed to offer products and services:

You are the only person with Dental skill (DDS/DMD) and cannot hire for this skill.

When you first open for business, you may only be able to offer two services — Prophylaxis and Scaling & Root Planing. You can hire an employee with Dental Hygiene (RDH) skill to serve more patients (customers) with these two services. Hiring a person with this skill is a good strategy when you first open or shortly thereafter. At some point later, you may want to consider having more than one employee with this skill if you have more customers who want this service.

You can hire an employee with Chairside Assisting skills to unlock more services. But some services require the purchase of additional equipment and moving into a larger site with greater capacity. This can be expensive so it may be best to wait until your business is profitable each day before making this investment.

You can hire an employee with Office Skills to sell products to patients who are undergoing services. You can view the skills required to sell a product on the Products screen by clicking the product to view its details.

Your business will always lose patients (customers) for one reason or another. Your Dental Practice is an appointment-only business (not a drop-in business). Many of your lost customers are people who contacted the Dental Practice for an appointment that could not be scheduled — due to a lack of available time, skill, equipment, or capacity.

Once you have a few employees hired to help deliver all of your products and services and you are running a profitable business, you may want to grow your sales by attracting and serving more customers. To attract more customers, build your brand and begin marketing. Be careful not to spend money on marketing if you cannot serve new customers. Monitor your lost customers data to determine the best time to grow.

3. Time Management

The clock is always running and creates a realistic sense of urgency.

You can control the speed at which time passes. This allows you to slow down time while you are making business decisions and then speed up time to watch the results of those decisions.

To change the speed, click the clock on the smartphone — or click the slider to make quicker adjustments.

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Time Management Example

Arrive at work one or two hours before you are scheduled to open for business.

Set time to slow or very slow.

Conduct management activities for the day (inventory, employees, marketing, etc).

When the management activities are done, set the time to fast or very fast.

Monitor the results of your decisions.

Go home and schedule your return for the next day.

Repeat.

NOTE — You can serve customers while you are at work. Your personal customer service level is high, but your productivity is low because you have other tasks. An employee with high productivity will be able to serve many more customers than you can.

4. The Game Plan

The goal is to achieve a high Net Profit.

Maximize your sales revenue, while keeping your expenses as low as possible

How to maximize revenue

Open for business during periods of highest traffic and be open at least 30 or 40 hours per week.

Have enough inventory available and on-order to meet demand.

Hire employees to serve more customers.

Select a site and equipment with higher-capacities to serve more customers.

Conduct marketing activities to increase the number of customers.

How to keep expenses low

Operate the smallest business that fully serves your needs.

Manage inventory so that you always have just enough but never run out.

Only open for business during the busiest days and hours at your location.

Do not hire employees too soon. Schedule employees to work during the busiest hours.

Do not make marketing investments until your business is operating efficiently and profitably.

5. Solutions for Common Business Problems

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback appears in real time with each customer and is available in the Customer Feedback report.

Refer to the

Help & User Guide⁠

for information on how to interpret the feedback and which actions to take

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Gross Profit Margin Too Low

PRICE —Are product prices too low? Increasing product prices will earn more profit per sale (but may reduce quantity sold).

QUALITY — Does product quality exceed customer expectations? Lowering quality will reduce cost of goods sold (but may reduce customer satisfaction).

Net Profit Too Low

REVENUE — Are you attracting and servicing enough customers to achieve your target sales? Marketing may increase customers. Are you losing customers? Review customer feedback to discover how to improve.

SERVICE — Are more employees working than needed? Scheduling fewer employees will reduce expenses (but may reduce customer satisfaction).

MARKETING — Are you spending advertising money inefficiently? Improve your Advertising Effectiveness. Make sure you have enough inventory and employees to service the increase in customers achieved with advertising.

EXPENSES — Are site, equipment, and other expenses higher than they need to be?

Business Reputation Low

Refer to the

Help & User Guide⁠

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Health Too Low

You are working too many hours - not taking enough personal time at home.

Note that it may take many days of proper rest to improve health.

Clock Too Fast or Slow

Click the clock or the slider to adjust the speed.

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