Entrepreneurship Project: Box Knife Sharpening Business Plan in India

This entrepreneurship project details a business plan for Box Knife Sharpening, aimed at entering the Indian market. The plan identifies the problem of unsafe, rusted knives in Indian restaurants and proposes a solution by providing high-speed steel (HSS) knives and sharpening services via an online platform. It includes a market analysis highlighting India's growing restaurant industry and the increasing awareness of food safety. The project also covers competitor analysis, funding strategies involving venture capitalists and crowdfunding, and financial projections, including startup costs, cash flow, and profit and loss statements. The business model focuses on both Business-to-Business (B2B) and future Business-to-Customer (B2C) segments, emphasizing free trials and high-quality service to attract restaurant clients. The plan aims to address a critical need for improved kitchen hygiene and safety in the Indian food service sector, leveraging the country's economic growth and increasing digitalization.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROJECT
ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROJECT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The business environment is very dynamic in nature and with respect to this, the different firms
as present in the business environment, would be required to ensure that they are successfully
able to engage in activities which will be able to bring about long term success for the overall
operations of the firm. Hence, with respect to this, the given business entrepreneurial project plan
has been designed to ensure that the organization as a whole is able to engage in long term
success and that a firm is able to engage in an opportunity which is not catered to by any other
organization as present in the business environment.
a. Entrepreneurial Project Objectives
The entrepreneurial project objectives can be stated to be as follows:
 To present a viable business opportunity which can be exploited in order to ensure long
term success and also to assure that the organization will be able to attain a considerable
demand for the products being sold.
 To analyze the chosen Indian market which is at its all-time high in order to see to it that,
the firm is able to attain success in the long run.
 To analyze the different strategies, pricing policies, market information and other data
which is present with respect to the operations of the Box Knife Sharpening’s.
 To project the future income of the firm in the coming few years.
 To present the overall sales and other plans of the organization, with respect to which the
firm will be able to attain success in the long run.
b. Problem/Opportunities Statement
The Box Knife Sharpening’s aims to function in India and with respect to this, it can be
mentioned that the primary problem which the firm aims to solve an undertake can be

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stated to be the issue of the food poisoning which may be caused due to the use of the
rusted knives which are generally used in most of the kitchens as present in India. Hence,
the firm has observed this as a viable opportunity and aimed to provide the other retailers
with a similar opportunity with respect to the fact that, they will be able to provide, HSS
knives to the different Indian restaurants as present. The Box Knife Sharpening’s will
provide these products as well as the services with the help of their online website with
respect to which the expenditure shall be minimum and the reach out to the different
customers shall be the maximum. Along with conducting the Business to Business
opportunity, the Box Knife sharpening also aims to conduct Business to customer
segment in the future which shall allow them to become a common household name for
the kitchen appliances and the different tools in the future.
In addition to this, the given idea has been chosen for the purpose of India as India is one
of the leading companies around the globe with considerable growth opportunities.
Moreover, the problem of food poisoning has been observed only in India because, the
different restaurants often tend to avoid the safety and hygiene measures and with respect
to this, as the restaurant business in India has been growing considerable, this has bought
about a change in the mindset of the individuals and as these individuals have been
engaging themselves in the eating out culture, the Indian market serves as the right
opportunity for itself and allows the company to engage in long term growth.
c. Market/ Industry Summary
The Indian market as stated earlier, is a considerably growing market and with respect to
this, it can be mentioned that as the different individuals have been becoming more open
to the idea of eating out, the restaurant business is at its all-time high and with respect to

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this, the idea can be stated to be an appropriate one as it solves a major issue as present in
the particular market. Moreover, as Indians have become more open to the idea of eating
out, it becomes considerably important for the restaurants to look after the safety and
hygiene and to ensure that there takes place no harm to the different guests as present in
the restaurant. Moreover, although there are a large number of utensil and other kitchen
appliance, there does not exist any online portal which will cater to the needs of these
restaurants specifically. Moreover, as the number of restaurants in the country has been
increasing considerably and hence, the size of the market is quite substantial for Box
Knife sharpening. As more small firms in the restaurant industry have been growing it
becomes considerably attractive for the firm to expand its operations in India.
d. Competitor Summary
The different competitors of the firm can be divided into two aspects. These can be stated
to be the direct competitors or the indirect competitors. The direct competitors of the
brand can be stated to be those websites as present in India who sell products directly to
the customers and these different websites can be stated to be the websites like Flipkart,
Snap deal, Amazon and Shop clues which will allow the users to take the avail of the
different offers as present in the particular website. Moreover, in such a scenario the
secondary competitors can be stated to be the different physical retailers who are present
and tend to offer the similar services which Box Knife Sharpening’s will be offering to
the different customers and hence very often these local retailers also offer great
discounts to lure the different customers into purchasing their products. Some of these
retailers who provide a fierce competition to the Box Knife Sharpening’s can be stated to

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be the Hariom Equipment’s, Akhand Jyoti Engineers, JR Equipment’s, Veera Kitchen
Point and Fore Tech Kitchen Equipment’s.
e. Funding and Financial projection Summary
The funding has been aimed to be done with the help of venture capitalist and crowd
funding. There are a large number of venture capitalists as available in India and the
business owners should take advantage of this and gain access to the required funds
which they require for their business.
Certain financial projections are as follows:
 Total liabilities including equity of owners in the first year: $4,210,000
 Total assets of the company in the first year: $4,670,111
 Break even sales: $1,805,889.00
 Cumulative income for the first year: $24,460,060

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Table of Contents
Description of entrepreneurial research activities...........................................................................7
a.Problem and Opportunity Landscape........................................................................................7
b.Problem that the venture seeks to solve....................................................................................8
c.Existing landscape of solutions.................................................................................................9
d.Stakeholder mapping..............................................................................................................10
Solution..........................................................................................................................................12
a. Idea for technology proposed.................................................................................................12
The knife sharpening procedure................................................................................................13
b.Business model for product/ service delivery.........................................................................15
c. Market analysis and Segment structure (Analysis of one, three and five year customer base)
Prospect Feedback.....................................................................................................................16
d.Pricing model..........................................................................................................................19
e.Competitor analysis................................................................................................................20
f.Portfolio analysis.....................................................................................................................21
g. Funding..................................................................................................................................22
h.Financial analysis....................................................................................................................24
Assumptions..............................................................................................................................24
Startup and Initial Funding........................................................................................................25
Cash flow...................................................................................................................................27

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Profit and Loss...........................................................................................................................28
Schedule for investor returns.....................................................................................................30
Conclusions....................................................................................................................................32
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................38
References......................................................................................................................................43
Appendix........................................................................................................................................45

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Description of entrepreneurial research activities
a.Problem and Opportunity Landscape
The given business opportunity aims to function in India. The idea is centered on
ensuring that like other key products which are largely available online, Box Knife Sharpening
aims to provide a similar opportunity to the different users to purchase the items as present in the
kitchen online. The website will be selling all the essentials which are usually required in a
kitchen and aims to see to it that, the customers are easily able to avail all the necessary products
from a spoon to an entire kitchen renovation. The Box Knife sharpening aims to provide the
different customers an opportunity to make the use of the best equipment’s in the kitchen by
ordering them on an online domain at low prices.
Moreover, the selected business idea has only been selected for the Indian market
because India serves as a prime location for the investment opportunities as present around the
world. According to Thehindubusinessline.com (2018), the confidence of the CEO in the global
economic growth has dipped, however, the country of India has emerged as a rising star in the
particular domain and has successfully surpassed UK to become the fourth best country in which
one can invest in. This result is based on the survey which was conducted for more than 1300
CEOs with respect to 91 countries reflected that the popularity of India has been falling
marginally however, as compared to the other countries, the opportunity has been increasing.
This is then followed by the growth of China in the similar domain, however, it needs to
be noted that, India has been viewed as one of the most attractive and a buoyant territory in terms
of the business growth and popularity. Hence, the business has made a decision to invest in India

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and take advantage of the growing digitalization as present in the country so as to gain a larger
market and a large revenue base as well.
b.Problem that the venture seeks to solve
Hence, as stated earlier, to seek the advantage of the growing business landscape in India
and to solve the problem of the lack of an online domain for kitchenware, the Box Knife
Sharpening’s has been developed. Moreover, according to a study conducted, a major share of
the restaurants as present in the country make use of knives which are rusted and may lead to the
poisoning of the people who generally eat the food as served by the restaurant (Miller 1983).
Many such reports have been registered where the restaurants have reflected utmost carelessness
in the given scenario and have come up with excuses such as a lack of budget and constraints
with respect to which they are not being able to maintain the different knives as available in the
kitchen of the particular restaurant. Hence, in order to ensure that these different restaurants are
able maintain their particular knives and ensure that the highest standards of hygiene are
maintained within the realm of the firm, the company will be providing them with HSS knives.
The HSS knives also known as the High Speed Steel knives are made by using the traditional
means of grinding and steeling and are maintained in a similar manner. The company will also
ensure that it is successfully able to maintain the knife for the restaurants once in every two
weeks so as to ensure that they do not become rusted and that, they are able to provide the best
service to their customers.
Along with this, the restaurants are also in need of the other products of the kitchen
which then go a long way in assisting them to carry out their daily operations and to see to it that
they are never in dearth of the goods. The Box Knife Sharpening’s will also provide the

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customers with rental, selling, repair, maintenance and service products which belong to a high
quality and also provide the different restaurants with an optimum food processing services.
In order to ensure that, the customers which are the different restaurants are attracted to
the particular offer of the specific goods, the customers will be given the different knives for free
at the first trial. In this manner, they will be easily able to experience the difference in the
products and also ensure that they are able to get additional orders in the future (Aldrich and
Waldinger 1990).
In the future, the website aims to provide modern kitchen furnishings as well. The main
key aspect of the services being provided by the company is that they do not make use of the
knives and other such resources for the development of the knives but instead they make use of
the traditional machine which makes use of the manual sharpening manner.
c.Existing landscape of solutions
For the particular problem which exists which is the rusted knives being used at the
Indian restaurants, which causes the problem of food poisoning is that many restaurants have
come up with an internal auditing mechanism with respect to which the senior management as
present in the particular restaurant tends to come up with ideas on how to monitor the particular
tools being used in the kitchens and the manner in which these can be maintained in their best
condition so as to ensure that, they are successfully able to ensure that hygiene is maintained in
the particular organization and in the kitchen of the firm. However, there does exist various
issues to the particular approach and the solution as present (Burns 2016). The primary problem
which is existent towards the particular approach can be stated to be that, these auditing sessions
are not that common in nature and very often the management misses out on the opportunity to

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carry out the particular analysis and tends to indulge in the biasness which then prevents them to
take care of the rusted tools being used.
In addition to this, in India there are a large number of organizations as present which tend to
carry out an inspection of the different kitchens, however, it needs to be noted that, these
organizations do not conduct the inspections quite regularly and in addition to this, they often
engage in corruption and provide a certification to the restaurant irrespective of their cleanliness
or hygiene level (Aldrich and Waldinger 1990). Hence, the given solutions are not appropriate
one. In addition to this, with respect to the other kitchen tools and appliances being offered to the
different household customers, it can be stated that there are several solutions for the same
whereby these customers can either make the purchases from the convenience at the stores or
easily be able to purchase the goods at various online stores like Amazon, Snap deal and Flipkart
in the online domain, however, the quality of the product cannot be guaranteed. Hence, although
there are certain options available in the form of the different solutions, it needs to be understood
that these options, are not viable in nature and that the Box Knifings solution will be the best
alternative for any household or the restaurants with respect to their kitchen solutions.
d.Stakeholder mapping
The stakeholder mapping can be rightfully defined as the collaborative procedure of
research, discussion, debate which are drawn from various sources and aims to present a list of
stakeholders in the entire business spectrum. The mapping of an organization can be broken
down into the different phases. These four phases can be taken to be as follows:
Identifying: This refers to the stage with respect to which the different groups, organizations and
other relevant people as present in the domain are identified. In this stage, the Box Knife will be

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required to ensure that, they are successfully able to identify the different stakeholders as present
in the firm.
 Analyzing: In the analyzing stage, the stakeholder’s interest as well as the perspective are
largely understood in order to ensure the success of the mapping, in this procedure, the
different stakeholders will be analyzed and then they will be grouped for the analysis.
 Mapping: In the mapping procedure the different stakeholders are mapped as per their
relationship in the organization and the other stakeholders as present. Box knife would be
required to map the particular stakeholders in a grid.
 Prioritizing: The different stakeholders are ranked as per their priority as present in the
organization at large. In this manner, the Box Knife can easily prioritize the different
stakeholders with respect to the importance.
Figure 1: The Stakeholder Mapping