Overview and Products
Draft Overview and Products sections for your business case.
Everything you have done in this course has been building toward this chapter. Your Abundance Inventory, Dependence Map, Place Profile, lead opportunity statement, principles check, revenue model, ownership choice and capital plan are the raw material. Now you turn them into a business case: a clear, honest document your community can take to leadership, lenders, funders and partners.
We use a framework called OPPORTUNITY. Each letter is one section of the business case.
- Overview
- Processing
- Products
- Operating Model
- Risk
- Team
- Unique Structure
- Numbers
- Implementation
- Timeline
- Your Impact
This lesson covers the first and the third: the Overview, which tells the story, and the Products, which say what you will sell.
What you’ll learn in this lesson
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- explain what a business case is for and who will read it
- write a one-page Overview of your opportunity
- describe your products or services clearly
- show evidence that someone will buy them
What a business case is for
A business case does three jobs. It helps your own community decide whether to go ahead. It persuades others, such as funders, lenders and partners, to support you. And it gives the team a shared plan to work from.
Different readers look for different things. Leadership wants to know whether it fits the community’s goals and what it will cost. Funders want to know what difference it will make. Lenders want to know whether it can repay. Partners want to know what’s in it for them. A good business case answers all of these clearly, without making anyone hunt for the answer.
It doesn’t need to be long. A clear, well-evidenced business case of ten to fifteen pages is far more useful than a fifty-page document nobody reads.
The Overview
The Overview is the first thing anyone reads, and often the only thing. Write it last, once the other sections are done, but put it first. Keep it to one page.
A strong Overview answers six questions.
- What is the opportunity? Start with your lead opportunity statement.
- Why here? What asset, waste stream or strength makes this possible in your place?
- Why now? What pressure, change or opening makes this the right time?
- Who benefits? The people, the land and the local economy.
- What will it take? The total cost, the main sources of finance and the time to launch.
- What are you asking for? The specific decision, support or money you want from this reader.
The last question is the one most often left out. Every reader should finish the Overview knowing exactly what you want from them.
Telling the story
Numbers matter, but people decide with stories too. The best Overviews connect the opportunity to something the community cares about: a resource that has been lost, a cost that has been rising, young people who have had to leave, or land that needs healing.
Keep the story honest and specific. “Every year, our community pays to truck food and yard waste off the coast, while local growers buy soil that’s shipped in” is more powerful than “We will create a sustainable circular economy.”
The Products section
The Products section says exactly what you will sell or provide, to whom, and why they will choose you. It turns the idea into something a customer could buy.
For each product or service, describe:
- What it is. In plain language, with enough detail that a customer would understand it. Not “soil amendments” but “screened compost in bulk and bags, suitable for gardens and landscaping.”
- Who buys it. The specific customers: households, landscapers, farms, the municipality, contractors, visitors.
- Why they’ll buy it. Price, quality, local supply, reliability, a story they value, or a need nobody else meets.
- How much. A realistic estimate of how much each customer group will buy, and at what price.
- The competition. What customers use now, and why they would switch.
If your enterprise has a gate fee or service income, include those here too. In a paid-twice model, the people who pay you to take material are customers just as much as the people who buy the product.
Evidence of demand
The single most persuasive thing you can put in a Products section is evidence that real customers want what you’ll offer. Evidence can include:
- letters of interest or intent from buyers
- a list of customers who have said they would buy, with quantities
- sales from a pilot, however small
- prices and volumes for similar products in your region
- a commitment from a municipality or business to supply material
Even a few letters from local landscapers or farms are worth more than pages of general market statistics.
Start with one or two products
It is tempting to list every product you could ever make. Resist it. Start with one or two products you can make well and sell reliably, and show the others as future options. The most successful cases in this course started with one thing and added more over time. A focused start is more credible and easier to deliver.
Honest limits
Customers often say they’ll buy something and then don’t. Treat early interest as a signal, not a guarantee. Where possible, get commitments in writing, test prices with a small batch, and be conservative in your estimates.
Reflect
- Who are the three most important readers of your business case, and what does each need to know?
- Can you explain why here and why now in two sentences each?
- What exactly are you asking each reader for?
- What is your main product, and who are its first customers?
- What evidence of demand do you have, and what could you get in the next month?
Exercise: Draft your Overview and Products
- List the three main readers of your business case and what each needs.
- Draft your Overview using the six questions. Keep it to one page. You’ll revise it at the end of this chapter.
- For each of your first one or two products or services, describe what it is, who buys it, why they’ll buy it, how much and the competition.
- Include gate fees or service income if they apply.
- List the evidence of demand you have, and the evidence you will seek next.
These are the O and the second P of your OPPORTUNITY business case.
Key takeaways
- A business case helps your community decide, persuades others to support you, and gives the team a shared plan.
- The Overview is one page. Write it last, put it first, and always say what you’re asking for.
- Tell an honest, specific story that connects to what your community cares about.
- The Products section says what you’ll sell, to whom, why they’ll buy, how much and against what competition.
- Evidence of demand, such as letters, commitments and pilot sales, is the most persuasive thing you can include.
Your working notes
Use the exercise above to build this part of your project: draft Overview and Products sections for your business case.
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