Game

Day
Design

Business Plan
Prepared by Mariah Mailander & Kristina Calfee

Northwest Missouri State University

Media Business & Entrepreneur
Jody Strauch

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
II.

Executive Summary
General Company Description

III.

Products and Services

IV.

Marketing and Competition

V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.

Marketing Our Business

Human Resources and Employees
Management and Organization
Financial Plan
Appendices

I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Kansas City, Missouri is what we call home and what we pride ourselves as a good work
place. We plan to be the perfect company to assist both smaller and larger companies,
whatever it takes to provide to our clients.
We have branded ourselves as Game Day Design. We found our calling through our
major, Interactive Digital Media. We, Mariah Mailander and Kristina Calfee,
compromise the ownership of the company each holding fifty percent share.
We have the desire and ability to attain this company. Although we do not have the
money and we must take out a loan, this gives us the opportunity to provide our business
in the best possible way. With this loan, this will provide us with all the products and
equipment we will need. We have done a lot of research to get to where we are.
We, as a team, understand the importance of our business and what it takes to impress our
customers. We have made sure that our skills are perfected and that we provide you with
the best customer service we can. We are here to provide you with visually appealing
websites, graphic designs, logos, and advertisements. We know about our competition
and we set out to provide you with our skills that are unlike any others.
To make our business succeed from here on out, we need your help. We can provide you
the best service. We are here to help and impress you with our abilities.

Mariah Mailander, Co-Owner

Kristina Calfee, Co-Owner

II.

GENERAL COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Who We Are
Our business is going to be an Advertising/Web Development Agency that specializes in
sports web design. Our main goal will be to help create websites for our consumers. We
will also specialize in advertising and graphic design. We will create anything from
websites, logos, business cards, advertisements, posters, etc.
For our business, we have a wide range of skills between the two of us. Kristina has a
strong skill in graphic design/web design. This will help our business set up a strong
design to draw audience to our business and help us create something our consumers will
love. Mariah has a strong skill in web development/advertising. This will help our
business because web development is our main goal, and this will help us create
something that our consumers will also love.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to satisfy our customers wants and needs to promote their sports team in a
fun and unique way. Our purpose is to focus on any team from little-league to
professional and everything in between.
Vision Statement
Our vision is that we will be the business that will promote a fun, friendly environment.
We see ourselves growing into a successful business that focuses on customer service.
We want to provide our clients with the best service and quality at the most reasonable
price we can.
Goals and Objectives
With the first three years of our business, we hope to grow and learn while maintaining
clients. We hope to strive, even as a small business in Kansas City. We hope to promote
our business enough to drive more customers to us. We will strive to meet each clients
needs and wants, no matter the number of clientele. After establishing Game Day
Design as a well-known and successful business, we hope to network with other
professionals and gain more clientele.
Legal Information
We have decided the best way to structure our business is through a Limited Liability
Corporation (LLC). This allows us to each be responsible for running the business fairly.
We dont feel that it is necessary to have a government responsibility, but we dont want
the personal liability to be placed on just one person. LLC will allow our company to not
have to rely on a large board to make decisions, but us to decide how we want things to
be done. Below is a list of charges for an LLC form.

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

Application for Reserved Name Game Day Design
Registering a Domain Web Name
Certificate of Organization

Total

III.

Cost
$10.00
$10.00
$100.00

$120.00

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Technology Analysis Summary
Here is a short list of the technology items we will need to make our company successful.
There are quantities listed next to the product along with a brief description of reasoning
behind our need for the product.
Item
Reason
Qty.
Technology
27 Apple iMac
Important to create work and edit work
6
15 Macbook Pro with Retina
Display
iPad with Retina Display
Adobe CS6 Design/Web
Microsoft Office Home/Business
Laser jet printer/copier
Conference Telephone
Projector
Adapters
Furniture
Work Stations
Office chair
Racetrack Conference Table
Portable Dry Erase Board
Kitchenette

Important to create work and edit work while

being able to take on the go
Important for travel work
Important to produce and edit work
Important for documents and communication
Important to print paper work, forms and client
work
Important to make/receiver calls for business
Important to share work with clients and move
from room to room
Important to connect to ever device

Allows our workers a place of their own to

work without disruption
Important for seeing for us, our workers and
clients
Allows us and the clients to meet to discuss
business work
Allows us to make notes and use for clients
Allows workers to store lunches, snacks and
for breaks

2
1
1
2
1
1
6

11
2
3
1

IV.

COMPETITION
Top 2 Kansas City Design Firms
Firm
KC SEO & Web Designer
KC Web Specialists

Area of Competition
A large company based in Kansas City that
does the same work as we do;
A company that bases their work on web
only;

These are 2 companies that are also located in Kansas City, Missouri. These are examples
of companies that may be some of our biggest competition. This is because they offer
some of the same services that we offer. This may take away from our company and we
may lose business and customers to companies such as these.
We also have to be aware of some of the services they may offer that we will not. These
services may include SEO and Social Media Marketing. Because these are services that
we dont focus on, this could hurt our business and send our customers to another
business, such as these.
We may have a slight advantage over some companies, such as KC Web Specialists
because according to their company, they use or focus on WordPress. This could hurt
their business because that means they use already made templates. This may help our
business because we will create websites from scratch and use CSS and HTML. This
allows our business to give our consumers exactly what they want.
Other companies we may want to look out for are companies that are going to provide
extra services that we may not provide. Some services may include something along the
lines of an Advertising company or just a graphic design company as well. This may take
business away from us because they may find a better Advertising or Design agency that
may be able to create something they like and then they may not want a website. Or, they
could get their ideas/designs from these companies, and want us to just do the work. We
may lose a little business from these types of companies.

V.

MARKETING OUR BUSINESS

Niche
Our company is a small business to serve sports teams with our experience. We look to
provide professional work and to help bring a fresh, clean and unique way to our online
websites and designs. As we continue to spread our business name and gain experience,
we look forward to up scaling our company and doing larger things.
Strategy
Our strategy will consist of promotions, advertising, image, budget and pricing.
Promotions
To promote our company, we will communicate with our clients, family, friends and
other people we know. We will work with other companies to share our work and
negotiate for larger companies. We will stay in touch with local media, social media, and
hope to get our company name out there.
We will also promote our business by attending conferences, trade shows, and by also
putting on our own conferences to allow prospective clients to see the work and products
that we provide.
We also want to show that we are a fun and unique business. We will have small freebees
to promote our business. We will have fun colorful pens with our company name and
logo on them. We will also have different type of sports balls and equipment with our
company name and logo on them. (Appendix B)
Advertising
This is important to our company and goals to create a personal website and appear on
social media. We want to show our experience and samples of our previous work to
portray our confidence. We hope to direct other business to ours and hope for returning
customers.
We will advertise as much as possible by placing our ads in newspapers, magazines, and
other websites. (Appendix C)
Image
Our image will show who we are as a company and what we are capable of. We want our
image to portray our personalities and show consumers that we are friendly and creative.
We hope that because we are a web design company, our image will help display our
skills. We want our consumers to see what we are capable of from seeing our image right
away.

Budget
Our budget will include anything from hosting our website, what it takes to spread
the word about our company and any advertisements.
Pricing
We want to be reasonably price, but still be able to make money from our business and
services that we provide.

VI.

HUMAN RESOURCES AND EMPLOYEES

Personnel and Operations
Below is a chart to show our employees from year 1 to year 3.
We will begin with 1 employee in each area of service that we provide. We will also have
a receptionist and a janitor. We hope that with the success of our business and the growth
of our clientele, that by year 3 we will have another designer and photographer. This will
help boost our development performance.
We hope that we will have enough skill and experience from our first couple of years to
train the two new employees. We want to provide a enjoyable work environment so we
will employ the Theory Z management style to be sure to understand the employees
needs but also in hopes they are able to maintain the best work they can produce.
Year 1 Year 3

Employee
Tasks
Programm
er

Exemp
t

NonExempt
x

Contract

Reports to

Co-owners
and designer
and any
other staff
as needed

Co-owners,
designer,
photographe
r, and
financial
Photographe
r, coowners, and
financial
Designer
and coowners
Co-owners
and all other
staff

Account
Executive

Designer

Photograp
her

Financial

Pay
Range
$48,000
$52,000

Actual
Pay
$50,000

$35,000
$40,000

$38,000

$37,000
$40,000

$39,000

$20$25/hr

$21/hr

$43,000
$47,000

$45,000

VII.

Receptioni X
st
CoX
Owners

all staff

$10$20/hr
$58,000
$62,000

$15/hr
$60,000

OPERATIONAL PLAN
Production
As owners and operators of Game Day Design, we will produce all products in-house.
We will assign projects accordingly to whichever staff member is most suitable. We will
assist as we can and have projects assigned to us, the owners and operators, as well. We
hope to have great interaction with our clients and will communicate as much as possible
to assure to provide the best service.
We will have bi-weekly meetings every other Friday afternoon. This will ensure that
everyone is doing their jobs in a timely manner. This also allows us all to communicate
as a team to address any problems or concerns one may have with their project or the
work environment. We want our staff, along with ourselves to be a cohesive team that
works well together under any circumstance. We will also have meetings with the clients,
to ensure their needs are satisfied.
Location
Our business will be located at 300 W Linwood Blvd, Kansas City, MO. According to
Google Maps, our business will be located 2.6 miles from downtown Kansas City.
We will have roughly 8,968 square feet of office space. This building includes a finished
basement with 20+ offices and work stations. This will allow us a large amount of work
space without clutter and interfering with each other. This will also each allow us to have
our own personal work space along with room for conference rooms or private meetings.
We hope that our location being close to downtown will allow easy access to us and our
clients. We will have a normal shift of Monday through Friday 8 am 5 pm. On
Saturdays we will offer photography and/or videography for events or games that are
happening on this day.
Overall there will not be any construction cost in the first couple of years. We will hope
to use the space provided efficiently. We hope that in the next couple years that we may
knock down walls to create bigger space because we will not have 20+ employees.
(Appendix A)

Legal Environment
We will need legalities for a couple things. We will want it for copyrighted content of our
webpage and for the products that we create. We have a lawyer through We also have
a trademark for our logo and insurance costs. (Appendix *)
Inventory
We will need to be sure to have copy paper, cardstock, ink, writing utensils, post-it notes
and updated software. These items are not a big issue unlike the software tools. We will
have
Suppliers
We want to use these shopping services:
Apple.com
Amazon.com
BestBuy.com
OfficeDepot.com
These are all popular brands and reliable. We will do our best to try to get the cheapest
supplies to keep in budget, but not too cheap.
Credit Policies
We will ask for 30% of the project total cost up front. After the project is complete, we
will collect the rest of the cost. This will ensure that our company makes profit when we
do work if a client were to opt out of our business. We want to award our employees for
their work and we dont want them to be compromised.
VIII.

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION

As co-owners for Game Day Design, we will manage the business every day. Each
member will be asked to show their progress on their project to ensure that the job is
being done and in a timely matter. We want to make sure our company has good
communication skills to be sure there will be no problems. We want our employees, as
well as ourselves, to be able to take charge when a problem occurs. Resumes for the coowners, Mariah and Kristina, can be found in Appendix *.
Professional and Advisor Support
Mailander Law Firm | Law Office, Anita, IA
Coffman and Company, P.C. | CPA Services, Springfield, MO
In case of any conflict or need of any assistance, we will pay our lawyers and CPA
services we will pay when necessary and when we use these services.

IX.

FINANCIAL PLAN
12 month sales forecast and analysis
When looking at our 12 month sales forecast, there were many things we had to take a
look at. One of those factors that we looked at is the amount of employees we had and
when our busy time would be. We figured football season would be a very busy time for
us and other sporting seasons such as baseball and basketball could also be very busy for
us. During the holiday season, we figured business would be rather slow. We also figured
to start out with business would be slower until we got more established as a company.
We forecasted our busy time to be March-October
Break-Even Analysis
Once we completed our 12-month forecast, we completed our break-even analysis. We
were also able to figure out our revenues and monthly expenses. We will have a loan
payment of $200,00 enough to run our business for year 1. Our monthly expenses and
startup cost will be about $30,000. The break-even point goes up and down throughout
our first year. We lose about $20,000. Loss will be part of our business at first, but we
will gain profit as we got more clients and have more work to do bring in more revenue.
We are optimistic that we will break even around 3rd to 4th year as a business.
Cost/Pricing Analysis
We estimated that our monthly expenses would be rather high because we are buying the
building because it saves us money in the long run. The average prices of our work will
be $100/hour. With a small, but skilled staff of employees most of us will put in about 40
hours of work a week, but co-owners will put in about 60 hours of work a week
depending on how busy we are and what work needs to be done. We will bill close to 180
hours a week to meet the break-even analysis. This should be an easy goal to meet, since
we have a skilled staff with has skills in special areas.
Monthly Expenses
Salaries
Hourly Wages
Outside Services
Office Supplies & Postage
Rent
Telephone/Internet
Utilities
Loan Payment
Advertising
Travel
Payroll Taxes
Business Insurance
Repairs & Maintenance
Miscellaneous
Total cost of building

$232,000
$56/hr combined for hourly rate
employees
0
$40
-------------(we are buying)
$300
$120
0 (will be doing on our own)
$75 (meeting with clients)
$200 (in case needed for
employees)
$100
$75
$625,000

Inputs
Loan Payment
Annual Interest Rate
Term of Loan in Years
1st Payment Date
Frequency of Payment

$200,000
7.5%
5
1/1/14
Monthly

Summary
Total Startup
Plus 20% for Cushion
\

$100,000
$40,000
Loan

$200,000

X.

APPENDICIES
Appendix A Location

For our business, we have chosen to be located semi-close to the downtown area. This
will allow easy access to and from our business and hopefully is out of the way enough to
not have too much traffic that we are hard to find.
Our building has 2 floors, a main floor and a basement. Our main floor will have our
main offices for everyone, where down stairs we will do all major work along with major
printing for business cards, posters, flyers, etc.
The first floor will consist of a reception desk, lobby area, and multiple office spaces.
This will allow a work environment that is welcoming to our clients and still allow us our
personal space to do our work. We will have a conference room on the main floor for any
big meetings that we may have with our clients. The lower level will consist of extra
office space along with the major printers for bigger projects. There will be a restroom
located on each floor.
Appendix B Promotions
We know how everyone likes to get those free little items that companies give away. We
want to attract customers by providing small giveaways with our company name and logo
on them. We will have mini sports balls, pens, lanyards, and magnets. We hope that
because these items are useful and may be used on a day-to-day basis, our clients and
prospect clients will see our company name and logo and be interested in learning more
about our business.

We want to want to be sure our customers are satisfied when they are finished with our
services. We hope that when they are finished and they have a few small items that we
provide, they will always remember our company name and come back for future
business as well.
Below is an image of some of the items that we will have for our clients and prospective
clients.

Appendix C Advertisements
We want to advertise our company as much as possible and that is why we will advertise
in Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine. We will advertise in the most local newspapers
in Kansas City as well as our surrounding areas, until we gain more business out of area
to begin to advertise outside of the state. We will advertise on NBCsports.com,
ESPN.go.com and FOXsports.com.
While advertising in these media types and vehicles, we hope to gain customers from
owners, players, teams, and coaches. We hope that our company name and logo will grab
attention and bring customers to our business.
Below is a sample advertisement that could potentially be placed somewhere in a
newspaper, magazine or website. This allows advertising along with our logo displayed.

Game Day Design

Supplying you with all your game day
needs
We offer
-

Advertising
Web development
Photography/videographer

CALL US TODAY!