Business Plan

Cecilie Lobel
Run for It Ltd
Street Address
Address 2
Singapore, ST ZIP Code
+65 8888 777666
Fax
TheRunforItTeam@gmail,com

Table of contents

Executive Summary

Products and Services

Market Analysis

Strategy and Implementation

Company and Management

16

Financial Plan

18

Appendices

21

Works Cited

22

Executive Summary:
According to government studies, jogging or hobby running is the most popular sport
among the youth of Singapore and running events such as half-marathons and
marathons are gaining more participants each year the Standard Charter Marathon
started with 2000 individuals in 2002 and by 2011 they had 45000.


However, within the oligopolistic competition with firms such as JustRunLah and Green
Corridor Run there is a gap in the market where families and 13-19 year old runners are
not represented in terms of being able to participate in races as there are often age limits
or high entrance fees which can put a damper on an exciting activity.
'Run for It' wants to offer young or potential runners the chance to train and partake in
long-distance races or other fun events, but at a cheaper price and in a more interactive
way. We launched our business last April to start to build awareness and a client base
before promoting our large event. At the moment, we lead group training runs for
minors and families which increases fitness levels, allows you to expand your social
circles, gain more focus for daily activities and you can have fun. It has also been
successful in promoting a functional family lifestyle.
Our organisation collaborates with a variety of charities, ranging from medical research
to animal efforts to human rights because we believe that it is important to educate the
new generation on all these topics; so we incorporate them into our running events to
help raise awareness to these issues.
Recently Nike has agreed to sponsor us with 1000 sgd but with a 100'000 dollar
investment our business can organise our first signature race and kick start our promising
event management branch.

Products and Services:

Run for It is an event organizer that promotes a healthy family life in the form of a
healthy mind and body. It is based in the contemporary city of Singapore, which has
many undiscovered running routes and opportunities to meet the demands of the
increasing popularity for long distance running events.
We want to make it easier for younger runners to participate in running events, as well as
make it cheaper and more enjoyable for citizens in Singapore. We also wish to organise
events for disabled or other disadvantaged runners because we believe that everyone
should be celebrated.
We want to find popular running routes and turn these into race courses so that there are
more exciting paths. Also, we want to promote a healthy family life as there are not many
recreational activities available for families to do. The clever thing is that if our clients


have children of a young age and they are introduced to the delights of hobby running
that they will continue to train with us as they grow older; giving us a loyal and consistent
customer base.
We offer:

Membership into running groups

T-shirt and other Merchandise

Training programs and tips

Promotional offers

Market Analysis
The fitness market is a booming industry as the threat of obesity increases by 1% every
year in Singapore, and currently 4 in 10 children are overweight. Many parents want to
prevent their child from being unhealthy and what is the easiest way to accomplish this?
The answer is regular physical activity. However, there are not many firms or businesses
that provide the option for families to participate in activities together as most event
organisers target an audience of 18 and above. Also must running events have an age
barrier of about 17, which means that there is a whole group of youth that are unable to
join in their passion or have to lie about their age in order to get into the races like halfmarathons or marathons.
Here at Run for It we target a younger demographic which opens a whole new client
base of families up, we also have cheaper racing fees than our competitors such as the
Standard Charter Marathon or JustRunLah that have been big names in this market for
over 10 years. However, thanks to them the awareness and popularity for running events


has significantly increased and the demand in the target market is very large. Currently
over 14000 individuals are attending 10k events like the Green Corridor Run and the
Standard Chartered Marathon had 65000 participants in 2011; a figure which has only
grown since then. Run for it has an excellent opportunity to tap into the untouched
audience of the younger active individuals or to inspire others to take up running.
According to government data, jogging is the most popular leisure sport amongst the
youth of the Singaporean population with over 37.5% of the demographic choosing to
do it regularly. Majority of expats also partake in this activity, and form the greater
percentage of participants at running events. To explore the market and the target audience
that my business is currently in, the Run for it team conducted some primary research in the
form of a survey, which we had our target audience take. We asked questions to help us expand
our knowledge of what type of runs we should offer, what kind of charities we should partner up
with and how we should advertise our firm. Here were the results:

As you can see from the chart,

95% of the respondents stated
that they preferred scenic or
nature routes compared to the
mere 10% that also chose urban
routes as option.
From this we can gather that we
have to offer a large variety or
Green Runs in locations like:
MacRitchie Reservoir
Bukit Timah Nature
Reserve
Botanic Gardens
Green Corridor

The most popular forms of

charities were the ones supporting
medical research so we will be
looking into
- The Red Cross
- Action for AIDS
- 365 Cancer Prevention
Society
Close behind this was Animal
Conservation and Helping with
60% of respondents selecting it.
- Animal Lovers League
- Blue Waters Volunteers
- Nature Society

This was an extremely

important question because it
allows us to know how to
market and advertise our
events and running groups to
attract the most customers.
75% of the respondent said
that weight loss and Hobby
would motivate them to go
running the most.
Our campaigns will be aimed
at maximising fitness levels
and getting your children to
be active.

Since there are many different competitors in the market, it is oligopolistic competition
and it will be hard to create awareness for our events at first however with our niche of
families and 13-19 year olds, we expect to have an excellent turn out.

Strategy and Implementation:

Marketing
Run for it will make use of a variety of communication platforms as well as some media sources
to successfully raise awareness and advertise our business. Currently we operate over the
Internet, conducting business with our email address TheRunforItTeam@gmail,com where our
clients contact us with inquiries and we are always available at +65 8657 3558. In October, our
IT management designed a web page for us, which we expect will have a booming influx of
online visitors once we organize our first public running event.
As for advertisement we were planning to use Visuals, such as flyers or adverts in popular family
and fitness magazines/Newspapers to gain attention for our Marathon and our supervised
running groups. This will cost us about $3000 dollars in a magazine like SHAPE (Fitness) for 1-3
months and another $221.99 for 1500 A5 coloured flyers to distribute across the city. At the
moment, we rely on our client base to spread the word or bring friends along; we also receive a
lot of free acknowledgement from our partner charities and the schools that we collaborate with.
Recently, we have made agreements with the Dutch club and the Swiss club to advertise one
another; they will hang up posters and notices as well mention it in their weekly newsletters to
help us attract new clientele from within their members. In return, we will mention them in our
media advertisements as well as put their logo on our merchandise.


Corresponding with a friend of mine, owner of MyMinuteMeals (MMM), a company which
provides a delivery service of fresh ingredients and a recipe so you can prepare your own meal in
minutes (healthy and efficient), since both these companies promote healthy living one of
MyMinuteMeals ideas for advertising. The idea is to create a sporting event, provided by Run For
It, where people compete for a prize and in the end for lunch will be a cook off for their meal
provided by MyMinuteMeals. This would promote both our businesses and work as an
advantageous profit; also this will allow us to increase our social network of professionals from
other markets with opportunities that we havent yet explored.
Furthermore, weve also started to team up with the sport shop Decathlon, who recently
provided merchandise for the Green Corridor Run and they have agreed to allow us to advertise
our business within their stores, have a spokes person or small office to meet potential
customers.
Run for It should broadcast a general image of fun and fitness; we target a younger audience of
pre-teens to young adults and families so we want to have a positive take on the idea of
strenuous exercise and create a positive mindset towards running for a cause and being aware of
unpleasant global issues. We want to motivate the younger generation and in turn inspire the
elder. The business is represented by a recognizable logo (see figure 1), a copyright and this is
also on our business cards, which includes a small introduction on who we are, what we do and
how to contact us.

Figure 1: Business Logo


Marketing Budget
The initial budget to create awareness of the business is approximately SDG 1500 the spending
is outlined below :

Marketing

Costs

Web site development

$1200

Advertisement in Magazine

(n

1500 A5 flyers

$221.99

500 business cards

$30

Total

$1451.99


Pricing
My business offers two separate products, only one of them has been available but with the help
of investments we will begin to organise running events such as 10k, 21k, 42 k and other sporting
events. The product that we have been working with until now is run training and guided group
runs, mostly for juveniles, the pricing for these classes varies depending on the day of the week,
how long they have been a client for us and whether the customer opts to choose a package deal
or not.
First month with Run for it: $55 for the first month, we charge extra as many people decide
not to continue after a certain period of time and this is our way of ensuring that we have a
secure profit.
One month (after the debut month): $45- as a standard but if they choose to join the groups that
run on week-ends then it is an extra $5. Groups are in numbers of 5-10 people, and clients are
allocated depending on how many times a week they wish to run (max 3 times a week) and what
type of route they would prefer.
Package deal: This is popular with the families that we have as clients as buying our package
comes with transportation to and from the venues of the running locations, and is valid for 3
month: $150. We also offer a yearly membership for $600 per family, no matter the size.
We have:

7 clients with the package deal: 1050

6 clients with the yearly deal: 3,600

54 temporary clients 40 with workday times and 14 with the weekend deals: 2200 +
1800 +700.
Total Revenue: $10,350 in the first month including a $1000 sponsorship from Nike.

Office and Warehouse GYM:

Since our launch in April 2015, Run for it has been home-based but using the investments, we
plan to take out a long-term lease on a warehouse in UB33. The monthly lease is $3,600/ month
for a 1400 m2 warehouse with ac and small office. Here we will construct a gym to overcome
one of the main challenges:

Haze:
Late 2015 in the months of September, October and a part of November, Singapore had
a massive haze issue where the air pollution levels were so high that people were advised
to stay indoors to avoid health issues. This meant that most sports activities were
cancelled or post-poned; Run for It was not left untouched and we struggled to get our
customers motivated even though most of them had paid for these months in advance.

The warehouse gym would completely absolve this problem and would also allow us to
provide our clients with a range of training activities rather than just an outside run. Also
this would give us a base, and a place to interact with potential customers face to face.

Legal Environment Business Licenses
Singapore has a lot of business permits and licenses for entrepreneurs to think about
when registering their firm. Now the Run for It wants to progress to event management
there are a whole new set of Licenses to apply for, in order to legally and smoothly
organise a run. The cost of Licenses for the business is SGD 467 per event. They are
presented in appendix 1:

Personnel

In order to organise the running event, we will need a number of temporary employees
at the function to proceed effectively:

Medical personnel

Catering service + manpower manning the energy stations along the run

People handling the merchandise Nike representatives

Technology speakers, cameras and entertainment

Security

Timers and Registration

Charity Representatives and fund collectors

Apart from Medical, Catering and Technology personnel, the labour is mainly unskilled
and there will be a large number of volunteers at this family event.
At the running group, we are a total of 6 workers my partner Gary Lee (handles the
legal requirements as well as marketing) and I, an IT manager, and three trainers. Gary
Lee is extremely qualified for handling legal requirements and issues as he is a Lawyer
and this business is his part-time job on the side. He is also in charge of our marketing
branch at the moment,
I, Cecilie Lobel, majored in Economics in Yale and did my MBAs; I have also been a
running coach at several schools and have 3 comrades (89km each) to my name along
with countless other runs. I inhabit the position of General Manager, overseeing all
developments and interactions within the business. I am also in charge of Human
Relations; which comes with the task of customer service.
The IT technician graduated from a local college with high marks and harbours an
intense passion for his area of work; receives a sum of $500. He designs the web page,
realises all Garys ideas for advertisement on online platforms and works as the training
groups coordinator. Whenever we have new customers, Mr Fong, finds them a place in
the weekly schedules and makes sure that everyone of our clients knows where and when
their class is taking place.
Many of the International Schools in Singapore run the CAS (creativity Activity Service)
program within the IB diploma program; this is mandatory for all students and
determines whether they graduate or not. One of the requirements is Service, where


they do unpaid work and 2 of my trainers are volunteer students. The last one is
freelance with a fee of $260 per session: on average she comes for two sessions every
week.

Company Management

Board of
Directors

General
Manager

Financial
Department

Accountant

Information and
Tecnology

Sales and
marketing

Employment
Manager

Trainers

Project
Manager

Volunteers

Public Relations

Customer
services

Ads/Campaigns

Project
Coordinator

Spokesperson

I, as the General Manager and co-founder of the business, will manage the business on a
day-to-day basis as well as handle the position of employment manager to remain at a low
cost exposure.
Financial Department:
-

My partner, Gary Lee, handles this branch at the moment however we are hiring a Head
of Marketing soon with the help of investments to increase the intensity of our
advertisement and maximize market awareness for our business.

As an economics major, I do the accounting once we have launched our annual

event, we will employ an old colleague of mine who is extremely qualified for this
position but works low budget.

Information and Technology Team

-

Mr. Andrew Fong is head of this one-man department, graduated studying computer
science and online marketing at Kaplan higher education Academy and is very
passionate about his line of work, however he is only with us part-time.


Workforce:
-

Currently, we have two unpaid students as trainers who are both in the track team of
their school and love the opportunity of leading these group runs. The last one is a
freelance trainer who works as a personal trainer and health consultant.
Position and Name

Monthly wage

Cecilie Lobel General

Manager/Employment Manager and

$0

Accountant
Gary Lee Marketing and Sales

$0

Andrew Fong IT technician

$500

Trainer Anna Smith

$2080

Total Costs

$35,080

As Gary and I both make an income from full-time jobs, we have cut our wages from
this business until our revenue exceeds $50000 in the next year after our public events.

Financial Plan

Year 1 Projection













Figure 1 12-month Plan

The first year the business will have a profit of SDG 7,806. The investment was SDG
2400 which was Gary and my start-up budget , so the pay time was approximately 4
months ( 12 x 2400/7,806) and we expect these numbers to triple or quadruple in the
following year after we release our campaigns and after our annual event.
We already have around 15 new secure clients for the start of the year and we expect that
with the 100'000 sgd investment, our sales will boom and those clients will be signing up
in numbers of 25 per day, especially after we set up our warehouse gym.

Four-Year Plan

First Year: Focus on Awareness ie.

presence on social media and building a
large customer base of families

Second Year: Introduction of

Signature Event, purchase and
refurbish warehouse for gym
and office purposes

Third Year: More big events

such as family obstacle
races, yearly event,
collaborate with a charity
to make a paralympic event
with sponserships

Forth Year +: Expansions to

other markets such as Kuala
Lumpur

First Year:
Run for It wants to expand the awareness for the business on a range of online
platforms including a business web page, facebook, modern social media -> instagram an
twitter. These are to help build a customer base of loyal and well-connected families to
produce continuous revenue and help advertise the business by word.
Second Year:
We host our first major event, with the help of bank loans and an investment from my
fathers company, which will become our annual and signature event to produce revenue
of about (100 X 10000 = 1 million before taxes and other payments). We will use this
to purchase and refurbish a warehouse into a contempory gym and office.
Third Year:
Continuous hosting of major running events and expanding the group training to various
parts of the city. Team up with a charity supporting a disability to create a form of
Paralympic event that will educate and inspire the public.
4th Year:


Possible expansion plans to international markets like Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta (at first),
make the firm internationally known and create more revenue.

Appendices

Appendix 1

License Requirements

Price of License

Non-Residential TV License

$55

Advertisement License

$126

No Objection Letter for selling food

$35

and beverages
Approval for using certain types of

$180

premises and public spaces

Copyright Permit

$15 per day

Temporary Occupation License

$45 per day

Arts Entertainment License:

$10 per day

Total:

$467

Works Cited
"About Us." Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2015. Standard Chartered, n.d.
Web. <http://www.marathonsingapore.com/about/>.
"Facts and Stats." Beyond Research. Beyond Research Singapore, n.d. Web.
<http://www.beyondresearch.sg/factsandstats.html>.
"Obesity in Singapore: A Sizeable Problem." Expat Living Singapore. Expat Living, n.d.
Web. <http://www.expatliving.sg/men/Obesity-in-Singapore-A-sizeable-problem75028.ece>.
"Starting an Event Management Company in Singapore." GuideMeSingapore.
Hawksford, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://www.guidemesingapore.com/industry-

>.

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