Bicycle Manufacturer Business Plan

The backbone and leader of Concrete Carbon is Josh Plastic. Josh received a dual degree from UC Berkeley, one in business, the second in mechanical engineering. These degrees were chosen because of Josh’s interest in parts construction and general engineering theories and application. With this in mind, Josh also thought that it would be constructive for him to have a business background for possible future application.

Being an active cyclist, Josh was interested in working within the bicycle industry. Josh found an internship at Paul’s Components. The duration of the internship was for five months with the possibility of turning into a full-time position. The internship, which was based on CNC machining went well. It was clear that Josh’s aptitude exceeded the CNC machining and at the end of the internship he accepted a job offer to work in the product design group. The jump from CNC machining into product design was warranted based on Josh’s knowledge and degree in mechanical engineering. Josh worked at Paul’s for three years. At the end he was the head designer of their brake group. One of his accomplishments was the design of Paul’s Crosstop brake that uses the IRD’s widget design, the precursor to V brakes.

Josh’s experience at Paul’s confirmed his desire to work in the bike industry. It also confirmed his desire to look for work that provided him more autonomy. Josh left Paul’s and started Concrete Carbon based on an outsourcing model where he could have all parts outsourced, made to spec, thereby reducing his start-up costs. As long as he maintained a good relationship with his suppliers, Josh felt that this model could be easily scaled once he was ready to sell to distributors in addition to individual customers.

7.1 Personnel Plan

Currently, the organization is being run by Josh solely. He has already designed the products so he is in charge of product procurement, order taking, customer service, and assorted other activities. As Josh travels to the trade shows as well as ramping up sales to accommodate the distributor sales, Josh will bring on an employee to assist him. The employee will do a wide range of activities from administrative support to order taking, customer service, post assembly, and order fulfillment. By bringing on the employee, it will help free up Josh’s time to really increase sales with the distributors.