A launch plan answers one question before you commit real money: will enough people in your part of Burnaby pay a price that keeps the company alive? We find out with evidence, not optimism, and give you a written recommendation to go, adjust or stop.
What the market check is
It is a short research and planning project built around your idea and your intended location. We look at who would buy, how many of them are within reach, who they buy from today and what they pay. Then we work out the price you need to charge and test whether real buyers accept it.
The point is not to produce a thick document. It is to replace guesses with a handful of facts you can defend to a landlord, a lender, a partner or yourself at 2 a.m.
Who it is for
- First-time founders with an idea and a rough location, but no paying customers yet.
- Owners of an existing business elsewhere who want to open a second location in Burnaby.
- Professionals leaving employment to start a practice, who need to know whether their network will follow them.
- Founders choosing between two locations, for example a unit near Lougheed versus one on Hastings Street in the Heights.
If you already have signed customers waiting, you probably don't need this. Go straight to the setup roadmap.
What is included
- Buyer definition. One paragraph describing the person or company that buys, written tightly enough to find ten of them.
- Catchment review. How far your buyers will travel or how far you will travel to them, and what that means across Burnaby's Town Centres and neighbourhoods. Our areas page shows how different the districts are.
- Competitor scan. Who already ranks, advertises and gets reviewed for what you sell nearby, what they charge where it is published, and where they are weak.
- Buyer conversations. Short structured interviews or a pre-sale offer with real prospects. Pre-sales are the strongest evidence there is.
- Survival price. Your monthly fixed costs divided by realistic monthly volume, plus variable costs and margin. If the price buyers accept is below it, you know now.
- Written plan. Two to five pages: buyer, offer, price, location logic, first marketing channels and the go, adjust or stop recommendation.
A worked survival-price example
Suppose you plan a small fitness studio. Rent, utilities, insurance and software come to $6,500 a month. You expect to run 80 paid sessions a week once established, or about 345 a month. Fixed cost alone is roughly $19 per session before you pay yourself or any instructor.
If the studios near you charge $25 a drop-in and you need $45 to cover instructors and a modest owner wage, the plan has a gap. The fix might be memberships, smaller premises or a different neighbourhood. The arithmetic doesn't kill the idea; it tells you which version can live.
Timeline
- Week 1: intake call, buyer definition, competitor and catchment review.
- Weeks 2 to 3: buyer conversations or a pre-sale test.
- Week 3 or 4: survival price, written plan and a review call.
How results are measured
The measure is the quality of the decision. A good market check ends with a number of buyer conversations completed, a count of people who said yes or paid a deposit, a price you have tested, and a recommendation you understand well enough to explain. After launch, we compare actual first-quarter sales against the plan's assumptions so the next decision is better informed.
Mistakes to avoid
- Asking friends whether they would buy. They will be kind. Ask strangers who match your buyer description, and ask for money or a commitment.
- Treating all of Burnaby as one market. A Brentwood tower resident and a family in a detached house near Cariboo Heights are different buyers.
- Pricing from competitors only. Their costs and goals aren't yours. Start from your survival price.
- Signing a lease to create urgency. Urgency is useful; a five-year commitment isn't the way to create it.
When the plan is done, most founders move on to the setup roadmap. For costs, see pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a market check take?
Usually two to four weeks, depending on how quickly we can reach potential buyers. B2B ideas often take longer because decision-makers are harder to book.
What if the answer is stop?
Then the check did its job for a fraction of what a failed lease or fit-out would cost. Often the answer is adjust instead: a different customer, location or price that makes the same idea work.
Do you write a full business plan for a bank?
We write a launch plan focused on customers, pricing and marketing. If a lender needs formal financial statements or projections, your accountant should prepare or review them. Our numbers can feed into that work.
What does it cost?
It is priced as a defined project. Projects start at $3,500 plus GST, and the scope is confirmed in writing before work begins.