Question

Assume you are thinking of starting your own business. You need to consider some of the ideas covered in this course, including scarcity, supply and demand, and economic indicators.

1. Give a brief description of the business, including a description of the major product/service you would offer.
2. Explain the factors that would affect the supply and demand for your major product/service.
3. List some economic resources you would need to produce your product/service. What scarcity, or opportunity costs do you need to consider?
4. Describe the economic indicators would you be most interested in knowing more about before starting this business and the current levels of these economic indicators. How will they affect your planning?

Assess your product/service against existing competitors (or providers of near-substitutes). What comparative advantage do you have?

Answer 1

I am thinking of starting a new financial news portal on the lines of Financial Times. Main product or service of my business would be daily and weekly financial news on subscription basis.

The factors that would affect supply and demand of my major product or service is presence of competition. Availability of similar services provided by other portals. If my competitor's services are better than mine, my business would lose most of the money that we were earning through subscription.

Other factors that are small but important are availability of economists, reporters, editors, the rent for businesses's office etc.

I would be more interested in knowing the cost of designing the portal, hosting charge for the portal, hiring economists, editors, etc.

My competitors such as Financial Times, The Economist, etc. charged higher subscription fees than normal. I would wish to keep my subscription charges at half the market rate to attract customers towards my portal.