Your goal
Explain why your business exists and what it hopes to achieve. Write two statements that help people understand its purpose.
Use your current customer and product idea. Your statements should fit the business you are developing, including what you learned from testing.
What to produce
- A vision statement.
- A mission statement.
Use paper or your own document. Follow your teacher's submission instructions. The prompts and sentence starters below are optional help, not extra project requirements.
If your teacher allows teamwork, discuss your shared purpose. Each student still needs to understand and complete their own Business Canvas Project. You can also work alone.
Key terms
- Vision: the future the business hopes to help create.
- Mission: what the business does now, whom it serves, and why.
- Values: beliefs that guide the business's choices.
- Goal: a result the business wants to achieve.
A statement is a short written explanation. It should be clear to someone outside your team. You do not need long words or a slogan that sounds impressive.
Step 1: Identify what matters
Think about the people you want to serve and the benefit you want to provide.
Ask:
- What do we want to improve for customers?
- Why does that improvement matter?
- What values should guide how we work?
- What strengths can we use?
Possible values include reliability, fairness, careful use of resources, or respect for customers. Select values you can explain through actions. Do not list a value only because it sounds positive.
For example, “reliability” might mean checking that each item works before delivery. A promise needs a practical action behind it.
Step 2: Write the vision
Look beyond the product you are making today. Describe the positive future you want to support.
A vision should give the business direction. “Make lots of money” does not explain what the business hopes to improve for customers or the wider community.
Keep the wording specific enough to connect to your idea. Avoid claims such as “be the best in the world” unless you can explain what that would mean. A vision is an aim, not proof that you have already achieved it.
Example: Ready Pouch's purpose
Ready Pouch is our fictional example business. Its proposed product is a small pencil pouch for students.
These are possible statements, not evidence of results.
Possible vision: “A school day where students can find the supplies they need and start work with confidence.”
Possible mission: “We make compact pencil pouches for students who move between classrooms, to help them keep small supplies together.”
The vision describes a hoped-for future. The mission explains the present activity, customer, and purpose. The team would still need to test whether its pouch provides that benefit.
If research later leads the business to change its product, the mission may need revision. The vision may remain useful if the wider purpose is unchanged.
Step 3: Write the mission
Describe what the business plans to do for its customers. Connect the product to the customer benefit.
Optional frame: “We provide [good or service] for [customer group] to help them [benefit]. We work by [important value or approach].”
Use the parts that fit your idea. Do not add a claim you cannot support, such as “zero waste” or “lowest price.” If an important feature is still a goal, make that clear.
Step 4: Check that the statements agree
Read both statements together. Does the mission describe work that could help achieve the vision? Do the values match the way you plan to serve customers?
Ask someone to explain the statements back to you. If they cannot say what your business does or whom it serves, make the wording clearer. You can do this check with a classmate; it does not count as evidence of customer demand.
Your turn
Draft your vision and mission. Then explain one choice the statements could guide.
For example, if reliability is important, how would that affect quality checks? If convenience is important, how would it affect delivery?
If you work in a team, discuss any differences before selecting wording. Record who will complete the next agreed tasks. Teamwork should help the project move forward, not hide who is responsible.
Check your work
- My vision describes a future aim.
- My mission explains what the business does, for whom, and why.
- Both statements fit my customer and product idea.
- I can connect a stated value to a practical choice.
- I have not presented an ambition as an achieved result.
Next: Plan production and delivery
In Task 7, you will work out how the business could obtain resources, provide the product, and deliver it to customers.
Independent guidance based on the AP Business with Personal Finance CED, printed page 157. This is not an official College Board resource.