Choose your project business

The decision most people postpone, and then quit over

In the last lesson you committed to finishing. This lesson removes the most common reason people don't.

Applied courses stall at a predictable place. It isn't a hard module — it's the moment a student realises they never decided what business they're doing this for. They've been reading along comfortably, and then an exercise says "write your ideal customer profile", and there's no answer, because there's no customer, because there's no business. So they skip the exercise. Then the next one, which depends on it, is harder to skip and also harder to do. Two lessons later they stop.

You are going to make that decision now, in ten minutes, before it can cost you anything.

Whatever you choose is what every single exercise from here on applies to. You can change it later — but you'd be re-doing artefacts, so choose as though you can't.

The four suitability criteria

Not every business makes a good project. A good one meets all four of these.

1. It sells something defined — or could within three months. There is a product or service with a name and a price. "A consultancy I might start eventually" fails this. "My Etsy shop with twelve sales" passes easily, because twelve sales means twelve real customers with real reasons.

2. You can name the kind of person or company that buys it. Not precisely — that's Module 2's job. But you need a starting guess concrete enough to be wrong about. "Everyone" is not a starting guess.

3. You can get at the numbers and make, or at least propose, decisions. You need to be able to find out roughly how many enquiries came in last month, and to be able to act on what you learn — or to put a recommendation in front of someone who can. Marketing you have no route to influence is a case study, not a project.

4. Your work on it can visibly matter. This is the one people underrate. A small business where twenty extra leads a month is transformational will teach you far more than a large one where your contribution disappears into the noise. Small is an advantage here.

Two tracks, one curriculum

The real track. You market a business — your own, your employer's, a family business, a side project. Use it. Every artefact you build is immediately useful, and the feedback loop is real: you'll find out whether your landing page converts, because it either does or it doesn't.

The Sandbox track. You don't have one — you're changing careers, between roles, or learning ahead of a move. Then you adopt a Sandbox business: a fully specified fictional company with real constraints, financials, and customers, which you keep for the entire Program.

The exercises are identical. The rigour is identical. The difference is only where the facts come from: real-track students go and find them, Sandbox students are given them. Your finished Marketing Plan is portfolio-ready either way — a complete strategy for a named business, with your reasoning visible in every section, which is exactly what a hiring manager wants to see and almost no junior candidate has.

The three Sandbox businesses

Pick the one closest to the sector you want to work in.

Each comes with a full data pack — real-feeling numbers, a customer base, existing marketing, budget and constraints — published on the Sandbox businesses page. Once you've chosen, read your business's pack before the next lesson.

If you're using your employer's business

Two things to settle before you continue.

Confidentiality. Your Marketing Plan is your own document — nothing you write here goes anywhere unless you share it yourself. If the business isn't yours, get permission before you show the plan around or use it as a portfolio piece. A good rule: if you'd hesitate to email it to your manager, don't share it.

Personal data. In Module 2 you'll interview customers. Do not paste real customers' names, emails, or other identifying details into your exercises — use "Interviewee A, operations manager at a mid-size firm". GDPR applies to coursework exactly as it applies to marketing, and Module 11 covers why in detail. Anonymise as you go and you'll never have to go back and fix it.

Three people, three choices

Lena runs marketing at Storkflow. Obvious: her employer, real track. She has access to the numbers and a manager who'll listen.

Tomas owns Herzog Physio. Also obvious: his own business, real track. Nobody to ask permission from, and every improvement lands in his own bank account.

Sofia is in Lyon, leaving a hospitality management job, and wants a marketing role within a year. She has no business. She takes the Sandbox track and adopts Ostara Ceramics, because she wants to work for consumer brands. In six months she'll have a complete e-commerce marketing strategy with her reasoning attached to every decision — and a portfolio, which is the thing standing between her and an interview.

All three do exactly the same exercises.

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