dream builders business plan

Company Description

Think about the things you value most. write them down. next write down the values you want your business to be known for., explain why you want to have your own business., list the things you must have in place in your business environment to successfully operate your business. this might include things like family commitment, outside support systems, personal energy, flexibility and commitment, a clear vision, etc., if you currently have a business, how long have you been running your business if you have not started your business yet, what steps have you taken in starting it, if you have already started your business, write down how much money your business received and spent during the past year. also, how many different kinds of items or services have you sold in the past year (an estimate), if you have already started your business, how many employees do you have how many are full time and how many are part time (if you havent started your business yet leave this question blank.), what is the name of your business, what is your idea for your business (what products or services will you offer, etc.)., in three sentences or less, describe your products or services and explain why your products or services are better than those of your competition., products and services, describe the need that you see your products or services addressing for your customer., in as much detail as you can, describe your current products or services. be sure to identify the features that make your products or services unique. if you will be providing more than one product or service, describe the different kinds of products or services that you will be selling., describe any ideas you have for new products or services that you might offer in the future and the need they address., describe the unique features that make your product or service different than others., marketing and sales, describe the characteristics of the industry that your business will be a part of. list any current trends within this industry (size, is it shrinking or growing, number of people employed)., will your business experience increases or decreases in sales due to seasonal issues if your sales are affected by things like holidays, seasonal availability of raw materials or supplies, growing seasons, etc. explain those issues and the impact they have on your business. describe how much your sales are impacted if you can., identify the companies or organizations that are currently offering similar products or services to your products or services. remember to include both direct and indirect competitors., list the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors that you just identified., how can you demonstrate to your customers that your product or service is different or better than the competition, describe how you tested your business idea with other people., describe the feedback you received when you shared your business idea with other people. list both the good and bad feedback., estimate how many customers there are in the market area that you wish to serve with your business. it does not have to be an exact number, just your best guess. explain how you determined this estimate., of the total customers in your market area, how many do you think your business will serve you can give an estimated number of customers or a percentage of your total market estimate., how old do you think most of your customers will be you can give an age range (e.g.: 18 to 34) or a description (e.g.: teenagers, seniors, etc.) describe any characteristics of your customers' age range., will your customers be mostly women, mostly men, or mixed try to give a percentage of women to men (e.g.: 60% female customers, 40% male customers)., describe the characteristics of your customers’ marital status. will your customers be mostly married, single, divorced/separated, or widowed if you can, estimate the percentages of each., describe what kind of interests or preferences your customers might have. try to give as much detail as you can., describe where your customers come from. where do they live, where do your customers prefer to buy the types of products or services you are offering, when do your customers want to buy the types of products and services you are offering, why do your customers buy from you or why will they buy from you, answer one of the following questions: if you are selling to the end-user, where will your business be located or if you are selling to a business that will resell your products or services, write down a list of the partners that will be selling your product/service, and explain where they are located., what type of "personality" does your business have, and how will this personality help differentiate it from others, how do you want your customers to feel about your brand, describe the types of paid advertising that you plan to use (tv, web ads, newspapers, etc.)., what forms of unpaid advertising will you use (word of mouth, press releases, social media, online reviews), do you have a logo or a slogan describe your logo or slogan., if you are producing a product, how do you plan to package it, how will your packaging reflect your brand, and how will it fit into your marketing effort, describe how you will provide samples or demonstrations of your product or service to prospective customers., write down a list of people or organizations that will be selling your product or service., specifically, how will you find salespeople to sell your product, write down how your salespeople will be compensated. will you pay them by the hour, by the day, a percentage of the sale (commission), etc., describe how you intend to use, update, and maintain digital marketing in your business., how does your product compare in price to your competitors are your prices higher or lower will you have any special pricing (like sales or bundles), what unique value will your product or service provide to your customers why would this unique value make them more likely to buy your product or service, describe how you may change your prices if your customers agree to buy more of your product or service. will you or can you offer volume discounts if they buy a lot, write down in detail the process you will go through in order to set the prices for your product or service., will you provide service to your customers after they have purchased your company’s products or services if so, describe how., if you are going to offer a warranty or guarantee, describe it., describe how you plan to stay in touch with your existing customers., describe how you will provide excellent customer service. what will you do to make the customer feel that they are the most important person in the world, describe how you plan to grow your business. do you plan to move into other markets or add new products or services, or do something else, operating plan, what kind of regulations may affect your business list out any regulations you can think of that your business is supposed to comply with., what kind of permits will you need to run your business make a list of any of the proper permits that might be needed in order to run your business., what kind of licenses do you need to apply for in order to run your business, if you are running your business from your home, what kinds of limitations are there for a home-based business, describe in detail the location of your business. list out the important factors in choosing this location., answer one or both of these questions, depending on whether you are product-based, service-based, or a combination of both. if you are a product-based business, describe where and how you produce your product. and/or if you offer a service, describe where and how you provide your service to your customers., write down and describe all of the supplies or raw materials you will need to properly operate your business., who are the vendors that you will buy your raw materials/supplies from, and where are they located, what kinds of insurance coverage will you need what steps will you take to minimize risk in your business, describe the jobs/tasks for which you need to hire employees., describe how you will find employees for these jobs/tasks., describe how you will train the employees for these jobs/tasks., how will you compensate your other employees, describe the equipment and facilities you will need for your business., provide an estimate of the cost for the equipment and facilities you will need for your business., explain the role that transportation and delivery plays in your business. explain how your suppliers will get the raw materials or supplies to you. explain how you will deliver your products or service to your customers. be sure to mention any special delivery services that you offer to your customers., as your business grows in the future and you add employees, how do you plan to move from the role of entrepreneur to the role of a manager and leader, are there management/leadership roles that you think will need to be filled so that you can launch or grow your business if so, explain what those roles might be., how will you find the right people to fill these leadership or management roles, how will you compensate those that fill leadership or management roles, if you plan to include family members in your business, write down any special rules you will put in place to ensure that things run smoothly and the business relationship does not harm the family relationship., list the people you plan to include on your advisory board. what background and experience does each of these people bring, what do you want your advisory board to help you with, what experts do you plan to engage in your business decisions (this includes lawyers, accountants, financial planners, insurance specialists, etc.), how do you plan to compensate yourself, describe the kind of legal structure you have chosen for your business. use this space to explain any decisions you have made regarding the format. for instance: who will be the legal owners of the business will it only be you, or will you have a partner(s) if you do have a partner(s), how much of the business will each own you can estimate a percentage (e.g.: 50% me, 50% my partner)., describe how you manage your personal finances (not your business finances) now., how will you keep track of your business finances, describe any additional resources (accountants, software, advisors) that will help you keep track of your business finances., what kinds of information do you plan to collect and what kinds of reports do you plan to prepare, in order to monitor the performance of your business how often will you update your reports, what are the sources of funding for your business (your own savings, family and friends, crowdsourcing, banks, etc.). include the names of any individuals, organizations, or banks where you plan to get funding., what amount of funding will you get from each source, describe any additional items and their related costs you need to cover for your start-up or expansion., what are your direct costs include things like materials and supplies, ingredients, and labor., what are your indirect costs include things like rent, taxes, and utilities., write down the sales you project that your business will make each month starting with next month and ending with the current month next year (12 months of projections). this can be your best guess for now., what are your projections for expenses, costs, etc. for each of the months that you provided a sales projection do your best to give an estimate. you can update this later, action plan, write down your detailed marketing goals for the first 3 months following the completion of your business plan., write down your detailed management goals for the first 3 months following the completion of your business plan., write down your detailed operational goals for the first 3 months following the completion of your business plan., write down your detailed finance goals for the first 3 months following the completion of your business plan., what are the key marketing, management, operational, and finance goals that you hope to achieve in your first year of operation, describe the support and resources that you will rely on to achieve the goals you have set. take some time and really explain this, describe the measurements you will use to determine how you are doing in your business. (other measures include waste/scrap, customer satisfaction, on-time delivery, etc.)..

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What is DreamBuilder?

• 13 courses teach the basics of starting and growing a business, including topics such as marketing, pricing, and management.
• Each course is guided by Alma, a fictional character who owns her own business. Alma shares her own experiences and knowledge.
• Courses also include testimonials from successful women entrepreneurs, quizzes, and interactive games.
• An animated series interspersed throughout the program entertains, reinforces lessons learned, and inspires learners.
• A Business Plan Generator, embedded in the program, creates a personalized, editable business plan that the entrepreneurs can use to seek support for their business.
• The program includes innovative resources for the participants, including discussion boards, messaging, sample business forms, and useful templates.

Why DreamBuilder?

Empowering women through education provides opportunities for them to live more productive lives and enables the development of healthier, more sustainable communities.

Women reinvest 90% of their incomes in their families and communities (compared with 30% to 40% for men). Women do 66% of the world’s work, yet they only earn 10% of the world’s income. Continuing education helps close this gap.

“ As a new entrepreneur, I was anxious and overwhelmed with how to start a business. DreamBuilder has been a guide leading me step-by-step on my journey to becoming a business owner. The program has been awesome because it takes the unknown, explains it, and then applies it to a real life business scenario. Plus, it’s very interactive and easy to follow along, helping with the business plan process. I have completed the program and because of its many tools, I will be able to review again any section to keep me on track for a successful business. DreamBuilder: The best tool for new entrepreneurs and follow-up tool for experienced entrepreneurs! ” –  Paris Mock  Client, ACE Women’s Business Center

¿Qué es DreamBuilder?

• Los 12 Cursos enseñan los pasos básicos para iniciar y hacer crecer un negocio, incluyendo temas como Marketing, Finanzas, Recursos Humanos y poner Precios.
• Cada curso es guiado por Alma, un personaje ficticio quien es dueña de su propia empresa. Alma comparte sus propias experiencias y conocimientos.
• Los cursos también incluyen testimoniales de cuatro emprendedoras exitosas, exámenes, y juegos interactivos.
• Una telenovela surge durante el programa, ella entretiene, refuerza las lecciones aprendidas y motiva.
• Un Generador de Plan de Negocio está incorporado en el programa, crea un plan de negocio personalizado que se puede editar y que emprendedoras puedan utilizar para solicitar apoyo para su negocio.
• El programa contiene recursos innovadores para las participantes, incluyendo panales de discusión, mensajes, formularios de muestra, y plantillas útiles.

¿Por qué DreamBuilder?

Empoderar a mujeres a través de la educación nos ofrece oportunidades para que vivan vidas más productivas y permite el desarrollo de comunidades más saludables y sustentables.

Initiate Prosperity

Users who have completed DreamBuilder qualify for the Initiate Prosperity program. 

Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance to make the necessary arrangements.

DreamBuilder

Helping women build their dream of starting or growing their own business

The Freeport-McMoRan Foundation created DreamBuilder in partnership with Thunderbird for Good.  A free online training and certification program, DreamBuilder consists of courses covering the foundational business knowledge needed to start and grow small businesses.  Courses such as marketing, pricing, bookkeeping, and others use games, exercises, video testimonials from successful entrepreneurs, and story-telling to make the learning fun.  A built-in business plan generator guides the participants in creating a personalized, editable business plan.  DreamBuilder is available at no cost in English and Spanish and in both online and offline formats.

DreamBuilder was designed keeping the unique needs of women entrepreneurs in mind, however it is used world-wide by women, men and children who want to pursue their dreams of business ownership. Over 100 partner organizations offer facilitated classes and additional support to women enrolled in the program. In the United States, the SBA and its network of Women’s Business Centers, as well as the U.S. Department of State, are key partners.  In 2019, the State Department selected DreamBuilder to be the central curriculum of its “ Academy of Women Entrepreneurs” (AWE) program. The program is implemented through US Embassies across the world.  As of 2021, AWE programming supports women in 83 countries from all six regions.

Women served

Hours of training, participants recommend the program.

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Dream builder, free interactive online tool in english and spanish.

When Gabriela Lee’s meal delivery subscription service, Damn Good Kitchen, started getting more orders than she could handle with all the food preparation and administrative work, she knew it was time to grow her business by expanding her entrepreneurial skill set.

“I used to do everything from purchasing, cooking, packing, customer service. I was afraid of hiring a team, investing in a bigger kitchen, and delegating," she said.

Lee is the founder and chef at  Damn Good Kitchen  (DGK) in the Dominican Republic. Her company prepares and delivers daily meals and snacks to clients with busy lifestyles or special diets. DGK dishes out traditional fare from the family cookbook with a healthy twist.

Lee cooked up this venture working from home as a solo entrepreneur. A week after she resolved to meet the growing demands of her enterprise by educating herself, Lee's husband shared an email link to the  U.S. State Department’s Academy for Women Entrepreneurs program . She seized the opportunity to build the business of her dreams by learning new skills, and applied online to the program the same day.

"The academy," as some participants affectionately call the initiative, turned out to have just the right recipe to help Lee feed her hungry enterprise. It is a free, economic empowerment program that supports female entrepreneurs around the world, equipping them with transformative tools like knowledge, skills and access to expert advisers.

Since it launched in 2019 to 26 different countries, the program has expanded beyond 50 countries, helping more than 7,000 women create and operate the businesses of their dreams. Enhanced in value and impact by the dire circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs program has evolved into an inclusive global learning community, providing opportunities for women from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe to learn the fundamentals of business, including creating business plans and raising capital, with the goal of building a better future for their families and communities.

The program's curriculum is powered by  DreamBuilder , a free online business training program available in English and Spanish that helps women start and grow small businesses. The Freeport-McMoRan Foundation created DreamBuilder in partnership with the  Thunderbird School of Global Management  at Arizona State University. Instructors at Thunderbird provide expert support and advice to the women enrolled in the program. Its success around the world as an interactive online learning platform attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which was developing the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs. The bureau selected the DreamBuilder program to be the core curriculum for the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs program.

Photo credit: Instagram / @damngoodkitchen

Along with their online learning in DreamBuilder, collaborating as a supportive group, Lee and her fellow academy participants engaged in facilitated lessons on business management, networking with like-minded entrepreneurs and mentors in their regions and in the United States. Lee finished her DreamBuilder courses online and graduated from the program in 2019 with improved management and strategic decision-making skills.

“I got the tools to plan for growth in every aspect of my business, from finance and marketing to sales, human resources, and product development,” she said. “We even got one-on-one meetings with U.S. Ambassador Robin Bernstein and got specific and direct advice on how to keep growing ourselves as leaders and also keep growing our businesses.”

Lee credits her academy and DreamBuilder training with alleviating the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on her business while simultaneously positioning her to leverage the difficult circumstances of the pandemic to her advantage as demand for home deliveries suddenly increased.

Since Lee graduated from the academy, her  Damn Good Kitchen  has been serving up extra helpings of business growth, increasing from one to 11 full-time employees — eight of whom are women. Their success, driven by Lee's hard work and newly expanded entrepreneurial repertoire, gave her the confidence to invest in moving to a new industrial kitchen in the capital city of Santo Domingo.

“With the tools I gained in the AWE program, I managed to increase my sales by 500%. I started with 20 clients per week and now we have over 300 weekly clients,” Lee said. Her team now sells more than 1,500 plates of food on average every week. 

With help from the academy and DreamBuilder, Lee learned how to launch her brand and reach her target audience, empowering her to expand DGK’s services across Santo Domingo using outsourced delivery operators. After the COVID-19 outbreak sent a virtually unlimited pool of potential new customers into lockdown, Lee and her team capitalized on the opportunity to meet increased demand in spite of daunting new logistical challenges. Using her new management skills, she led her team in developing new services such as family meal plans and individual subscriptions for professionals working from home. Next up? Expansion.

“I’m already planning to open seating tables in my restaurant next year and to grow my business into other provinces in my country,” Lee said. “And who knows? Maybe other countries too.”

Building dreams in a year of adversity

Damn Good Kitchen’s growth parallels the upward trajectory of the online learning platform that helped Lee make her entrepreneurial aspirations a reality.

DreamBuilder is free and open to anyone, and the COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for effective remote education, so it’s not surprising that the program’s reach has expanded. DreamBuilder’s enrollment is up by 51% in 2020 and the number of graduates has increased by 57% compared to the same period in 2019. With learners in 108 countries and 10,775 graduates worldwide as of October 2020, DreamBuilder is making a positive impact on a global scale in this year of historic challenges. 

Gabriela Lee (right) at home planning DGK's expansion. Photo credit: U.S. State Dept.

When the pandemic forced many business owners around the world to close their doors, an opportunity emerged for entrepreneurs like Lee to devote time to online education. As the pandemic ravaged entire economies, many people who suddenly found themselves unemployed turned to starting a business as a means of supporting themselves and their families. Available online at no cost, DreamBuilder is empowering thousands of people around the world to work toward owning their own business or picking up new skills to advance their careers.

“The DreamBuilder program has given me a lot of strength to move forward, to continue to overcome all of the problems that we women face every day and to keep going for our children, for our families and for ourselves,” said Silvana Farfan, a DreamBuilder graduate and owner of   Muebles  Adria , a family business manufacturing linens in Arequipa, Peru.

When the challenging circumstances of 2020 suddenly compelled Thunderbird’s DreamBuilder support teams to conduct all activities remotely, from recruiting to instruction, they quickly pivoted to a virtual engagement and support model, providing 129 virtual workshops that also streamed on social media. Their exemplary operational resilience made it possible for more than 9,000 aspiring business owners to safely attend live training sessions online and take advantage of virtual office hours for one-on-one guidance from DreamBuilder instructors at Thunderbird.

ACONAV, LLC, makes Native American fashion designs and apparel in Arizona. Photo credit: ACONAV

For many of the women who have gone through the program, the knowledge, skills and friendships they gained have been transformational, allowing them to share cascading economic benefits with their families and communities.

“What I value most is the connections I made with other women business owners in my country and how close we got on a personal and professional level,” Lee said. “I got to work and grow alongside 35 other amazing women and their businesses in this program. We cried, we laughed, and we shared our everyday struggles. Since then, we’ve had several business collaborations together.”

From creating jobs to putting food on tables and clothes on bodies, the rippling social impacts made by DreamBuilder graduates often transcend generations and keep cultures alive in their recipes or designs. 

“The tradition I carry on is fashion,” said Valentina Aragon, chief operations officer of  ACONAV, LLC , makers of Native American fashion designs and apparel in Arizona.

“In essence, our business is cultural designs embodied in timeless elegance. We believe in the preservation of culture. Through our fashion, we represent our ancestral pottery art and our belief in the beauty of the living world. Ultimately, our enterprise is an homage to our matrilineal societies.”

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Managing American Spaces

• Dreambuilder: Empowering Women Entrepreneurs
• National Museum of African American History & Culture Program Package
• National Museum of American History Program Package: Expressing Freedom
• Packaged Programs from the Smithsonian Institution
• Smithsonian Videos and Discussion Guides
• Smithsonian Content and Programming Book

Learn How to Start Your Own Business

Looking to start your own business? You’ve come to the right place. DreamBuilder is a free online learning program designed for women who aspire to be entrepreneurs. The 13-course program will take you through the steps you need to start your business. Available in both English and Spanish, most courses take one to two hours to complete. By the end, you’ll have a complete business plan ready to go.  Get Started Now

Empowering Women Entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs are driving progress for women in the global economy, with the number of women-owned enterprises growing at a faster pace than those owned by men. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 224 million women across 67 World Bank economies are new entrepreneurs or are running established businesses.

Women entrepreneurs, including both women business-owners and business leaders, should have equal access to the skills, support, and resources necessary to launch, scale, and successfully operate their own businesses. The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) is dedicated to supporting and empowering women entrepreneurs – both aspiring and established – through training, online education, networking opportunities, and mentorship activities around the world.

Empowering Women through Online Education

In partnership with Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Management , AWE has made DreamBuilder , a free online learning program designed for aspiring women entrepreneurs, available at American Spaces around the world. Currently available in English and Spanish, DreamBuilder includes 13 courses that together create a step-by-step framework for starting a business. Most courses take one to two hours to complete. At the end of the program, students have a completed business plan.

Other Global Initiatives

• Support for Artisans: Alliance for Artisan Enterprise (AAE)
• Global Entrepreneurship Summit
• Access to Finance: Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund

Other Helpful Resources

In addition to DreamBuilder, there are a number of additional resources available to support aspiring women entrepreneurs.

• Smithsonian Entrepreneur Incubator (PDF 4 MB)
• SBA Learning Center

Regional Resources

Click on the links below for more information on a sampling of programs on women’s entrepreneurship supported by the U.S. Department of State.

Africa (AF)

Fellowship for young african leaders (yali).

The YALI Network provides its 300,000+ members with opportunities to connect with other leaders in their community and to learn from experts in their field. Network members have access to unique resources such as online training courses and special events in their area.

African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP)

AWEP is an outreach, education, and engagement initiative that targets African women entrepreneurs to promote business growth, increase trade both regionally and to U.S. markets through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), create better business environments, and empower African women entrepreneurs to become voices of change in their communities . Launched in July 2010, the initiative identifies and builds networks of women entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa poised to transform their societies by owning, running, and operating small and medium businesses, and by becoming voices for social advocacy in their communities.

Women’s Entrepreneurial Centers of Resources, Education, Access and Training for Economic Empowerment (WECREATE)

WECREATE centers are physical entrepreneurial community centers in safe and centralized locations for women to gain access to the essential resources required for starting or growing businesses. The centers give women access to tailored education, trained mentors, and additional tools and resources to overcome business challenges.

East Asia and the Pacific (EAP)

Women’s entrepreneurship resources in apec.

The WE-APEC Directory is a collection of service providers that support women’s entrepreneurship across the APEC region. Each service provider is categorized by type – business networks, private sector initiatives and/or government services – as by five priority areas: access to finance; access to markets; skills, capacity building and health; leadership, voice and agency; and innovation and technology. Use the search to find a service provider near you, or filter by type, area or economy.

@America Center in Indonesia

@america is the U.S. Embassy’s American cultural center located in Jakarta, Indonesia. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, @america hosts events that are free and open to the public on topics ranging from education, the environment, music and the arts, science and technology, and entrepreneurship.

Near East and North Africa (NEA)

Women’s enterprise for sustainability (wes) center.

The WES program empowers women-led organizations in Tunisia to operate WES centers as social enterprises. Through these centers, aspiring and established women entrepreneurs gain new skills and networks, launch and expand businesses, and develop as innovative leaders in their communities.

South and Central Asia (SCA)

American university of afghanistan’s international center for afghan women’s economic development, western hemisphere (wha), young leaders in the americas initiative (ylai).

The YLAI Network is a community of young entrepreneurs and changemakers from Latin America and the Caribbean who are committed fostering economic development and prosperity, security, human rights and good governance in the hemisphere. Join the network and gain access to digital resources, training and networking opportunities, and the chance to connect with senior leaders in business and government as well as other young leaders.

Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas (WEAmericas)

The WEAmericas initiative aims to increase women’s economic participation and address the key barriers women confront when starting and growing small and medium-sized businesses. The initiative also includes an annual exchange program which allows the participants to explore a variety of mentorship, job shadowing, education, and skills development programs.

Women’s Entrepreneurship Resources in APEC (WE-APEC)

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What is DreamBuilder?

DreamBuilder is a series of 13 online business courses. The goal of the program is to help entrepreneurs achieve success. The courses that are included in the program cover the basics of starting a business as well as relevant topic areas, such as marketing, finance, and accounting. In addition to the interactive courses, participants have access to helpful tools and templates. Throughout the program, a Business Plan Generator guides the participants in the creation of a business plan.

DreamBuilder Courses:

Every course in the program is guided by Alma, a fictional character who owns her own business, and shares her own experience and knowledge. Each course starts with an episode of an animated series featuring an entrepreneur named Sara, who starts her own business. Also included are testimonials from successful entrepreneurs who share their challenges and lessons learned.

13 Learning Courses

1. Starting Your Dream 2. Exploring Your Dream 3. Planning Your Dream 4. Making Your Dream 5. Marketing Your Dream 6. Pricing Your Dream 7. Selling Your Dream 8. Managing Your Dream 9. Profiting from Your Dream 10. Keeping Track of Your Dream 11. Funding Your Dream 12. Formalizing Your Dream 13. Turning Your Dream into Reality 14. BONUS COURSE: Financing your Dream

¿Qué es DreamBuilder?

DreamBuilder es una serie de 12 cursos de negocios en línea. El objetivo del programa es ayudar a las mujeres empresarias a alcanzar el éxito. Los cursos que se incluyen en el programa cubren los conceptos básicos para comenzar un negocio, así como áreas temáticas relevantes, como marketing, finanzas y contabilidad. Además de los cursos interactivos, las participantes tienen acceso a útiles herramientas y plantillas. A lo largo del programa, un generador de planes de negocios guía a las participantes en la creación de un plan de negocios.

Cursos de DreamBuilder:

Cada curso en el programa es guiado por Alma, un personaje ficticio que posee su propio negocio y comparte su propia experiencia y conocimiento. Una telenovela es entrelazada dentro del programa para fortalecer conceptos y capturar la atención de las participantes, además de permitir que se identifiquen con los personajes y se vean reflejadas en sus historias, de tal manera, de hacer más cercana y real la experiencia. También, se incluyen testimonios de empresarios exitosos que comparten sus desafíos y lecciones aprendidas.

13 Cursos Educativos

• Bienvenida a DreamBuilder
• Definir Su Sueño
• Diseñar Su Sueño
• Planificar Su Sueño
• Materializar Su Sueño
• Promocionar Su Sueño
• Poner Precio a Su Sueño
• Vender Su Sueño
• Administrar Su Sueño
• Sacar Ganancias De Su Sueño
• Financiar Su Sueño
• Convertir Su Sueño En Realidad
• Financiando Su Sueño

• Client Capital Group
• Expertise Hospitality , Interiors , Mixed Use , Residential , Structural Engineering
• Region Europe
• Location Moscow, Russian Federation
• Completion Year 2015
• Design Finish Year 2012
• Size Site Area: 2.50 hectares Building Height: 354.30 meters Number of Stories: 85 Building Gross Area: 447,085 square meters
• Rentable Area 92,435.00 sq m
• Collaborators Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI) Fisher Marantz Stone Sako & Associates Inc. (Sako) Swa Group Fortune Consultants Ltd Shen Milsom & Wilke LLC - Chicago Promstroyproyekt Design Institute Bilgi 2000 Engineering & Construction Ltd. (Bilgi) Rich And Associates (R&A) Lerch Bates - Facade Access Consulting

This project is part of the thriving Moscow City, a mixed-use district centrally located within the sprawling Russian metropolis and loosely based on London’s Canary Wharf and Paris’s La Défense. The complex will consist of an 85-story skyscraper and a 49-story office tower connected at the base by a transparent crystalline structure. The massive development includes luxury residences, premium office space, a four-star hotel, parking, and extensive green space.

The elegant towers gradually taper away from each other as they stretch upward, with glass curtain walls that possess varying degrees of translucency, clarity, and reflectivity. A new private road bisects the site, creating a pedestrian promenade with access to both towers. Landscaped paths and plazas knit together the buildings, shops, and restaurants.

A continuous strip of parkland and plazas along the project’s southern edge provides a much-needed amenity for the increasingly high-density zone. The greenway — the only one in Moscow City — offers generous drop-off areas for the residential tower and hotel, as well as pocket groves of indigenous trees and open lawns for public use.

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Zemelny Office Building in Moscow by UNK architects

UNK architects : The most northern building with a green facade in the world.   The  Zemelny  business center is located close to the Moscow subway station named  Ulitsa 1905 Goda . The building is surrounded by XX-century industrial architecture, three kilometers away from the Moscow City business district.  Zemelny   has become a ‘green’ alternative to it.

The tower with a total area of 39000 m2 stands on a three-floor stylobate. Its facade is wrapped in a fishnet-like diagonal metal shell. As a precedent for the elevation, the UNK team used hyperboloid structures designed by Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov, the author of the Shukhov Radio Tower in Moscow .

The new office building will become an ideal place for those who value the functionality of the workspace and its harmony with the surrounding nature. 

UNK architects wanted the building to remind of a private house that is though located within the city boundaries. Its architecture features a lot of glass framed by the delicate snow-white metal outline. There is Virginia creeper (flowering vine in the grape family) planted on the balconies. Every season it will transform the tower's visual comprehension: paint the facade with bright green in summer, add a red splash to it in autumn and fully expose it in winter after the leaf fall. The external metal lace shell has an uneven rhythm thus imposing the effect of an ‘artificial perspective’. It visually thinns the building and makes it more elegant. 

The main volume of the building has the shape of an isosceles triangle. Elevator lobbies and egress stairs are located in its central part. Every floor is divided into six independent spatial blocks. The site is fenced and has an individual recreation area. The underground level accommodates a parking lot with 370 spaces and is equipped with charging units for electric cars.

The triangle plan helps to achieve a very high building area efficiency factor. The major challenge during the construction was to erect a building that occupies most of the site. To solve it our team used the top-down construction method, where underground levels grow down from the street level. 

Zemelny is located on a three-story stylobate that accommodates infrastructure, event halls, a café, and multiple shops – all those can be used both by the offices’ tenants and residents. Through the use of vertical planting, the building provides another green area to the citizens. Zemelny's infrastructure is public and available to everyone which turns it into a new point of attraction of the district.

In the evening   Zemelny  is decorated with light that is being poured along hyperploid structures featuring the lacy external envelope. 

Over time the Virginia creeper vines that are planted in tubs behind the transparent facade structures will make their way around the building's envelope and become an additional source of oxygen for the city. The unique architecture of the building stimulates new development for this industrial area and provides additional objects of urban infrastructure for the residents.

By Naser Nader Ibrahim

• Office Building
• Commercial Architecture
• Zemelny Office Building
• Zemel'nyi Business-Center
• UNK architects
• Dmitry Chebanenko
• Yuliy Borisov
• UNK Architects
• Zemelny Business Cente

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Why Didn't Trump Build Anything in Russia?

The art of the deal runs into the reality of “a really scary place.”

Updated on September 25, 2017.

Thirty years ago, in July 1987, Donald and Ivana Trump flew to the Soviet Union, apparently at the invitation of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, in order to scout locations for a Trump hotel in Moscow. “It was an extraordinary experience,” Trump wrote in The Art of the Deal . “We toured half a dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square.” He came away “impressed with the ambition of the Soviet officials to make a deal.”

And yet a deal was never struck, neither then nor in 1996, when the Moscow real-estate market really cranked up and Trump tried to bid on a renovation of Hotel Rossiya near the Kremlin. Nor did anything come to fruition in 2008 when Trump announced plans to build in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi; nor in 2013, when he visited Moscow and said he was going to build a Trump Tower there with the help of Russian mega-developer Aras Agalarov. In June 2015, shortly before declaring his presidential candidacy, Trump bragged to Bill O’Reilly that, “I was over in Moscow two years ago and I will tell you—you can get along with those people and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can’t.” At the time, it has since been reported , Trump’s surrogates Felix Sater and Michael Cohen were actively pursuing another real-estate development on Trump’s behalf in Moscow, but, by winter of 2016, that project was moot, too.

The American president has often bragged about his ability to cut deals and about how well he gets along with the Russians . The press and investigators have speculated about the extent of his connections to the Russian business and political elite. And yet, Trump never actually built anything in Moscow. When the president said, shortly after his inauguration, “I don’t have any deals in Russia,” he wasn’t wrong.

The question is why. When just about every other major hotel chain in the world was able to build in Moscow and beyond, why didn’t Trump close a deal in Russia?

The absence of Trump real estate in Russia, it turns out, is a revealing reflection of the disconnect between the image Trump projects and the reputation he and his surrogates have established in Russia.

In part it was because, as Donald Trump Jr. once said himself, Russia “really is a scary place.” In a 2008 interview with a small trade publication, Trump Jr. said that he had taken “half a dozen trips to Russia in the last 18 months” and that “several buyers have been attracted to our projects there.” But there was something getting in the way of those trips adding up to a Trump Tower Moscow. “It is definitely not an issue of being able to find a deal,” Trump Jr. said, “but an issue of ‘Will I ever see my money back out of that deal or can I actually trust the person I am doing the deal with?’ As much as we want to take our business over there, Russia is just a different world. … It is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who, etc.”

Trump Jr., who did not respond to request for comment, was right: The world of Russian business is a dark and treacherous place, and Moscow real estate is one of its darkest corners. “Moscow is like New York in many ways, just way more corrupt,” says a Western real-estate developer in Russia, who asked for anonymity in order not to jeopardize local partners and ongoing business deals. “To pull a building out of the ground, you need so many permits, so many authorizations—the mind reels. And all of it is so corrupt, it’s insane.” To navigate all this, the Trump Organization would have needed a local partner that was not just a capable developer, but had the right political connections to secure all the necessary permissions. “You need a good Russian partner, otherwise there’s no way,” says Mark Stiles, an American businessman who had extensive real-estate holdings in Russia.

In 2013, Trump worked with Agalarov , who had stellar connections at the very zenith of Russian political and business life. But that deal went sour after it caused a scandal in Kyrgyzstan— long story —and after the Russian economy took a nosedive in 2014.

But at other times, Trump’s man on the ground was Felix Sater, a Russian-born wheeler and dealer from the Russian-immigrant enclaves of Brooklyn. Sater, who declined to comment on the record for this story, once served a year in an American prison on an assault conviction after he stabbed a man in the face with the stem of a broken margarita glass. Not long after he got out of jail in the mid-90s, he was charged with securities fraud. Sater struck a deal to avoid prison time by becoming an FBI informant—a role that included providing the U.S. government with Soviet-era weapons purchased from an arms dealer.

In 2002, Sater, who was renting office space in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, worked his way into Trump's inner circle. In 2004, Sater started traveling to Moscow and tried to put together Russian real-estate deals for Trump. One potential deal, a Trump building on the territory of Moscow’s Soviet-era Sacco and Vanzetti Pencil Factory, fell through when the Russian partner was unable to get the right permits.

In late 2007, in addition to his work for Trump, Sater also began serving as an adviser to the real-estate developer Sergei Polonsky, a flamboyant builder who has called himself Russia’s Donald Trump. (“And yet he’s gone bankrupt twice,” Polonsky said of Trump, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti , “and I haven’t, ever.”) Polonsky, who named his son after his development company, Mirax, was behind some of Moscow’s hottest developments. Sater was tasked with helping Polonsky develop international projects, but only one ever came to fruition.

This didn’t exactly surprise Polonsky’s lieutenants. Alexey Kunitsin, who at the time was chairman of the board at Mirax, told me that Polonsky had been warned about Sater and his past, but Polonsky didn’t care. “I would never hire somebody like that,” Kunitsin said. “You can’t trust him in any way, not in a professional setting, not in a personal setting. You could see it very clearly. He was telling constant crazy stories, wild fantasies about all the people he knew. He was not a balanced dude. He’s very emotional and gets into conflicts very easily.” Kunitsin recalled that Sater would also brag to his coworkers at Mirax about how good he was at spending all the money he allegedly earned. “It didn’t really inspire confidence, especially when he described it all so colorfully,” Kunitsin said. Another former Mirax employee who dealt with Sater paints a similar portrait. “He’s not a serious person,” the former Mirax employee said. “He’s not a total bullshitter, he can do some things, but he’s also a bullshitter. He tries to create the impression of someone who is extremely well-connected and very busy.”

That Sater raised suspicions and turned Moscow businessmen off with tales of conspicuous consumption, in a city where it is practically a sport, is deeply telling. “You really have to be very talented to do that,” said a prominent Russian real-estate consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he worried that speaking to a journalist would jeopardize his professional relationships in Moscow. “And most people didn’t take him seriously. He was ready to pay for a few bottles of Cristal in the club, but was not someone you want to make a serious deal with.”

Polonsky was hard hit by the 2008 financial crisis, which also killed off Trump’s plans for building Trump buildings in Russia. But this didn’t derail Sater, who ditched Polonsky and, in 2010, became a senior adviser to Donald Trump, according to his business cards and email signature. That year, he was working on Trump’s development plans in Russia, again. And he ran into trouble, again. Sater told people in Moscow he had a signed authorization from Trump to enter into negotiations on his behalf, but because of Sater’s flamboyant manner, few people believed the document was authentic. “He was walking around with a power of attorney or something from Trump,” the Russian real-estate consultant said of Sater. “It was a very suspicious-looking document.”

Sater’s reputation continued to haunt him, even in Russia. “In 2010 when you Googled him you got a story form The New York Times about his past and it made things difficult for him,” says the former Mirax employee, referring to a 2007 article by Charles Bagli . The piece was the first to dredge up Sater’s checkered history and to put it in one, reputable place. Sater tried spelling his name “Satter” but it didn’t help.

A boutique Moscow PR agency offered to help rehabilitate his image. “Nice people [in Moscow] didn’t want to do business with him,” says a representative of the now-defunct agency. His assessment of Sater’s dilemma, which he shared with me on condition of anonymity, was stark. “Your mass media image today is the classical negative image of businessperson who is likely to be connected a criminal,” the PR agency wrote to Sater in September 2010. “Your media image is created by a third party, not you. You [sic] story is covered by media sources in a negative fashion. As a result, it affects even neutral news on your persona.” (Sater did not end up hiring them.)

It also didn’t help that Sater was a freelancer, and an outsider. He may have been born in Moscow, but he had left as a child. Despite a stint in Moscow in the 1990s , his return visits were brief and sporadic, his Russian accented by his long life in America. He would have read to Russians as an American, a foreigner. He had no obvious krysha , or “roof”—political protection as insurance against things going sideways. “The first question when you’re doing business in Russia is: who’s your krysha ?” says one longtime Western investor in Moscow, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivities of doing business in such a treacherous environment. “No krysha , no deal.” Polonsky had provided one such krysha , but by the time Sater tried in 2015 to build a Trump Tower in Moscow City, the capital’s modernist financial district, Polonsky was in prison and on trial for embezzlement. (He has since been released.) Trump, whom Sater claimed to be representing, was not a good krysha either: He was a foreigner, lived in New York, and had no pull within the various power structures in Russia. (The White House referred queries about this story to the Trump Organization. In response to repeated inquiries, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization underscored that it “has never had any real estate holdings or interests in Russia,” but declined to address questions about the president’s previous business relationship with Sater.)

In the fall of 2015, months after Trump declared his presidential candidacy, Sater was at it again, according to reports in The Washington Post and New York Times . In emails obtained by the Times , he bragged to Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer and unofficial campaign surrogate, that he had lined up financing for a Trump Tower in Moscow City from VTB, a bank under U.S. sanctions. (VTB denies that any such negotiations ever took place, saying through a spokesperson that “that not a single VTB group subsidiary had any dealings with Mr.Trump, his representatives or any companies affiliated with him.”) He also bragged that “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.” That year, Trump signed a non-binding letter of intent, and Cohen told the Times that he spoke with Trump three times about the deal.

Again, the deal went nowhere. According to the Times , for all his blustery promises of getting Putin involved, Sater did not even have the connections to get the proper permits to get the project going.

But there were two other factors. One was the sad state of the Russian economy. 2014 had brought the twin shocks of plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions, and the ruble collapsed. The sanctions cut off access to cheap financing, including to banks like VTB, known as the wallet of the FSB , one of Russia’s intelligence services. Real-estate development ground to a halt; vacancies rose. It was a punishing, prohibitive environment in which to build a new luxury high-rise.

The other factor was that Sater’s Russian partner, Andrei Rozov , did not have the economic heft or the political connections to overcome these obstacles. Sater knew Rozov when they worked together at Mirax, but he was the wrong partner for a Trump Tower Moscow. Rozov mostly developed residential projects in a sleepy, shabby bedroom community far from Moscow’s center. It is not, in other words, the kind of prime real estate where one would build a ritzy hotel. Moreover, by 2015, Rozov was trying to rescue his money and invest it in the United States, in the shale boom towns of the Dakotas. According to two sources who know Rozov, he was scheduled to attend Trump’s inauguration but didn’t make it. Rozov declined to comment for this article.

With the project hopelessly stalled, Cohen tried to nudge it forward in January 2016 by calling in the big Russian political guns Sater had bragged about. But Cohen seriously misfired, and instead emailed Putin’s mustachioed, bon vivant spokesman Dmitry Peskov for help with the Trump Tower project. Moreover, Cohen told me, he sent the email to the general inbox for press inquiries listed on the Kremlin website. Peskov confirmed to the Russian press that his office had received the email and chose to ignore it. “As far as we don’t respond to business topics, this is not our job, we did not send a response,” Peskov said.

Some Western observers saw this as evidence of high-level contact between the Trump Organization and the Kremlin, but to veterans of the world of Moscow real estate, it was nothing but a rookie mistake. They see the story as emblematic of why Trump could never build anything in Moscow, despite three decades of talk. “That is like the stupidest, most absurd thing ever,” says the Western real-estate developer of Cohen’s email. Nor were they surprised that the Trump team committed this error, given who was on the team. “The Russians that he associates with, I would never do business with,” says the Western real-estate developer of Trump and his business partners from the former Soviet Union, like Sater. “I’ve been involved with Russia for 25 years. ... A genuine developer could’ve done a lot with that brand.”

Yet the brand, for all its potential appeal to Moscow’s gaudy nouveau riches, didn’t have much cachet in Russia. It was not well-known enough for Moscow developers to pay a premium to license the name. “The Trump brand, which in America is very strong, in Russia it doesn’t have that kind of pull,” the former Mirax employee said. “Russians won’t agree to pay 30 percent more for elite real estate” just because it was branded “Trump,” because “no one in Russia watched The Apprentice .” The Russian real-estate consultant voiced a similar sentiment. “In Russia, Trump’s name was never that interesting or notable so that someone would be willing to invest and license it,” he said. “Everything that was built in Russia appreciated well without Trump’s name, so there was no need to pay for his name. There was no business sense in licensing his name.”

Hotel brands like the Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons are paid not just for their names but to actually run the hotel built by a developer. All Trump offered was his name, and at a hefty mark-up at that. The Russians were skeptical, especially given that Trump was not investing anything in any of these projects. “Trump didn’t invest anything,” says Kunitsin, the former Mirax board chair, “and in my opinion, the brand is a little too expensive.”

“Trump wants a fee for branding and doesn't put money in, so most developers’ in Moscow responses are ‘so what the fuck do we need him for?’” says one person familiar with the various licensing talks. This was especially the case with Polonsky, who felt that his name was worth more in Moscow than Trump’s. Says the source familiar with the talks, “Developers were all looking for people to bring money there, and Donald doesn’t write checks, he takes checks. They said, ‘Why should we pay Donald Trump 10 or 15 percent, plus you had to write a check for a million up front to show you were serious, when we could pay three percent to Hyatt or four percent to Ritz Carlton? What’s the big deal about Trump?’” (The catch, of course, is that Trump’s brand is far more recognizable in Russia now that he is president, but given the suspicions about Trump’s ties to Russia, any potential deal would also attract negative attention.)

And for all Trump’s talk of being able to negotiate with the Russians in a way that Obama couldn’t, Trump’s people inspired no respect at Moscow’s real-estate negotiating table. “Trump wants everything and he’s dealing with the Russians, who aren’t stupid,” says the Western investor in Russian real estate. “If you want everything from the Russians, they’re not going to give it to you. Trump’s way of negotiating is to ask for every fucking thing. The Russians have a different philosophy of negotiation: He who asks is the weak party.”

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