High school project idea · Business & Entrepreneurship
Take apart how a familiar company really creates, delivers, and captures value.
Analyze a business beyond its advertising to explain who pays, what drives costs, where power sits, and what could break the model.
Why this project matters
Analyze a business beyond its advertising to explain who pays, what drives costs, where power sits, and what could break the model. This project feels different from a school assignment because the student serves students, consumers, or aspiring entrepreneurs who use the company, creates something visible, tests it honestly, responds to feedback, and explains the decisions behind the final result.
What you will create
Use these deliverables as milestones for X-Ray a Business Model. Adapt the details to your interests, available time, and real-world opportunities.
Research customer segments, value proposition, revenue streams, cost structure, partners, distribution, competitive advantage, and vulnerabilities. Document the needs, constraints, credible sources, and perspectives of students, consumers, or aspiring entrepreneurs who use the company.
Turn the evidence into a focused plan for the business model teardown, including success criteria, ethical boundaries, scope, and a realistic path to completion.
Create the first complete version of the business model teardown. Include a business model map, evidence ledger, unit economics estimate, competitor comparison, risk scenarios, and strategic recommendation.
present the teardown to informed reviewers and test whether they can challenge every major assumption with evidence Record what happened, what failed, what users or reviewers said, and which changes you made.
Publish the final business model teardown with a portfolio-ready case study showing the challenge, evidence, process, revisions, results, limits, and next version.
Make the work stronger
For X-Ray a Business Model, use these checkpoints to protect the quality of the work without turning the project into a performance for admissions.
Skills you can build
College application value
Can demonstrate initiative, curiosity, reflection, and growth through the student’s choices, response to setbacks, work with students, consumers, or aspiring entrepreneurs who use the company, and development of Business Model Analysis, Competitive Research, and Systems Thinking.
The goal of X-Ray a Business Model is not to manufacture an impressive activity. Do real work, keep evidence of the process, and reflect honestly on what changed.
Related college majors
Use X-Ray a Business Model as a clue, then open a related major guide to compare coursework, career directions, reality checks, and other ways to test the field.
Understand how organizations create value, make decisions, allocate resources, and turn ideas into results.
Turn organizational data into clearer questions and better decisions.
Understand how organizations operate across markets, cultures, and borders.
X-Ray a Business Model is an original Compass educational starting point designed around real work, visible evidence, feedback, and reflection. It is not an admissions guarantee.