Week 2 · Business Case Workshop

Week 2 Business Case Workshop: The Taco Trucks and the Concert Night

Introduction to Business Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you read the strawberry schedule to find where a price settles, what a shortage and a surplus are, and what one shift of demand does, and you placed the coffee cart among the four market structures. In this workshop you do the same for a different market, an illustrative food-truck park where several taco trucks sell plates, and then use your numbers to make a real decision: should one truck raise its price on concert evenings? Finally, you check a chatbot's analysis of the same case and correct it by hand.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: Where does the price of a taco plate settle on a normal evening and on a concert evening, and should one truck raise its price on concert evenings once you weigh who is helped, who pays, and the strongest case against it?

Workshop data: An illustrative food-truck park's taco-plate schedule

Source: A five-price schedule for taco plates at an illustrative food-truck park, written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; it is not real data and describes no real business, place, or person.

Rows: 5 prices on one schedule; each scaffold schedule table in Part 4 has 5 rows
Columns: price in dollars a plate, plates buyers want, and plates the trucks together offer
Decision: whether one truck should raise its price on concert evenings

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them

Ways of working

analyze-the-case
run-the-numbers
recommend-and-defend

Procedure

Open a blank sheet in a free spreadsheet. Type Price in cell A1, Want in cell B1, Offer in cell C1, and Gap in cell D1, then type the five prices from Part 4 into cells A2 through A6, the plates buyers want into B2 through B6, and the plates the trucks offer into C2 through C6. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: Rows 2 through 6 each hold one price with its two amounts, and row 1 holds the four labels.
In cell D2 type =B2-C2 and fill it down to D6. Copy each gap into the first table in Part 4 and mark it shortage, surplus, or equilibrium. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: Positive gaps sit above the equilibrium row, negative gaps sit below it, and exactly one row shows a gap of zero.
For the concert evening, type Concert want in cell E1 and =B2+80 in cell E2, and fill it down to E6. Type Concert gap in cell F1 and =E2-C2 in cell F2, and fill it down. Copy both columns into the second table in Part 4. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: Every concert amount is 80 more than the normal amount at the same price, the Offer column is unchanged, and exactly one row of column F shows zero.
Fill in the checks table in Part 4: write the arithmetic for the gap at 9 dollars on a normal evening and the gap at the normal equilibrium price on a concert evening, then name the market structure the trucks sit in with one reason each about sellers, products, and entry. Check: Each row of the checks table shows its subtraction, and the market-structure row gives three reasons.
Complete the stakeholder table in Part 4 for the concert-price decision: for each of the seven groups, say who fills it at the food-truck park and how a higher concert-night price could help or hurt that group. Check: All seven rows are filled, and at least one group is hurt or asked to give something up.
Write your recommendation on the concert-night price in 5–8 sentences, then paste the Part 6 prompt into one approved chatbot (or use the equivalent route), compare its answer with your tables, and write the critique report. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: You have a recommendation that names a stakeholder, the counter-case, and what would change your mind, plus a critique that quotes and corrects specific sentences.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if a spreadsheet will not open or a formula will not run.

Work every step by hand from the schedule printed in Part 4: subtract each pair of amounts on paper, add 80 to each amount buyers want for the concert evening, mark the row where the two amounts match in each table, and fill in the checks and stakeholder tables. Complete every analysis question and the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Read the normal-evening schedule first, because every later step builds on its equilibrium.

Student scaffold table 1
Price (dollars a plate)	Plates buyers want	Plates the trucks offer
7	320	160
9	280	200
11	240	240
13	200	280
15	160	320

Add the concert crowd to every price and find where the market settles now.

Student scaffold table 2
Price (dollars a plate)	Plates buyers want, concert evening	Plates the trucks offer	Concert gap (want − offer)
7		160
9		200
11		240
13		280
15		320

Check the key amounts with written arithmetic before you build a recommendation on them.

Student scaffold table 3
Quantity	Your arithmetic	Your answer
Normal-evening equilibrium price and amount
Gap at 9 dollars on a normal evening
Concert-evening equilibrium price and amount
Gap at the normal equilibrium price on a concert evening
Market structure of the taco trucks, with three reasons

Map who the concert-price decision touches, so your recommendation weighs more than one truck's owner.

Student scaffold table 4
Stakeholder group	Who it is at the food-truck park	How a higher concert-night price could help or hurt this group
Owners
Employees
Customers
Suppliers
Lenders
The community
Government

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Write the arithmetic that finds the normal-evening equilibrium, the gap at 9 dollars, and the concert-evening equilibrium, and say in a full sentence what each number tells a truck owner.
Which column of the schedule changed on the concert evening, and which stayed the same? Use your answer to say whether the concert is a shift of demand or a movement along the schedule.
Explain why the old normal-evening price leaves a line of hungry customers on a concert evening, which way the price tends to move, and how much room one truck has to set its own price given the market structure the trucks sit in.
Choose one: (a) write your recommendation on the concert-night price in 5–8 sentences, naming one stakeholder who pays, the strongest case against your choice, and the fact that would change your mind; or (b) argue the side you did not choose as strongly as you can in 5–8 sentences, then say in two sentences why you still hold your view or why you changed it.
The schedule is a classroom model. Name one thing about a real food-truck park that it leaves out, such as how many plates one kitchen can cook in an hour, and explain how adding it could change your recommendation.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed Week 2 Business Case Workshop tables above. They describe an illustrative food-truck park invented for a class activity, not a real place. Several taco trucks sell plates there: at 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 dollars a plate, buyers want 320, 280, 240, 200, and 160 plates and the trucks together offer 160, 200, 240, 280, and 320 plates on a normal evening; on a concert evening, buyers want 80 more plates at every price. Please do six things. First, find the equilibrium price and amount on a normal evening and the gap at 9 dollars a plate. Second, find the new equilibrium on a concert evening and say whether the concert is a shift of demand or a movement along the schedule. Third, say which market structure the taco trucks sit in. Fourth, recommend whether one truck should raise its price on concert evenings, say who is helped and who is hurt, and tell me how big the city's street-food market is in dollars and how much more profit the concert will bring. Fifth, tell me which legal form and which permits this truck's owner needs, and compare the truck with the early history of a well-known taco chain. Sixth, as a stretch question for later in the course, compute the truck's break-even and draw up its opening balance sheet.

Test the response for these likely failures:

Chatbots often call the concert crowd one of the truck's strengths, because it is good news for sales.
Asked for the size of the city's street-food market, chatbots often state a confident dollar figure or a growth percentage with no source.
Chatbots often say the concert crowd will raise the truck's profit, treating more plates sold at a higher price as more profit.
Chatbots often tell the owner exactly which legal form to choose and which permits to file, as if they knew this owner's city and situation.
Asked to compare with a well-known taco chain, chatbots often tell a confident origin story or quote the chain's sales with no filing behind it.
Chatbots often say the truck should raise its price on concert nights because the market supports it, without weighing the regular customers or the cooks who face a longer rush.
Chatbots often fill the recommendation with general advice such as focus on customer service, build a strong brand, and use social media, none of which comes from the schedule.
Asked for a break-even, chatbots often invent a price and a cost and divide one by the other, sometimes dividing costs by the price instead of by the amount each sale contributes.
Asked for an opening balance sheet, chatbots often invent amounts, and the made-up assets often fail to equal what the owner owes plus what the owner put in.

Write 3–5 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least two places it went wrong or overreached, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from your own tables or this week's chapter.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "On a normal evening the taco market settles at 9 dollars and 280 plates, because that is where the most plates are wanted. The concert crowd is the truck's biggest strength, and the higher concert price is what creates the extra demand. The city's street-food market is worth about 4,500,000 dollars a year, so there is plenty of room to grow. Concert nights will double the truck's profit. A famous national taco chain started as a single truck in a parking lot, so this truck can follow the same path. The owner should form an LLC before the next concert and can deduct the whole truck on this year's taxes. The truck should raise its price on concert nights, because it can only help. To succeed, the owner should focus on excellent customer service, build a strong brand, and use social media. The truck breaks even after 1,400 plates, because its 15,400 dollars of costs divided by its 11-dollar plate price is 1,400. Its opening balance sheet shows assets of 26,000 dollars, a loan of 8,500 dollars, and the owner's money of 15,500 dollars." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (a misread equilibrium, an outside opportunity filed as a strength, a higher price treated as the cause of demand, a market figure with no source, revenue treated as profit, an unsourced story about a real firm, confident legal or tax advice for one owner, a one-sided recommendation, boilerplate that ignores the case, an invented break-even, or a balance sheet that does not balance), cite the evidence from your tables or the chapter, and write a corrected sentence beneath it; for the break-even and the balance sheet, say which later week of the course takes them up and that no such figure can come from this case. This route assesses the same objective (Objective 1 — describe what a business is — profit, risk, and the not-for-profit contrast — its stakeholders, the factors of production, and the forces in its external environment, and explain how economic systems, supply and demand, market structures, and the economy's health indicators shape business decisions) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

All four completed scaffold tables
Written answers to all five analysis questions, including your recommendation
The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Business Case Workshop report on an illustrative food-truck park: four completed tables (the normal-evening schedule with its gaps, the concert-evening schedule, the checked amounts, and the stakeholder map for the concert-price decision), written answers to five analysis questions including a weighed recommendation, and a critique of a chatbot's analysis of the same case, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or visual form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria
Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Running the schedule's numbers	Both tables are complete, every gap is the right subtraction, both equilibria are found with the arithmetic shown, and the checks table is filled in.	The tables are shown, but one or two gaps are off, an equilibrium row is misread, or the checks table is incomplete.	No tables are shown, or amounts are given with no arithmetic behind them.
Reading the shift and the market	The concert is named a shift of demand from the changed column, the old price is explained as leaving a shortage that pushes the price up, the trucks are placed in a market structure with three reasons, and all seven stakeholder rows are filled.	Most of these are present, but the shift is described loosely, a reason for the structure is missing, or some stakeholder rows are blank.	No shift reading, structure placement, or stakeholder map is submitted.
A weighed recommendation	The recommendation or the argued other side rests on the schedule's numbers, names at least one stakeholder who pays, states the strongest counter-case fairly, keeps revenue apart from profit, and says what would change the decision.	A position is taken and tied to some numbers, but the counter-case, the stakeholder who pays, or what would change the decision is missing.	No recommendation is given, or it repeats general advice with no case facts.
Critiquing the AI analysis or the printed flawed analysis	The chatbot's analysis, or on the equivalent route the printed flawed analysis, is quoted and at least two errors are corrected with evidence from the tables or the chapter, including any invented figure flagged as outside this case.	The critique names errors but corrects only one, or corrects without evidence, on either route.	No critique is submitted on either route, or the AI output or flawed analysis is accepted without checking.
Naming the limitation of the model	The response names a specific thing the schedule leaves out and explains how adding it could change the recommendation.	A limitation is named but not connected to the recommendation.	No limitation is named.

Quality Gate

Every gap comes from your own subtraction of the two amounts at that price, never from a chatbot.
The concert evening changes only the amounts buyers want; the amounts the trucks offer stay the same in both tables.
The concert is named a shift of demand, and no answer says that a higher price caused more demand.
The recommendation names at least one stakeholder who pays, the strongest counter-case, and what would change the answer.
Revenue and profit are kept apart; no profit, cost, market size, or dollar figure beyond the printed schedule is invented anywhere in the submission.
The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence from your tables or the chapter.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com