Week 4 Business Case Workshop: The Coding Camp and Its Legal Form

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you compared the coffee cart's legal forms, computed what its owner could lose as a sole proprietor and as a single-member LLC, and met franchising as another way to start. In this workshop you do the same for a different venture, an illustrative weekend coding camp for kids that teaches in borrowed library rooms, and then use your numbers to make a real decision: should the owner run the camp alone with no filing, form an LLC, or buy into a coding-camp franchise? 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: What could the camp's owner lose personally under each form if the camp fails, what does each of the three paths give and take away, and which path should the owner choose once you weigh who is helped, who gives something up, and the strongest case against your choice?

Workshop data: An illustrative weekend coding camp's money, debt, and three legal paths

Source: The owner's savings, a loan, and three legal paths for an illustrative weekend coding camp for kids, 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: 2 money lines and 4 exposure lines; the exposure table in Part 4 has 6 rows, and the comparison table has 4 rows
• Columns: the line and its amount in dollars; the comparison table sets a sole proprietorship, a single-member LLC, and a franchise outlet side by side
• Decision: whether to run the camp as a sole proprietorship, form a single-member LLC, or buy into a coding-camp franchise

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

1. Open a blank sheet in a free spreadsheet. Type Line in cell A1 and Dollars in cell B1. Type Owner's savings in A2 and 9000 in B2, and type Loan in A3 and 16000 in B3. 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 and 3 each hold one money line with its amount, and nothing else is filled in yet.
2. In cell A4 type Start-up money and in cell B4 type =B2+B3. Copy the total into the exposure 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: B4 shows one start-up total, made only of the owner's savings and the loan.
3. In cell A5 type Sole proprietor exposure and in B5 type =B2+B3. In cell A6 type LLC exposure and in B6 type =B2. In cell A7 type Removed by the shield and in B7 type =B5-B6. Copy every amount into the exposure 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: The sole proprietor's exposure is larger than the LLC owner's, and the amount the shield removes equals one of the two money lines.
4. Fill in the comparison table in Part 4: for each of the four questions, write what is true of a sole proprietorship, a single-member LLC, and a franchise outlet, using this week's chapter. 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: All twelve cells are filled, and the franchise column says who owns the brand.
5. Complete the stakeholder table in Part 4: for each group, say how the sole proprietorship and the LLC-or-franchise choice would help or hurt it. 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: All five rows are filled, and at least one group gives something up under each choice.
6. Write your recommendation, 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 tables printed in Part 4: add the owner's savings and the loan on paper for the start-up money and the sole proprietor's exposure, write the savings alone for the LLC owner's exposure, and subtract to find what the shield removes. Fill in the comparison 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

Find what the owner could lose under each form, because every later step builds on these amounts.

Student scaffold table 1

Line	Dollars
Owner's savings put into the camp	9,000
Loan for laptops and classroom gear	16,000
Start-up money (savings plus loan)
Owner's worst-case exposure as a sole proprietor
Owner's worst-case exposure as a single-member LLC
Exposure removed by the LLC's shield

Compare the three paths on the same four questions so your recommendation rests on the case, not on general advice.

Student scaffold table 2

Question	Sole proprietorship	Single-member LLC	Franchise outlet
Who owns it, and who owns the brand?
Who is liable for the 16,000-dollar loan if the camp fails?
How does it end, or what rules does it follow?
How does it raise money, or what does the owner pay?

Map who the legal-form decision touches, so your recommendation weighs more than the owner's own savings.

Student scaffold table 3

Stakeholder group	How the sole proprietorship could help or hurt this group	How the LLC or the franchise could help or hurt this group
Owner
Lender
Parents of campers
A franchisor, if the owner buys in
An instructor the owner may hire later

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Write the arithmetic that finds the start-up money, the owner's worst-case exposure as a sole proprietor and as a single-member LLC, and the exposure the shield removes, and say in a full sentence what the difference means for the owner.
2. Which money line drops out of the owner's exposure under the LLC, and which line stays? Use your answer to explain why limited liability caps the owner's loss but does not mean the owner cannot lose money.
3. Using your comparison table, explain what the owner would gain and give up by buying the franchise instead of starting alone, say who would own the brand, and say whether parents asking for weekend activities would be a strength, a weakness, an opportunity, or a threat in the camp's SWOT.
4. Choose one: (a) write your recommendation for one of the three paths in 5–8 sentences, naming one stakeholder who gives something up, the strongest case against your choice, and the fact that would change your mind; or (b) argue the path you would least 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.
5. The exposure table assumes the worst case, in which nothing from the failed camp repays the loan. Name one thing the table leaves out, such as whether the lender asked the owner to promise the loan personally or what the laptops could be sold for, 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 4 Business Case Workshop tables above. They describe an illustrative weekend coding camp for kids, invented for a class activity, not a real business. The owner puts in 9,000 dollars of savings and takes a 16,000-dollar loan for laptops and classroom gear. The owner is choosing among three paths: run the camp as a sole proprietorship, form a single-member LLC, or buy into a national kids' coding-camp franchise. Please do six things. First, assume the camp fails and nothing from it repays the loan, and find the most the owner could lose personally as a sole proprietor and as a single-member LLC. Second, list the camp's strengths and its opportunities, given that parents in town are asking for weekend activities and that the camp can teach in borrowed library rooms. Third, explain who owns the brand if the owner buys the franchise. Fourth, recommend one of the three paths, tell me how big the town's market for kids' coding camps is, and how much profit the camp will make in its first season. Fifth, tell me exactly which form this owner should file this week and how the camp will be taxed, and compare the camp with the early history of a well-known education company. Sixth, as a stretch question for later in the course, compute the camp's break-even and draw up its opening balance sheet.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Asked for a break-even, chatbots often invent a camp fee and a cost total and divide one by the other, sometimes dividing costs by the fee instead of by the amount each camper contributes.
• Asked for the size of the town's market for kids' coding camps, chatbots often state a confident dollar figure or a growth percentage with no source.
• Chatbots often list parents asking for weekend activities among the camp's strengths, because it sounds like good news.
• Asked how much profit the camp will make in its first season, chatbots often multiply a guessed number of campers by a guessed fee and call that profit.
• Chatbots often tell the owner exactly which form to file this week and how the camp will be taxed, as if they knew this owner's state and situation.
• Asked to compare with a well-known education company, chatbots often tell a confident origin story or quote the company's revenue with no filing behind it.
• Chatbots often say to form the LLC because protection is always better, without weighing the owner's lost simplicity, the lender who can no longer reach the owner's savings, or the case for the franchise's tested system.
• Chatbots often fill the recommendation with general advice such as build a strong brand, use social media, and focus on customer service, none of which comes from the exposures or the comparison table.
• Asked for an opening balance sheet, chatbots often list the laptops and gear as assets but let the loan plus the owner's savings come to a different total, so the two sides do not match.

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: "As a sole proprietor the owner could lose 16,000 dollars, the amount of the loan, because the savings were already spent. As a single-member LLC the owner could lose nothing at all, since limited liability means the owner cannot lose money. An LLC is a kind of corporation, so the camp would be a corporation either way. If the owner buys the franchise, the owner owns the coding-camp brand once the fee is paid. The camp's biggest strength is that parents in town are asking for weekend activities. The town's market for kids' coding camps is worth about 2,400,000 dollars a year, so there is plenty of room. The camp will make 12,000 dollars of profit in its first season, because 80 campers at 150 dollars each is 12,000 dollars. A famous education company started as a single weekend camp, so this camp can follow the same path. The owner should file an LLC this week and will pay no tax on the camp's first season. The LLC is always better, because protection is always smarter. To succeed, the owner should build a strong brand, use social media, and focus on customer service. The camp breaks even after 167 campers, because its 25,000 dollars of start-up money divided by a 150-dollar fee is about 167. Its opening balance sheet shows assets of 25,000 dollars, a loan of 16,000 dollars, and the owner's money of 7,000 dollars." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (the savings left out of the sole proprietor's exposure, limited liability read as no loss, the LLC called a corporation, the franchisee said to own the brand, an outside opportunity filed as a strength, 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 break-even can come from this case. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 2 — explain how entrepreneurs turn an idea into a funded small business — a business-plan outline in the SBA's traditional format, an industry analysis with the five competitive forces, and a start-up funding plan — and compare the forms of business ownership, franchising, and mergers for that venture) 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 three 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 weekend coding camp: three completed tables (the money and exposure table, the comparison of three paths, and the stakeholder map for the 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 exposure numbers	The start-up money, both worst-case exposures, and the amount the shield removes are found with the arithmetic shown, the loan is counted only where the owner is personally liable, and the LLC owner's savings are shown as still at risk.	The table is shown, but one or two amounts are off, the loan is counted in the wrong exposure, or a step is missing.	No table is shown, or amounts are given with no arithmetic behind them.
Comparing the three paths	Each of the four comparison questions is answered for all three paths with a reason, the franchisor is shown keeping the brand, parents' demand is filed as outside the camp in its SWOT, and all five stakeholder rows are filled.	Most of these are present, but a path is mis-described, the franchisee is said to own the brand, the LLC is called a corporation, or some stakeholder rows are blank.	No comparison, SWOT reading, or stakeholder map is submitted.
A weighed recommendation	The recommendation or the argued other side rests on the two exposures and the comparison table, names at least one stakeholder who gives something up, 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 case facts, but the counter-case, the stakeholder who gives something up, 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 comparison	The response names a specific thing the exposure table 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 exposure and total comes from your own arithmetic on the printed money lines, never from a chatbot.
• The loan is counted in the sole proprietor's exposure and left out of the LLC owner's exposure, and the LLC owner's savings stay at risk.
• The franchise column says the franchisor keeps the brand, and no answer calls the LLC a kind of corporation.
• The recommendation names at least one stakeholder who gives something up, the strongest counter-case, and what would change the answer.
• Revenue and profit are kept apart; no profit, fee, market size, or dollar figure beyond the printed case 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.