The Food Trucks Association of Canada (FTAC) seeks a student or student group collaboration to support its efforts to strengthen the Food Truck and greater street food industry. 

FTAC believes that it is important for a business at any stage to know and track its value over time. The Association is considering a number of tools & platforms relating to business valuations. FTAC would like to fully test the assumptions of these platforms, business valuation programs / applications, to assess their suitability for conducting or developing a business valuation process for food trucks and other mobile food businesses in Canada. The project aims to understand how these apps calculates valuations, what models they use, and whether they accurately reflect the unique aspects of the food truck industry.

This is a list of the project’s objectives - and the work that is expected of the students in order to achieve the deliverables. 

• Students will conduct a walk through of a chosen application and will make a detailed outline of the method by which it provides business valuation results.
• Students will be provided with several sample “business cases” to run through the software as test models to determine the application’s viability. 
• Students will compare the accuracy of Equitest's valuations for food truck businesses compared to established valuation methods.
• Students will be asked to assess the app's relevance to the Canadian food truck industry by identifying if it considers industry-specific factors crucial for valuation (e.g., location dependence, permit costs, equipment).
• Students will be asked to Identify any potential gaps in Equitest's process that might lead to inaccurate valuations for food truck businesses.
• Students will be asked to make a final recommendation on the use of the software.

Participants will be provided with a dedicated project lead that will provide guidance and mentorship. Participants will given access to the association's Slack communications and Google workspace, where the dedicated project lead will made available via Slack & Email for any inquiries or issues that a participant may have. Regular check-in meetings will be hosted after an initial onboarding and orientation meeting, in which students can provide updates regarding project progress and discuss any questions that they might have. Moreover, if any participant wishes to book 1-on-1 meetings for additional support or to discuss confusions/questions.