I need to invent a new product or business idea for entrepreneurship class and develop a business plan. Can you help. Something simple and useful...

One
simple service that may or may not exist in a given community is a shopping and errand service
for senior citizens.  The largest generation in recent history is the baby boomer generation,
and that generation is getting  old.  Many would welcome such a service.

I
think there is a huge, untapped market for a few reasons.  Traditionally, one's children helped
senior citizens with things like this, but today, it is more typical for one's children to be
living in other areas or to be far too busy working to attend to this.  Senior citizens who live
in senior citizen communities may have available a transport service to shop or see doctors, but
not everyone wants to do his or her own shopping and errands. 

What are the
elements you must consider in a business plan? The overhead for such an operation would be very
low.  For example, marketing could consist of leaving flyers in neighborhoods with aging
populations, at supermarkets, dry cleaners, etc., or in the lobbies of senior citizen
highrises.  Word of mouth would probably be good once the service got going.  Many errands could
be done with a bicycle, for example, picking up prescriptions or going to get a bag of flour or
sugar.  Even using a car, for the most part, this would be a very neighborhood-oriented
business, so gas costs would not be great, particularly if one could combine errands in a
community or for a high-rise.  Little capital would be needed to get started: a car or a bike,
and some printing costs, although flyers can now be produced at home by anyone.  I would say
that an urban target market would be the best starting point, to create an efficient operation
without high fuel costs and less investment in time.  Price-setting and wage-setting are
something that you would have to calculate based upon your particular geographic area, based
upon what the market will bear, but when calculating wages, you will want to consider that most
people using such a service are likely to tip and that poor people tend to tip more generously
than wealthy people.  The structure of your business is likely to be rather flat, with a group
of people responsible for deliveries and one person in charge to coordinate and put out any
fires. 

I think that covers all of the basic elements that you must consider
in a business plan, and honestly, it would be wonderful to see something like this in my own
neighborhood.