July 15, 2011 at 16:29Investor Startup Lynch: First Release
Last week we announced a new HabraProject : a startup lynch from investment analyst Fast Lane Ventures. The conditions, I remind you, are very simple: you leave a request for your project, we analyze it in detail and publish it after a while.
In just a couple of days, 20 applications arrived, which, in principle, is a great success of the project - given the traditional desire for secrecy among our people and, especially, our entrepreneur.
This week, as promised, we publish the first lynch. Why the first? Firstly, it is unrealistic to fit all 20 applications with comments in one post. Therefore, we decided to divide them into several cycles and lay out in parts for two weeks. Secondly, we hope that this is not the last experience of this kind, and there are still those who wish to receive qualified expertise -application form is still working . The authors of all applications will receive a notification by mail about the status of the application and whether it will be published.
For the first publication, we selected the most complete and meaningful applications in those areas of Internet business where Fast Lane Ventures has more experience. They turned out to be five projects:
The structure of the comments is simple: the application (spelling and punctuation of the original), the pros, cons, general conclusion and the answer to the sacramental question - is Fast Lane Ventures ready to give money to this project? Useful reading for everyone who has or who is just getting ready to launch their own startup. Well, just for everyone interested in the topic.
So, let's go:
Regional platforms for posting resumes - the project aims at a niche in which large portals are poorly represented: regional platforms with vacancies "for the people." The business model involves the monetization of micropayments and advertising.
Regional platforms for posting vacancies and resumes “for the people” and not “top managers of Moscow”.
1. Micropayments of SMS services (raise an ad, highlight, fix at the top)
2. Sale of banner advertising, $ 200-4000 from a regional site per month, depending on the penetration of the Internet influence in a particular region.
- Personnel agencies, personnel departments of organizations.
- People looking for work.
Large job search sites rarely contain job postings for cashiers, sellers, movers, drivers, etc. this is especially true for regions. People need a “native” regional platform where you do not need to fill out 10 steps of the form, pay for registration or viewing. Where there will be no spam and work related to network marketing.
Advertisers are interested in very clear regional targeting. There are a lot of regions where our site can get into the top 3 regional sites in terms of traffic, due to the weak development of the Internet in the region. And there are advertisers and now they have practically no place where they can advertise.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
There are many large job search sites, hh.ru, job.ru,
superjob.ru, rabota.mail.ru and others, but they all share a small
concentration in the regions. In fact, they are not even competitors, we have a different
niche of vacancies and resumes.
- Most often they have paid access to the databases of resumes, posting vacancies.
we have free of charge
- Complex registration and data adding forms that frighten ordinary users
- At sites below the level, a lot of spam and duplicates, ads to another city. We have an analysis for duplicates, a block from spam, algorithms for ban periodically violating user rules
- On sites below the level there are no help functions, the selection of suitable vacancies / resumes, mailings according to the specified parameters
- Functional development
- Writing a system that allows you to check every ad by outsiders for a fee (analogy - how the Chinese captcha recognize).
- Improving the system of morphological recognition of duplicate ads
- Start advertising the site in each region
The project has already been launched in 23 regions ... the third month has already been running (vnwork.ru, vlgwork.ru, jobkir.ru and 20 more). Functional is being added and literally yesterday I personally drew up a new design.
vnwork.ru/VNwork1.png
vnwork.ru/VNwork2.png
vnwork.ru/VNwork4.png
The first customers already exist, totally in 23 regions without any advertising at all:
3000 unique visitors, average viewing depth of 8 pages.
3500 - registered users
5000 vacancies
1000 resumes
What we need:
- We need marketing advice and marketing financing itself (we are developing every day - but not as fast as we would like)
- 2 programmers, with a salary of 15-20 thousand rubles
- 1 designer with a salary of 15-20 thousand rubles
- content managers, for the manual moderation of "dangerous" ads
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements
The team has two programmers. We draw, typeset, program, design interfaces, analyze user behavior, statistics, analyze the market, communicate with advertisers. We do everything
ourselves - not because we can do it perfectly, but because there is no money to hire employees, but I want to work and earn. But it turns out not so bad ... We are two - but we are talented.
The first version is launched, even if it’s damp but it already fully works. The idea that people need regional sites is proven! For a month we’ve been finalizing the functionality that users need.
With proper execution, niche projects can be very wealthy.
The global success of online classifieds and a move away from traditional print formats.
All Russian HR portals target regions and small cities.
Departure to regions and low-skilled vacancies are two steps away from a solvent client.
Monetization of 95% of HR portals is based on the “employer pays” model; avoiding this model requires careful justification.
Advertising on a similar portal will be difficult to sell because of the characteristics of the target audience, which is not distinguished by solvency and the desire to buy something while looking for work.
The main question is why large portals are poorly represented in this segment: because they are slow and do not have time to do everything, or because the niche is unpromising and has no income? What do they need to do in order to start competing in this niche? It also requires an understanding of how “vacancies are closed” that you focus on - most likely, without the help of the Internet
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - if the project is successful, the absolute revenue will be small. If you want to interest an angel or an institutional investor, the project must have good revenue potential - from several million dollars in two to three years.
Selloby - This project combines the "verticals" of classifieds, rentals, dating and job search in a mobile application
Selloby is a social mobile service and free classifieds website for selling, buying, finding a job, renting a home, and dating.
The project will be monetized in the second stage, after the formation of a permanent user base. Paid package accommodation is planned for legal entities - car dealerships, travel agencies, shops,
employers / employment agencies. There are options for paid promotion of ads - raising in the tape, inclusion in the following users.
Socially active young people 20-35, users of facebook and twitter, students, young families with an average income.
The service exists independently, it does not require a back office, financial support. With a successful launch and dynamic development, a growing user base will attract partners (see clause 2) for instant and inexpensive notification / attracting a large number of potential customers.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
The project is focused on all markets - the USA, Europe, Russia. In the USA, they are the main competitors of Craiglist, eBay Classifieds, Oodle + many small services that have not gained a large base. The disadvantage of Craiglist is its outdated design and functionality, lack of mobile services, a high percentage of spam and fraud, pluses - a huge user base, 15-year history. In Russia - the only active resource Avito - 100 000 ads per day on the site.
Selloby существует для iPhone, Android, WP7, есть полноценный вебсайт Selloby построен по принципу твиттера — быстрые короткие объявления пишутся с помощью хэштегов и саджестов, моментальное фотографирование и/или размещение фото из библиотеки
Возможность оставаться анонимным — важно для занкомств или поиска работы
Шаринг объявлений через FB и Tw
Дефолтная геолокация
Кастомная система фоловингов
Моментальная блокировка спама — блокируется не объявление, а
пользователь, разместивший спам
Удобный мессенжер — переписка с каждым пользователем ведется в самом
приложении, в отдельном треде
Нет премодерации
Until the end of 2011, release a product on the markets of Russia and the USA, through PR and marketing tools, gain the maximum number of users - target 1M users. Release at least two updated versions of the product + service for iPad
The next two years
- expanding the user base
- in 2013 - monetization of services
The product is 100% ready to launch. Creation spent 3 months, $ 50,000
Pelevin Alexey - ux designer, founder of the PARK design studio, founder of Technopark and Parcsis companies
Ilona Isupova - CEO, project manager, ex-owner of the online store, experience in e-commerce, PR, marketing
Successful project experience:
Legal reference system PRAVO.RU
Arbitration file cabinet kad.arbitr.ru
On-line service for buying tickets and hotels anywayanyday.com
Website of the Renaissance insurance company Renins.com
The project is not beaten and timely - recently it was still early, but soon it would be too late.
Geo-targeting provides great opportunities for classifications.
Lack of focus has killed more than one project.
Starting from scratch a service in five areas complicates the two-sided problem five times: for each area you need to create a critical mass of users.
It is extremely difficult to make a mobile application that brings money. Through the small screen of the phone it is difficult to transfer content and create the convenience for the user for which he is willing to pay.
Classification is a complex business model that is extremely demanding on execution skills. First you need to build a product that users will like, and then monetize it. Russia has already managed to make classifaids successful from the user point of view, but there is no success story from the point of view of money.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - at the heart of the project there is no proven business model
Sanviz 3D is a program for visualizing tiles of various designs for standard-type bathrooms, designed to help sellers of offline stores sell more efficiently.
A simple program for 3D visualization of the bathroom. In construction hypermarkets, a person approaches a stand, paints his bathroom in 3D in one minute and selects an interesting design for him. If you like, it
prints the estimate and goes to pay at the cash desk with the forerunner. The program monitors balances and in case of shortage sends a request for delivery to the dealer. Here's a video presentation of www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do_ByLKYAzU
A percentage of the paid ancestors is taken. Money is taken from the tile manufacturer.
Tile manufacturers, ceramic tile dealers. They will use it because they still pay so that their stands with tiles stand in passable rows. And the new stand will attract attention and
increase sales. Plus, you can get up-to-date information on sales volume, promptly adjust prices and monitor stock balances. The cost of the stand is comparable to existing exhibitors.
Manufacturers of ceramic tiles. Interested in new "chips" to increase sales. Now sellers in stores do 3D visualization by hand, and we will make it so that buyers themselves will do 3D visualization. And it will be available only for ceramic tiles of our partners. If the stand increases sales by at least 1%, the manufacturer’s sales will increase by millions of rubles.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
3D tile visualization programs are in competition, but in the segments of “boutique” sales. Our product is focused on hypermarkets, when the buyer is not paid attention and he is forced to do 3D visualization himself. There are no analogues in Russia at the moment. There are rumors that there are abroad, but there is no evidence. Now in Russia there are 2 more companies working on a similar project.
1) The company leading the development of No.1 - they know the market from the inside, but are weak in the
technical part. For 1 year now they are looking for project financing. We are a
team in which there are “techies” and
“sellers”.
2) A company that makes an already offline product and that "stole" our idea at the tile exhibition. They have been engaged in this area for 5 years, and since they themselves did not come up with a product development vector, we will probably generate better ideas and get ahead of them.
1st year: introduction of stands for one manufacturer in all major construction hypermarkets in Russia. Product promotion on the market so that other companies learn about a new way of promotion.
2-3 year: unification of the information system on sales, balances for all manufacturers. Replacement of supply / sales managers in wholesale companies with this system, who monitor the status of the
balance in stores and sales.
1) For development - 1 million rubles, 6 months.
2) The first client - negotiations are underway to purchase an system that has not yet been created
or to create a joint venture.
The main thing here is to find a partner even before the release of the product
1) The leader is an entrepreneur (from the word undertake =)), sociable with a good education and IQ level.
The task is set correctly - visualization does not have to be technically complicated and takes a lot of time.
Free for the user.
In my opinion, the application has a bias towards the interests of the manufacturer and seller, which will not go unnoticed by the buyer.
Also, the application does not solve many of the issues that the buyer poses for himself - how options vary in price, visualization of individual features of the project, accounting for non-standard sizes.
The monetization model requires verification, because for the revenue share model, you need to convince the seller that it is the application that helps sell.
In this project, the interests of the manufacturer, store and buyer are concentrated, and in many respects the success will depend on their proper balance. Also, in my opinion, it is promising to implement this model in the format of an online store.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - since the b2b project is not our key focus (80% of the projects in the portfolio are focused on the end user) and there is no Internet component in the project.
Carmio.ru is an online service for calculating and comparing retail insurance products.
Carmio.ru is an online service for calculating the cost of various insurance products in various insurance companies in Russia. The service is designed for quick and convenient calculation of insurance and is aimed both at professionals in the insurance market (insurance brokers, agents) and ordinary users who want to calculate and arrange insurance.
Business model of the project:
2.1 Sale of licenses for the required period of use of the system for insurance brokers, agents. The calculation of the cost of a month of use is carried out using a flexible system of discounts depending on the number of required licenses, the number of months to order and the intensity, which makes the system accessible even for individual agents, and creates significant discounts for large brokers.
2.2. Selling insurance to ordinary users who need to insure something. It is implemented as follows - the client calculates the cost of insurance, if he was interested in the offer,
he leaves a request on the website, or calls the operator by phone, after which we forward the application to our partners who are directly involved in insurance, as a result, the client draws up
insurance from our partners, and we receive a certain percentage of the transaction. In the future, it is planned to open its own brokerage insurance agency.
2.3 Subscription fee for insurance companies for their presence in the settlement system.
Clients of our service are insurance brokers, agents who need to calculate the cost of insurance for customers every day, spending too much time, because each insurance company has its own calculator for calculating insurance, as a result, to make a calculation, for example, for 15 companies You must have 15 different calculators. Using the Carmio.ru service, you can perform such a calculation in just 1 - 2 minutes. Also, customers can be ordinary users who need to insure a car or any other type of insurance.
The partners of our project are first and foremost insurance companies, because this is a direct advertisement of their services, we introduce their tariffs, methods in our service, as a result, users calculate insurance rates and subsequently purchase insurance policies. Also, at the initial stage, the partner is a large insurance broker to advise and identify the needs and necessary functionality of the service.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
The competitors of our service are companies that have implemented their calculation systems for 3 types of insurance: CASCO, CTP, Green Card. But the difference is that our service will be much more functional and offers the consumer a wider range of possibilities for calculation. This is the calculation of insurance for Personal Protection, VHI, Mortgage Insurance, Tourism, etc. for various insurance companies.
Carmio.ru - will be the first project in Runet, with which you can calculate several different insurance products at the same time. To date, in RuNet there is not a single service with such functionality. We plan to make it possible to calculate insurance not only for well-known types of insurance: CASCO, CTP, Zelena Karta, but also for other types - VHI, personal protection, mortgage insurance in various insurance companies. Those projects that are currently implemented on the Internet are sites that offer insurance coverage and at the end after the calculation require contact information so that you can contact the client and offer him services. The difference of our project is that we do not require any contact information, the client after calculating insurance using our system sees the results of the calculation, and he himself decides whether the price suits him or not. Also, the main difference between our calculation system and the existing ones is that we have implemented the maximum possible number of parameters for calculation, which is the most important plus. After all, the service is aimed at insurance market professionals - brokers, for whom the use of such a system will help reduce insurance calculation time, and therefore labor productivity will increase.
Project development strategy: Registration as a legal entity, search for premises for the company, refinement of the necessary functionality, organization of a large-scale advertising company for the project, search for
client partners from insurance companies, processing applications from users for the purchase of insurance. If we talk about plans for the next 2-3 years, then this is before finalizing our service to a full-fledged insurance portal for those who work directly in the insurance field. Those. creating the most convenient environment for the work of insurance brokers / agents. Also in future prospects is the opening of its own brokerage insurance agency.
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project
At this stage of the project, customers are already there. But there are not as many as we would like, money is needed to finalize the project and advertising. Investments in the amount of 1.5 million rubles are needed.
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements
The project participants include 5 people: the project organizer, a programmer who has extensive experience in implementing complex Internet projects, a web designer, 2 insurance consultants who have higher education in this area and have been working in the insurance business for more than 5 years. As a result, we have a close-knit team, each of the participants knows his job perfectly, which certainly helps in the implementation of the project.
A promising market that grows organically and by increasing the role of the Internet in attracting customers.
The project aims to create user-friendly convenience.
From the point of view of usability, Carmio makes comparisons across several companies, simplifying the user's life, but then complicates the decision-making and buying
process. Carmio works on a very co-market, being one of more than ten similar services. With the high cost of attracting a client, it is very important to build a customer retention and cross sales mechanism.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest, because low-competitive niches in which there is an opportunity to create a leading company are priority for us.
Znauvse.info is a project that provides free answers to all questions via SMS and is monetized through advertising. After exploring the site, it is not completely clear whether the advertisement is attached to the response message, or the user will end up in the mailing list.
I know everything! - free mobile answers to all questions by SMS: just write a question by SMS and within a few minutes get a short answer.
Users KnowAll! - they ask for help, ask questions that concern them, trust the service and consider him their "friend", who can help him at any time.
This allows the advertiser to use the user's data (targeting) and take into account his purchasing abilities and moods for effective advertising campaigns via SMS. For the advertiser, you can provide various schemes for advertising.
The audience is youth and young adults 14-30 years old. I know everything! It provides an opportunity not only to get an answer to any question, but also acts as an assistant and adviser. Users can use KnowAll! whatever they want: for entertainment (ask for a joke), as a reference, receive encyclopedic data, as a solution to everyday tasks, or as an adviser. Due to the fact that the answer is given by living people, the answer is also “live” and present.
Advertisers are youth-oriented companies. Our users are the target audience of such companies: fashion clothes, cafes, cinemas, music and more.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)? The main analogues of the service are online Q&A systems, reference. I have not yet seen a completely identical analogue (“questions and answers by SMS”) in Russia.
online Q&A systems make it possible to ask a question from the browser. The answer can be expected long enough. I know everything! makes it possible to ask questions “on the fly”, “on the go”, in motion, wherever a person is. I know everything! - this is a personal assistant and only one person gives an answer, due
to this a higher user loyalty is achieved.
For a year to reach 10,000 questions per month in the city of Khabarovsk and find advertisers for payback. For 2-3 years to enter the region \\ country.
~ six months, ~ 500 000r.
A prototype system has been created that allows you to receive SMS and give answers. More information: www.znauvse.info .
A team was assembled, ready to develop the project.
Mobile advertising has the highest performance indicators compared to other advertising channels.
An interesting concept.
The main concern is the ratio of the costs of processing user questions by operators and the corresponding revenue from advertisers. A
high percentage of requests that are not related to partner services, and, accordingly, with revenue, is likely.
In Russia, all short numbers providing reservation services are paid, despite a 10% share in the revenue from services ordered through them. For a better formulation of the business model, you should pay attention to:
• the justdial business model,
• and the history of the development of the kgb.com service — their service was paid and cost $ 0.99.
Fast Lane Ventures: не проинвестируем, так как в основе проекта нет проверенной бизнес-модели, возможность построения маржинального бизнеса не доказана.
By the way, if the representatives of the projects that got into the first release of the lynch are on Habré - write about it in the comments or in the PM, I will add you to the post and, of course, it will be very interesting to discuss the results of the examination with you.
In order not to miss the next issues, subscribe to our blog and you will see our posts in your habrant.
In just a couple of days, 20 applications arrived, which, in principle, is a great success of the project - given the traditional desire for secrecy among our people and, especially, our entrepreneur. This week, as promised, we publish the first lynch. Why the first? Firstly, it is unrealistic to fit all 20 applications with comments in one post. Therefore, we decided to divide them into several cycles and lay out in parts for two weeks. Secondly, we hope that this is not the last experience of this kind, and there are still those who wish to receive qualified expertise -application form is still working . The authors of all applications will receive a notification by mail about the status of the application and whether it will be published.
For the first publication, we selected the most complete and meaningful applications in those areas of Internet business where Fast Lane Ventures has more experience. They turned out to be five projects:
- Regional resume sites
- Selloby - a mobile service and a site of free ads for sale, purchase, job search, rental housing and dating
- Sanviz 3D - a program for visualizing tiles of various designs for bathrooms
- Carmio.ru - an online service for calculating and comparing retail insurance products
- Znauvse.info - a project that gives free answers to all questions by SMS
The structure of the comments is simple: the application (spelling and punctuation of the original), the pros, cons, general conclusion and the answer to the sacramental question - is Fast Lane Ventures ready to give money to this project? Useful reading for everyone who has or who is just getting ready to launch their own startup. Well, just for everyone interested in the topic.
So, let's go:
First
Regional platforms for posting resumes - the project aims at a niche in which large portals are poorly represented: regional platforms with vacancies "for the people." The business model involves the monetization of micropayments and advertising.
Describe your project in one or two sentences
Regional platforms for posting vacancies and resumes “for the people” and not “top managers of Moscow”.
What is the business model of the project, how will revenue be generated?
1. Micropayments of SMS services (raise an ad, highlight, fix at the top)
2. Sale of banner advertising, $ 200-4000 from a regional site per month, depending on the penetration of the Internet influence in a particular region.
Who are the customers, why will they use your project?
- Personnel agencies, personnel departments of organizations.
- People looking for work.
Large job search sites rarely contain job postings for cashiers, sellers, movers, drivers, etc. this is especially true for regions. People need a “native” regional platform where you do not need to fill out 10 steps of the form, pay for registration or viewing. Where there will be no spam and work related to network marketing.
Who are the partners, suppliers, why it will be interesting for them to cooperate with you?
Advertisers are interested in very clear regional targeting. There are a lot of regions where our site can get into the top 3 regional sites in terms of traffic, due to the weak development of the Internet in the region. And there are advertisers and now they have practically no place where they can advertise.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)?
There are many large job search sites, hh.ru, job.ru,
superjob.ru, rabota.mail.ru and others, but they all share a small
concentration in the regions. In fact, they are not even competitors, we have a different
niche of vacancies and resumes.
Why is your project better than existing competitors?
- Most often they have paid access to the databases of resumes, posting vacancies.
we have free of charge
- Complex registration and data adding forms that frighten ordinary users
- At sites below the level, a lot of spam and duplicates, ads to another city. We have an analysis for duplicates, a block from spam, algorithms for ban periodically violating user rules
- On sites below the level there are no help functions, the selection of suitable vacancies / resumes, mailings according to the specified parameters
Describe the development plan for one year and the strategy for the next 2-3 years.
- Functional development
- Writing a system that allows you to check every ad by outsiders for a fee (analogy - how the Chinese captcha recognize).
- Improving the system of morphological recognition of duplicate ads
- Start advertising the site in each region
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project has its first client?
The project has already been launched in 23 regions ... the third month has already been running (vnwork.ru, vlgwork.ru, jobkir.ru and 20 more). Functional is being added and literally yesterday I personally drew up a new design.
vnwork.ru/VNwork1.png
vnwork.ru/VNwork2.png
vnwork.ru/VNwork4.png
The first customers already exist, totally in 23 regions without any advertising at all:
3000 unique visitors, average viewing depth of 8 pages.
3500 - registered users
5000 vacancies
1000 resumes
What we need:
- We need marketing advice and marketing financing itself (we are developing every day - but not as fast as we would like)
- 2 programmers, with a salary of 15-20 thousand rubles
- 1 designer with a salary of 15-20 thousand rubles
- content managers, for the manual moderation of "dangerous" ads
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements
help your project succeed?
The team has two programmers. We draw, typeset, program, design interfaces, analyze user behavior, statistics, analyze the market, communicate with advertisers. We do everything
ourselves - not because we can do it perfectly, but because there is no money to hire employees, but I want to work and earn. But it turns out not so bad ... We are two - but we are talented.
The first version is launched, even if it’s damp but it already fully works. The idea that people need regional sites is proven! For a month we’ve been finalizing the functionality that users need.
Summary of our analyst:
With proper execution, niche projects can be very wealthy. The global success of online classifieds and a move away from traditional print formats. All Russian HR portals target regions and small cities. Departure to regions and low-skilled vacancies are two steps away from a solvent client. Monetization of 95% of HR portals is based on the “employer pays” model; avoiding this model requires careful justification. Advertising on a similar portal will be difficult to sell because of the characteristics of the target audience, which is not distinguished by solvency and the desire to buy something while looking for work.The main question is why large portals are poorly represented in this segment: because they are slow and do not have time to do everything, or because the niche is unpromising and has no income? What do they need to do in order to start competing in this niche? It also requires an understanding of how “vacancies are closed” that you focus on - most likely, without the help of the Internet
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - if the project is successful, the absolute revenue will be small. If you want to interest an angel or an institutional investor, the project must have good revenue potential - from several million dollars in two to three years.Second
Selloby - This project combines the "verticals" of classifieds, rentals, dating and job search in a mobile application
Describe your project in one or two sentences
Selloby is a social mobile service and free classifieds website for selling, buying, finding a job, renting a home, and dating.
What is the business model of the project, how will revenue be generated?
The project will be monetized in the second stage, after the formation of a permanent user base. Paid package accommodation is planned for legal entities - car dealerships, travel agencies, shops,
employers / employment agencies. There are options for paid promotion of ads - raising in the tape, inclusion in the following users.
Who are the customers, why will they use your project?
Socially active young people 20-35, users of facebook and twitter, students, young families with an average income.
Who are the partners, suppliers, why it will be interesting for them to cooperate with you?
The service exists independently, it does not require a back office, financial support. With a successful launch and dynamic development, a growing user base will attract partners (see clause 2) for instant and inexpensive notification / attracting a large number of potential customers.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)?
The project is focused on all markets - the USA, Europe, Russia. In the USA, they are the main competitors of Craiglist, eBay Classifieds, Oodle + many small services that have not gained a large base. The disadvantage of Craiglist is its outdated design and functionality, lack of mobile services, a high percentage of spam and fraud, pluses - a huge user base, 15-year history. In Russia - the only active resource Avito - 100 000 ads per day on the site.
Why is your project better than existing competitors?
Selloby существует для iPhone, Android, WP7, есть полноценный вебсайт Selloby построен по принципу твиттера — быстрые короткие объявления пишутся с помощью хэштегов и саджестов, моментальное фотографирование и/или размещение фото из библиотеки
Возможность оставаться анонимным — важно для занкомств или поиска работы
Шаринг объявлений через FB и Tw
Дефолтная геолокация
Кастомная система фоловингов
Моментальная блокировка спама — блокируется не объявление, а
пользователь, разместивший спам
Удобный мессенжер — переписка с каждым пользователем ведется в самом
приложении, в отдельном треде
Нет премодерации
Опишите план развития на один год и стратегию на ближайшие 2-3 года.
Until the end of 2011, release a product on the markets of Russia and the USA, through PR and marketing tools, gain the maximum number of users - target 1M users. Release at least two updated versions of the product + service for iPad
The next two years
- expanding the user base
- in 2013 - monetization of services
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project has its first client?
The product is 100% ready to launch. Creation spent 3 months, $ 50,000
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements help your project succeed?
Pelevin Alexey - ux designer, founder of the PARK design studio, founder of Technopark and Parcsis companies
Ilona Isupova - CEO, project manager, ex-owner of the online store, experience in e-commerce, PR, marketing
Successful project experience:
Legal reference system PRAVO.RU
Arbitration file cabinet kad.arbitr.ru
On-line service for buying tickets and hotels anywayanyday.com
Website of the Renaissance insurance company Renins.com
Summary of our analyst:
The project is not beaten and timely - recently it was still early, but soon it would be too late. Geo-targeting provides great opportunities for classifications. Lack of focus has killed more than one project. Starting from scratch a service in five areas complicates the two-sided problem five times: for each area you need to create a critical mass of users. It is extremely difficult to make a mobile application that brings money. Through the small screen of the phone it is difficult to transfer content and create the convenience for the user for which he is willing to pay.Classification is a complex business model that is extremely demanding on execution skills. First you need to build a product that users will like, and then monetize it. Russia has already managed to make classifaids successful from the user point of view, but there is no success story from the point of view of money.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - at the heart of the project there is no proven business modelThird
Sanviz 3D is a program for visualizing tiles of various designs for standard-type bathrooms, designed to help sellers of offline stores sell more efficiently.
Describe your project in one or two sentences
A simple program for 3D visualization of the bathroom. In construction hypermarkets, a person approaches a stand, paints his bathroom in 3D in one minute and selects an interesting design for him. If you like, it
prints the estimate and goes to pay at the cash desk with the forerunner. The program monitors balances and in case of shortage sends a request for delivery to the dealer. Here's a video presentation of www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do_ByLKYAzU
What is the business model of the project, how will revenue be generated?
A percentage of the paid ancestors is taken. Money is taken from the tile manufacturer.
Who are the customers, why will they use your project?
Tile manufacturers, ceramic tile dealers. They will use it because they still pay so that their stands with tiles stand in passable rows. And the new stand will attract attention and
increase sales. Plus, you can get up-to-date information on sales volume, promptly adjust prices and monitor stock balances. The cost of the stand is comparable to existing exhibitors.
Who are the partners, suppliers, why it will be interesting for them to cooperate with you?
Manufacturers of ceramic tiles. Interested in new "chips" to increase sales. Now sellers in stores do 3D visualization by hand, and we will make it so that buyers themselves will do 3D visualization. And it will be available only for ceramic tiles of our partners. If the stand increases sales by at least 1%, the manufacturer’s sales will increase by millions of rubles.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)?
3D tile visualization programs are in competition, but in the segments of “boutique” sales. Our product is focused on hypermarkets, when the buyer is not paid attention and he is forced to do 3D visualization himself. There are no analogues in Russia at the moment. There are rumors that there are abroad, but there is no evidence. Now in Russia there are 2 more companies working on a similar project.
Why is your project better than existing competitors?
1) The company leading the development of No.1 - they know the market from the inside, but are weak in the
technical part. For 1 year now they are looking for project financing. We are a
team in which there are “techies” and
“sellers”.
2) A company that makes an already offline product and that "stole" our idea at the tile exhibition. They have been engaged in this area for 5 years, and since they themselves did not come up with a product development vector, we will probably generate better ideas and get ahead of them.
Describe the development plan for one year and the strategy for the next 2-3 years.
1st year: introduction of stands for one manufacturer in all major construction hypermarkets in Russia. Product promotion on the market so that other companies learn about a new way of promotion.
2-3 year: unification of the information system on sales, balances for all manufacturers. Replacement of supply / sales managers in wholesale companies with this system, who monitor the status of the
balance in stores and sales.
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project has its first client?
1) For development - 1 million rubles, 6 months.
2) The first client - negotiations are underway to purchase an system that has not yet been created
or to create a joint venture.
The main thing here is to find a partner even before the release of the product
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements help your project succeed?
1) The leader is an entrepreneur (from the word undertake =)), sociable with a good education and IQ level.
Summary of our analyst:
The task is set correctly - visualization does not have to be technically complicated and takes a lot of time. Free for the user. In my opinion, the application has a bias towards the interests of the manufacturer and seller, which will not go unnoticed by the buyer. Also, the application does not solve many of the issues that the buyer poses for himself - how options vary in price, visualization of individual features of the project, accounting for non-standard sizes. The monetization model requires verification, because for the revenue share model, you need to convince the seller that it is the application that helps sell.In this project, the interests of the manufacturer, store and buyer are concentrated, and in many respects the success will depend on their proper balance. Also, in my opinion, it is promising to implement this model in the format of an online store.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest - since the b2b project is not our key focus (80% of the projects in the portfolio are focused on the end user) and there is no Internet component in the project.Fourth
Carmio.ru is an online service for calculating and comparing retail insurance products.
Describe your project in one or two sentences
Carmio.ru is an online service for calculating the cost of various insurance products in various insurance companies in Russia. The service is designed for quick and convenient calculation of insurance and is aimed both at professionals in the insurance market (insurance brokers, agents) and ordinary users who want to calculate and arrange insurance.
What is the business model of the project, how will revenue be generated?
Business model of the project:
2.1 Sale of licenses for the required period of use of the system for insurance brokers, agents. The calculation of the cost of a month of use is carried out using a flexible system of discounts depending on the number of required licenses, the number of months to order and the intensity, which makes the system accessible even for individual agents, and creates significant discounts for large brokers.
2.2. Selling insurance to ordinary users who need to insure something. It is implemented as follows - the client calculates the cost of insurance, if he was interested in the offer,
he leaves a request on the website, or calls the operator by phone, after which we forward the application to our partners who are directly involved in insurance, as a result, the client draws up
insurance from our partners, and we receive a certain percentage of the transaction. In the future, it is planned to open its own brokerage insurance agency.
2.3 Subscription fee for insurance companies for their presence in the settlement system.
Who are the customers, why will they use your project?
Clients of our service are insurance brokers, agents who need to calculate the cost of insurance for customers every day, spending too much time, because each insurance company has its own calculator for calculating insurance, as a result, to make a calculation, for example, for 15 companies You must have 15 different calculators. Using the Carmio.ru service, you can perform such a calculation in just 1 - 2 minutes. Also, customers can be ordinary users who need to insure a car or any other type of insurance.
Who are the partners, suppliers, why it will be interesting for them to cooperate with you?
The partners of our project are first and foremost insurance companies, because this is a direct advertisement of their services, we introduce their tariffs, methods in our service, as a result, users calculate insurance rates and subsequently purchase insurance policies. Also, at the initial stage, the partner is a large insurance broker to advise and identify the needs and necessary functionality of the service.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main
competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)?
The competitors of our service are companies that have implemented their calculation systems for 3 types of insurance: CASCO, CTP, Green Card. But the difference is that our service will be much more functional and offers the consumer a wider range of possibilities for calculation. This is the calculation of insurance for Personal Protection, VHI, Mortgage Insurance, Tourism, etc. for various insurance companies.
Why is your project better than existing competitors?
Carmio.ru - will be the first project in Runet, with which you can calculate several different insurance products at the same time. To date, in RuNet there is not a single service with such functionality. We plan to make it possible to calculate insurance not only for well-known types of insurance: CASCO, CTP, Zelena Karta, but also for other types - VHI, personal protection, mortgage insurance in various insurance companies. Those projects that are currently implemented on the Internet are sites that offer insurance coverage and at the end after the calculation require contact information so that you can contact the client and offer him services. The difference of our project is that we do not require any contact information, the client after calculating insurance using our system sees the results of the calculation, and he himself decides whether the price suits him or not. Also, the main difference between our calculation system and the existing ones is that we have implemented the maximum possible number of parameters for calculation, which is the most important plus. After all, the service is aimed at insurance market professionals - brokers, for whom the use of such a system will help reduce insurance calculation time, and therefore labor productivity will increase.
Describe the development plan for one year and the strategy for the next 2-3 years
Project development strategy: Registration as a legal entity, search for premises for the company, refinement of the necessary functionality, organization of a large-scale advertising company for the project, search for
client partners from insurance companies, processing applications from users for the purchase of insurance. If we talk about plans for the next 2-3 years, then this is before finalizing our service to a full-fledged insurance portal for those who work directly in the insurance field. Those. creating the most convenient environment for the work of insurance brokers / agents. Also in future prospects is the opening of its own brokerage insurance agency.
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project
has its first client?
At this stage of the project, customers are already there. But there are not as many as we would like, money is needed to finalize the project and advertising. Investments in the amount of 1.5 million rubles are needed.
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements
help your project succeed?
The project participants include 5 people: the project organizer, a programmer who has extensive experience in implementing complex Internet projects, a web designer, 2 insurance consultants who have higher education in this area and have been working in the insurance business for more than 5 years. As a result, we have a close-knit team, each of the participants knows his job perfectly, which certainly helps in the implementation of the project.
Summary of our analyst:
A promising market that grows organically and by increasing the role of the Internet in attracting customers. The project aims to create user-friendly convenience. From the point of view of usability, Carmio makes comparisons across several companies, simplifying the user's life, but then complicates the decision-making and buying process. Carmio works on a very co-market, being one of more than ten similar services. With the high cost of attracting a client, it is very important to build a customer retention and cross sales mechanism.
Fast Lane Ventures: we will not invest, because low-competitive niches in which there is an opportunity to create a leading company are priority for us.Fifth
Znauvse.info is a project that provides free answers to all questions via SMS and is monetized through advertising. After exploring the site, it is not completely clear whether the advertisement is attached to the response message, or the user will end up in the mailing list.
Describe your project in one or two sentences
I know everything! - free mobile answers to all questions by SMS: just write a question by SMS and within a few minutes get a short answer.
What is the business model of the project, how will revenue be generated?
Users KnowAll! - they ask for help, ask questions that concern them, trust the service and consider him their "friend", who can help him at any time.
This allows the advertiser to use the user's data (targeting) and take into account his purchasing abilities and moods for effective advertising campaigns via SMS. For the advertiser, you can provide various schemes for advertising.
Who are the customers, why will they use your project?
The audience is youth and young adults 14-30 years old. I know everything! It provides an opportunity not only to get an answer to any question, but also acts as an assistant and adviser. Users can use KnowAll! whatever they want: for entertainment (ask for a joke), as a reference, receive encyclopedic data, as a solution to everyday tasks, or as an adviser. Due to the fact that the answer is given by living people, the answer is also “live” and present.
Who are the partners, suppliers, why it will be interesting for them to cooperate with you?
Advertisers are youth-oriented companies. Our users are the target audience of such companies: fashion clothes, cafes, cinemas, music and more.
How do you see the competitive environment and the market as a whole (main competitors, segmentation, total adressable market)? The main analogues of the service are online Q&A systems, reference. I have not yet seen a completely identical analogue (“questions and answers by SMS”) in Russia.
Why is your project better than existing competitors?
online Q&A systems make it possible to ask a question from the browser. The answer can be expected long enough. I know everything! makes it possible to ask questions “on the fly”, “on the go”, in motion, wherever a person is. I know everything! - this is a personal assistant and only one person gives an answer, due
to this a higher user loyalty is achieved.
Describe the development plan for one year and the strategy for the next 2-3 years.
For a year to reach 10,000 questions per month in the city of Khabarovsk and find advertisers for payback. For 2-3 years to enter the region \\ country.
How much time and money do you need to develop before the project has its first client?
~ six months, ~ 500 000r.
What are the main achievements of the team members and how will these achievements help your project succeed?
A prototype system has been created that allows you to receive SMS and give answers. More information: www.znauvse.info .
A team was assembled, ready to develop the project.
Summary of our analyst:
Mobile advertising has the highest performance indicators compared to other advertising channels. An interesting concept. The main concern is the ratio of the costs of processing user questions by operators and the corresponding revenue from advertisers. A high percentage of requests that are not related to partner services, and, accordingly, with revenue, is likely. In Russia, all short numbers providing reservation services are paid, despite a 10% share in the revenue from services ordered through them. For a better formulation of the business model, you should pay attention to:
• the justdial business model,
• and the history of the development of the kgb.com service — their service was paid and cost $ 0.99.
Fast Lane Ventures: не проинвестируем, так как в основе проекта нет проверенной бизнес-модели, возможность построения маржинального бизнеса не доказана.Общее резюме:
- В представлении идеи крайне важна структура, короткие и четкие предложения, наличие метрик (если говорить о целевой аудитории – млн. человек, если о рынке – млн. долл, если о b2b-рынке – количество потенциальных клиентов, и т.д.)
- Две трети описаний заняли больше одной страницы, некоторые — больше трёх страниц. Кратко сформулированная идея привлекает больше внимания: если команда способна донести идею на одной странице — это удобно и производит приятное впечатление. Справедливости ради отмечу, что именно одностраничные документы — самые трудные в создании.
- 90% of authors of ideas successfully avoided answering the question about the size of the market. If the answer to the question of the investor or partner is “streamlined” and does not contain what was expected to be answered, it may appear that the team does not understand its market well or is not serious.
- It makes sense to bring highly specialized or technological topics into a convenient format for perception, and provide links to related areas.
By the way, if the representatives of the projects that got into the first release of the lynch are on Habré - write about it in the comments or in the PM, I will add you to the post and, of course, it will be very interesting to discuss the results of the examination with you.
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