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Umbrella Mobile Communications _______________________________________
Business Plan
February 2013
Contact:
_____________________
Tyler Laracuente
Laracuet@gmail.com
(203) 676-4742
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Contents
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I. Company Summary
a. Company Mission
b. Locations & Facilities
c. Company Ownership
II. Market Analysis
a. Market Opportunity
b. Competitive Comparison
c. Industry Analysis
III. Products & Services
a. General Product Description
b. Sourcing & Fulfillment
c. Future Products & Services
IV. Strategy & Implementation
a. Market Segmentation Strategy
b. Product
c. Promotion
d. Placement
e. Price
V. Technical Overview
a. Client
b. API
c. Database
VI. Exhibits
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Company Summary
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Company Mission
Every day life is filled with basic, but allusive questions. Often, easy answers to these
problems can be uncovered through experienced insight. Here at Umbrella, we
believe we can bridge the gap between every day solutions and those who need
them. Umbrella looks to connect users with individuals and premier locations in their
area. Through Umbrella, users gain access to a responsive exchange of information
while getting a novel and rewarding experience each time. Ultimately, we allow users
and companies to benefit one another in their interaction, creating a positive
atmosphere for users in the vicinity of one another or a supported store.
Location & Facilities
We will begin by forming a Limited Liability Company under the name Umbrella Mobile
Communications, LLC. Delaware presents a series of advantages for Umbrella that
will lead us to formation and later, incorporation in the state. These advantages
include: the Delaware General Corporation Law, the high legislative prioritization of
corporate matters, the Division of Corporations of their Secretary of State’s Office, and
most importantly, their Court of Chancery and its case law.
Currently, Umbrella will outsource web hosting and server upkeep to Amazon Web
Services, rendering any physical facilities unnecessary in the production of our
application
Company Ownership
Production of Umbrella began in the summer of 2012 by Kyle Charron and Tyler
Laracuente. Both parties own its technology: 50% to Kyle Charron, 50% to Tyler
Laracuente.
Umbrella is currently being developed as an entrant into the Boston College Venture
Competition. As there are opportunities to win money, any funds earned during the
competition will be used in development of the application. At the conclusion of the
competition, members: Kyle Charron, Tyler Laracuente, Christian Nelson, Mollie
Solon, Filip Piasevoli, Armen Abagyan, Grant Van der Voort, Alex Orban, Matt Roy,
and Johnny Krueger will reassess company ownership and compensation.
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Market Analysis
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Market Opportunity
Even in today’s information age, there are often questions left unanswered. These
answers can be so unique, so ephemeral, or so specific that Google’s resources are
no longer effective. Take a student, for example, who is in their dorm, studying for an
exam. If this student needs notes from a missed class, online search services will not
tell them how many classmates happen to also live in the dorm building, at least not
efficiently. Today, there is no simple solution for this student. They do not have the
time to search every dorm room and every classmate to find that one neighbor in the
same class who may have the answers our student needs.
This scenario translates over many realms. Whether a neighbor is looking for a lost
dog, a baker is looking for a stick of butter, or tourists are looking for local attractions,
finding answers begins to boil down to a key ingredient: asking the community around
you.
Competitive Comparison
Many other services try to tap into the networks of people within communities.
Whether location based or not, their goal is to bring people closer and allow them to
share. In these very basic concepts, we are similar to all competitors listed below. We
have classified tiers for different competitors according to their given solution, and we
now outline the shortcomings of each competitor.
Tier 1 similarity: Banjo, Sonar, Highlight, Scout, Circle
We consider these applications our closest competition because they, like us, operate
under the premise of connecting people using each user’s location. We see a large
limitation in all of these apps in that their users are required to be ‘friends’ to interact.
This means that users are never exposed to new people, and that these apps provide
almost no practical service in terms of information propagation or social exposure. By
restricting users to a ‘friends’ list, these apps have little more practical use than simply
asking your friend if they are in your area.
Tier 2 similarity: Foursquare, Grindr, Tinder, Blendr
We consider these applications to be close competitors with different solution
structures, but potentially similar services. Unlike Tier 1, these applications connect
users who are not already ‘friends’ with others around them. These applications fall
short when they do little more than make location a status symbol. There is almost
nothing to gain through being at a location, other than points in the app, which really
count for nothing. These apps also fall short by maintaining a heavy focus on one-on- one user interaction, which removes the value of a community, and a large part of the
premise behind location based interaction.
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Tier 3 similarity: Twitter, Facebook
We consider these applications to be similar to our mission in the simple sense that
they connect people. These applications fall short because they live in the past. Any
event that is seen has to be uploaded and prepared before it is ready for user
interaction. This makes the experience boil down to gawking at other peoples’ pasts,
rather than accomplishing an end service.
Tier 4 similarity: Other mobile applications
In the end, we consider any application in the same app store to be some kind of
competition, but no other service has successfully tapped the exploratory nature of
mobile capabilities. Umbrella’s goal is ultimately to bring the techno-social networking
experience to the real world, and to use this to add practicality to our users lives. This
way, users are making new connections all the time, and seeing the benefits of
increased real-world exposure and information every time they open their phone.
Industry Analysis
Companies can use Umbrella in their marketing strategy to advertise, promote, and
share with the public in their vicinity. With limited competition and low startup costs,
Umbrella will enter an industry expected to grow in the years to come.
Companies are looking to find the best means for advertising, and social media has
proven to play a significant role in their marketing. Today, 94 percent of marketers
have used social media as a means for advertising their products or services; 84
percent of those marketers believe that social media has contributed toward their
success. In addition, of the 94 percent of companies using social media, only 14
percent use geo-location sites/apps1
. This provides Umbrella with a substantial
opportunity for success, because most companies are not committed to any of
Umbrella’s major competitors. This is the right time for Umbrella to enter.
Analysts project the industry to finish 2012 with US$16.9 billion in revenue, which is a
43.1 percent increase from last year’s US$11.8 billion Furthermore, since Umbrella’s
first, primary source of revenue will be advertising, the future of mobile social media
advertising must be considered. This year, mobile social media has generated $500
million in advertisements alone. The same analysts expect ad revenue to jump to $1.5
billion over the next four years, constituting a 28.5 percent increase2
.
1 Bennett, Shea. "The Social Media Marketing Industry." All Twitter. MediaBistro, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2013.
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-marketing-industry_b29891
2 "BIA/Kelsey Forecasts U.S. Social Media Ad Revenues to Grow from $4.6B in 2012 to $9.2B in 2016." U.S. Social
Media Ad Revenues http://www.biakelsey.com/Company/Press-Releases/121126-U.S.-Social-Media-Ad-Revenues- to-Grow-from-$4.6B-in-2012-to-$9.2B-in-2016.asp
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Products & Services
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General Product Description
Umbrella is a location-based chat service for mobile devices. With Umbrella, a user
can open a chat room at their own location, set a designated radius, and title their
post. Only users within this radius will see the posted umbrella and be able to
participate in the chat room. Take, for example, a musician looking to jam. The
musician would simply open an umbrella of a half-mile radius titled “Anyone want to
play some music?” Every other user within that half-mile could now see the post, and
anyone who is interested can respond in the chat.
Not only can Umbrella be used to connect, but it also offers a brilliant medium for
information exchange. “What day of the week does the garbage go out?”, “What are
those sirens down the street for?”, “Does anybody see that fire?” These are all
questions that live in the context of location, and may not necessarily be available
through Google. By opening an Umbrella, our users crowdsource their inquiries to the
very people who will know best, the people around them. By tapping into this wealth of
knowledge, our users can find their lost dog, borrow a cup of sugar, or grab lunch with
a neighbor faster and more effectively than ever before.
Better yet, users don’t have to know one another to be a part of the exchange. In fact,
we look to offer our users the opportunity to connect to those with common interests
whom they may have never met otherwise. This is where Umbrella truly shines.
Whether it is a cyclist looking for a partner, joggers congregating on the street, or
neighborhood kids looking to play pickup basketball, Umbrella gives exposure to
group activities and finds new friends to join.
In this sense, Umbrella is all about experiences. Today’s technology can often give
users a false sense of involvement, and communication speeds make online
interaction feel as real time as in person. Umbrella brings the user out into the world,
acting as a medium for engagement and a method of staying truly active in the
community.
More still, we also extend our services to companies in the form of “Canopies”. A
canopy is a paid for, dedicated umbrella that stays open over a company’s location.
Not only can canopies exist as umbrellas, but they also come with a suite of extra
services for their price tag, including promoted postings and chat room analytics.
Further, instead of a basic chat room infrastructure, canopies can simply contain
surveys or advertisements For their participation under a canopy, we offer users
points, which are redeemable for coupons at the canopy’s establishment.
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As such, we are able to draw customers to a location, incentivize them to view
company driven content or provide feedback, and then drive trackable sales through
unique coupons. With a simple web interface for canopy settings, and GPS
information from the user, this can all occur at a minimal monthly fee, while
introducing no new technology into the business.
Sourcing & Fulfillment:
Distribution of our application will be fairly straightforward, Licensing to Apple’s app
store will cost our development team $300 annually, licensing to the Android app store
is a one time $35 fee, and we will incur hosting costs to Amazon Web Services
according to our monthly usage. These fees should scale to the extent where their
increase would never present a serious expenditure relative to the size of the service.
As of right now, we have three programmers committed to the project through the end
of the competition, and one professional programmer (Rich Wandell), whose
development we have contracted through our first version.
Future Products & Services
MVP
Our initial application will accomplish the tasks of tracking our user and determining
which umbrellas that user falls under, allowing users to access and participate in
umbrellas. In our minimal product, these chat rooms will be able to process pictures
and text. We allow login and profile completion through third party social applications,
primarily Facebook. These features will enable the basic functionalities of our concept.
v1.0
Our goal is to test Umbrella locally, through our own campus’ population at Boston
College and surrounding universities, starting March 1st. We also hope to include more
features, such as Spotify enabled music sharing, customizable user profiles (for
settings and records), and third party social integration via Twitter and Facebook. As
Umbrella begins to grow across the BC community we hope to expand to more
colleges and work with businesses. Before working with the businesses we look to
have a sizable user base.
v2.0
At this stage in development, we look to provide larger entities with canopies, and to
integrate the canopy rewards system into our current infrastructure. We also look to
expand to other platforms, including Android.