MyDigiByte.com Business Plan

Transcription

1 Fall 11 MyDigiByte.com Business Plan By: Megan Schoch, Hannah Tuttle, Garrett Palowitch, and Rosemary Bucher E - Business Strategy- Professor Kline- 12/15/11

2 2 Table of Contents I. Table of Contents... 2 II. Executive Summary... 3 III. Introduction...4 IV. Business Description...5 V. Marketing Strategies VI. Competitive Analysis VII. Design and Development Plan...8 VIII. Operations and Management Plan... 8 IX. Revenue Model X. Financial Components

3 3 Executive Summary MyDigiByte.com is a daily media website that will incorporate both news and media. When signing up for an account, users will select from a series of interests and rank them in importance. The site will then find and rank news articles or media information based off of those user s rankings. This media information would include music, videos, and weather. The news or media information that was found will then be placed on the users personal dashboard so that they could easily access and select which information they would like to view. The target audience are college students or young business professional who are interested in the news and daily media but do not have the time to search for it. Marketing to our target audience will be completed by promoting the website through sidebar advertisements, creating an app for smart phones which will broaden our audience and evoke curiosity, and finally the obvious word of mouth. The following report includes an introduction, business description, marketing strategies, competitive analysis, design and development plan, operations and management plan, revenue model, and financial components sections.

4 4 Introduction The following documents include all necessary content in order to describe our product MyDigiByte.com, which is developed by MyDigiByte, LLC. This business plan includes an executive summary, business description, marketing strategies, competitive analysis, design and development plan, operations and management plan, revenue model, and financial components sections. The executive summary section will explain the fundamentals of our business. It describes the owners, products, customers, etc. The business description includes the business s mission statement, company goals and objectives, strengths and core competencies, and the legal form of ownership. The marketing strategies section explains how our business will plan on promoting our products and services in order to attract our target audience. The competitive analysis section includes a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis and will include a brief overview of other companies that are included in the company s market space. The design and development plan describes how this company will build the product and how the product will work. The operations and management plan includes a description of which individuals will have certain jobs and responsibilities and will also briefly discuss the major cots of the company. The revenue model will explain how our company plans on making money and how we plan on satisfying our client s needs. Finally the financial components section includes the startup expenses, 12-month profit and loss projection, and a projected cash flow statement.

5 5 Business Description Mission Statement: MyDigiByte, LLC s mission is to become our users primary source for news that interests them and pertains to their daily lives. Company Goals and Objectives: One objective that MyDigiByte, LLC strives to accomplish is to have timely news and information from top news providers in order to supply our customers with customizable and real-time information. Another objective is for the company to measure our customer satisfaction through a means rating systems throughout website functions. This would also include measuring the retention rate and the number of customer complaints that were submitted. Another objective for the company is to keep a 50% retention rate of customers after the first year. One goal that MyDigiBite, LLC attempts to accomplish is to make 10% of the MyDigiByte.com user base chose the site as their primary new source. Another goal is to become a success and long living company who will become a leader in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Strengths and Core Competencies: This company will succeed because it is inspiring a new trend to customers. This trend provides users with personal news content, which pertains to their preferences and daily lives. This product will also be free to our users, which will become another advantage for the company. Legal form of ownership: MyDigiByte, LLC has chosen to be a limited liability corporation because the company will be able to choice how it is taxed, also if the company fails then no personal assets of the owners will be lost.

6 6 Marketing Strategies Our market includes the average Internet user, specifically those who access news sources on a regular basis. More than 60 million people use the Internet as a primary news source. Of these people, 22.4 million users use it daily. This figure doubled in a year, showing that there an increasing number of people using the Internet as a news resource, and that this number will continue to grow over time. This trend favors our business, as it shows growth in our specific niche as a daily news resource. Mydigibyte.com fills a market need by offering a customized and time-saving way for users to get their information To specifically segment our market into our target audience, the typical customer is a male or female adult or young adult seeking information. Our customers range from educated scholars to average citizens, and our product appeals to anyone looking for information. These customers must have a basic understanding of the Internet and the way it works to navigate the website, but the content of the website is designed to be as an alternative to a newspaper and is easily searchable for specific information. To achieve our goal of giving users a simple and organized way to gather their news, the website is organized in a straightforward fashion to reduce confusion and give the customer what they came for. The market shows potential for considerable growth. According to a study by comscore, an analytics company, about 63.2 million people use the Internet as the primary way to keep current in world news. Of this figure, 35 percent, or 22.4 million people, use the Internet daily for this reason.

7 7 The target market also shows several trends. The number of people who use the Internet as their daily news source has doubled in the past year, proving that the market is present and growing. Most news sources are online versions of print or television news such as msnbc, CNN, The Wall Street Journal Online, and The New York Times Online. These websites are organized by topic, and the user must navigate these topics to find their desired information. RSS feeds are another common source of distributing news. Feeds are designed by grouping similar content together and distributing it through a channel that people can follow. While this market functions without many problems, it could be improved using a variety of methods. Current online news sources require the user to put in time to search and explore their websites for information. RSS feeds on the other hand do not require much effort to browse after you begin following them but they cannot be customized for a specific user s taste. While these are effective ways to give customers what they are looking for, this process can be simplified by personalizing the user experience to cut out the time used to navigate these websites. Mydigibyte.com can be used to trim surrounding content down to the specific material the user came for, something currently lacking in the online news market. Competitive Analysis Our main competition is traditional online news. These websites are organized by topic, and the user must navigate these topics to find their desired information. While Mydigibyte.com links to these websites, the competitive aspect is that these websites are the actual sources of the news instead of merely a way to organize and distribute it.

8 8 While no specific competing service exists, traditional news websites may have personalization settings that release content relating to specific topics that interest the user. News outlets like MTV News, msnbc, and The New York Times Online use mobile applications in addition to their websites to gain a wider customer base. Mydigibyte.com offers a tailored news experience in all platforms, but the hardest competition will stem from these direct news sources. Mydigibyte.com s true strength is its basis on personalization as a fundamental asset instead of an easy-to-miss option. Design and Development Plan The product works by providing personalized news stories, which are provided from reputable news sites, for our customers. All of the stories will be in one place and easily searchable and accessible on the website for our customers. The stories will be updated every 12 hours, 7 days a week. It will be built by creating a compilation of news stories from other sites and posting it on our website. Wireframes will be created in order to get the best possible layouts, allowing for variances in story importance and size. The site will be developed with web design software. This section also includes a home page wireframe in Appendix A, which represents what the home page of this site would look like. Operations and Management Plan The company s management team would consist of a CEO who would be responsible for the long-term strategic goals, a COO who would be responsible for dayto-day operations within the company, a CFO who would be responsible accounting and

9 9 the oversight of corporate finances, and a CIO who is responsible for overseeing all uses of information technology. Revenue Model MyDigiByte, LLC s revenue is primary going to be through offering advertising on our site. Our initial plan has is to offer content form other news sources that is customized to the user. This would mean that the for user that have subscriptions with providers would use their subscriptions to allow MyDigiByte to get that content for them. This offers no revenue directly to us; however, we plan to allow users to sign up for subscriptions for our content providers and receive a commission for new subscriptions. We may also plan on offering additional categories that user can choose that more narrowly defines what news the user wants. This along with other features may be bundled together to offer a premium user package for users. Financial Components Startup Expenses and Capitalization Start-up Expenses Business Cards $120 VoIP Phones $600 Website Design Costs and Fees $17,500 Total Start-up Expenses $18,220 Liabilities and Capital Liabilities Current Borrowing $75,000 Long-term Liabilities $0 Accounts Payable (Outstanding Bills) $0 Other Current Liabilities (interest-free) $0 Total Liabilities $75,000 Capital Planned Investment Investor 1 $60,000 Investor 2 $45,000 Investor 3 $50,000 Investor 4 $55,000 Investor 5 $35,000 Total Planned Investment $245,000 Total Funding $320,000

10 10 The loans would be on a 10-year basis. Investors would receive a percentage of ownership based on the amount they invest. 12-Month Profit and Loss Projection This takes into consideration that several cost saving measures are to be taken. First, to avoid the cost of office space the four start up members would be working from home. In addition, for the first several months we would be exclusively using free means of advertising such as Facebook, reviews, and free news sources. Lastly, we assume that the volume of website page requests would become overwhelming for our initial system after eight months so we would be forced to move the hosting of our site to a company using dedicated servers with high bandwidth internet connections. Projected Cash Flow Statement Cash Received Cash from Operations $9,470 Cash Sales $0 Cash from Receivables $0 New Investments Received $320,000 Subtotal Cash Received $329,470

11 Expenditures Expenditures from Operations $98,330 Cash Spent $18,220 Bill Payments $0 Subtotal Cash Spent $116,550 Net Cash Flow $212,920 Cash Balance $212,920