Blog 4/21

  1. Develop a detailed income statement for your venture for two years (at six month intervals). Explicitly state the assumptions that underlie your financial model:
July 2022-Dec Jan 2023-June July 2023-Dec Jan 2024-June
Revenue:
Revenue from Schools 5,000$ 7,000$ 10,000$ 15,000$
Revenue from Advertisements 0$ 1,000$ 2000 3500
Small Business Partnerships 0$ 200$ 300 500
Revenue from Grants 2,500$ 2,500$ 2,500$ 2,500$
Team Investment 500$ 0$ 0 0
Total Revenue: 8,000$ 10,700$ 14,800$ 21,500$
Overhead Costs:
Person A: School Relationship Manager 0$ $7,500 $5,000 5000
Person B: Sponsorships/Biz Dev 2,500$ 5,000$ 5000 5000
App Upgrades ($100/upgrade) 600$ 300$ 300 200
Traveling Costs 3,000$ 3,000$ 3,000$ 3,000$
Marketing 1,000$ 700$ 500 500
Total Costs: 7,100$ $16,500 $13,800 13700
Net Profit: $900 -$5,800 $1,000 $7,800

In the first 6 months after our app launch, we won’t be making much money from advertisements and partnerships, but as we expand the app use to more schools, our revenue will increase significantly. We won’t need a school manager, we will need to upgrade the app more often, and we will need to spend more on marketing to help build our brand. Travelling costs remain the same throughout.

In the second period after our app launch, our revenue from schools will increase, given our expansion to at least 2 more schools. We will have a built brand name, thus our income from advertisements and partnerships will increase. In terms of cost, we will begin hiring individuals (2) to help us with maintaining the business in terms of business development and general management. We won’t need to spend as much on marketing because our brand name will grow with the number of schools we have in our arsenal.

These trends will continue in the third and fourth periods.

  1. Identify two SPECIFIC funding sources for the design phase of your project and two SPECIFIC funding sources for the dissemination (implementation / distribution / commercialization) phase of your project. For each funding source, explain why this is a good fit for your project, and what SPECIFIC aspect of your project might the funding source support.
    1. Design phase:
      1. GreenFund Grant through Lehigh awarded to facilitate green projects. Our project’s end goal is to make Almaty a greener city. We could use the $2,000 to create a wireframe of our app and even create our first version. The money could be used to hire a team to code the app if we need.
      2. Experiential Learning in Health (GELH) Grant through Lehigh. Up to $4,000 for projects/research focused on health, but has a wide definition of it. Our goal is to improve the health of citizens of Almaty by decreasing pollution and making the city more sustainable. We could use the funding to again help develop our app, but also to do more research on the roots of the pollution if/when we do fieldwork in Almaty, to help our app be more impactful with the sustainable actions we choose to incorporate.
    2. Dissemination phase:
      1. Development in Venture grant from USAID under the Environment and Global Climate Change category. This is a good fit because the goal of our app is to make Almaty a more environmentally sustainable city and teach the citizens there how they can help the environment. The money from this source might be able to help us research better ways to combat pollution in Almaty specifically, help us implement more recycling institutions, and possibly help us find ways to quantify our progress in Almaty.
      2. If the app takes well in Almaty schools, and teachers see a value in using our app to teach sustainability, the schools themselves could possibly be a source of funding for us. If schools pay for the use of our app as a teaching tool in their curriculum, that could help fund us to sustain the app (to make sure it functions well and make updates) and make improvements and expand the app. 
  2. Identify five specific partnerships that you need to forge to advance your project forward with the ultimate goal of positively impacting at least one million people. Describe exactly how that partnership might help you achieve scale and why that entity might be willing to work with you.
    1. Schools in Kazakhstan. This is possibly our most important partnership. In partnering with them our app will be used by their students to receive incentives on acts of sustainability they perform. When schools embed our app into their curriculum it will establish a much more interactive approach to teaching and exciting students about recycling and sustainability, leading to a greater impact on the greater picture of Almaty and Kazakhstan.
    2.  Students in Kazakhstan. Students are our ultimate target audience. With the students using our app on a daily basis to complete acts of sustainability, our venture will grow and a brand name will be established inside households. We will also have ambassadors among the students whom we will have as a medium between us and the school(s) to discuss feedback, usage, and logistical matters to do with the app.
    3. Teachers in Kazakhstan. Teachers will have a major role as they will be the ones giving the students their incentives for the sustainable acts. Teachers will also have to have a good understanding of how the app works to provide help for students when asked. The teachers will also provide key insights on the performance and perception of the app.
    4. WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), World Resources Institute (emphasizes sustainable cities), The Nature Conservatory (again emphasizes healthy cities and preserving land and species). In partnering with these three environmental NGOs, we will make our app and our venture more credible. If we can get these NGOs to support us even just enough to allow us to use their logos in our app, we will be able to reach a lot more people. Kazakh schools may be more inclined to take our app and use it as a teaching tool in their schools. In addition, if these NGOs “tweet” about our app, or advertise about us in any way, that will also expand our outreach.
    5. Partner with local stores in Almaty. If we partner with them, we can ask them to provide a real voucher or prize to their store when the students achieve a certain goal in the app. In doing so, people will be more motivated to do more in the app, and they will also be more connected with their local community. We also may be able to educate the stores also and convince them to be more environmentally sustainable as well. 

Blog 4/14

 

Ten practical lessons from the business (revenue) models of ventures we reviewed today (or others you research) as they relate to your venture.

  1. There can be two levels to models. Barefoot doesn’t directly make a profit, they get the money to train people through grants and contracts. But once they train people, those people bring it back to their communities and are able to sell and make a sustainable profit there. In other words: value creating is self-sustaining.
  2. It can take a long time to see revenue or to see your business finally get off the ground, Barefoot took 40 years.
  3. Reel Gardening donates their product when a customer buys from them. That is a way that they are making revenue, but also maintaining their social enterprise aspect.
  4. Greystone partnered with Ben & Jerry’s, which not only boosted their credibility and “popularity,” but also increased their revenue.
  5. Practically all these enterprises gain their revenue through various aspects, not confined to one item/product. Barefoot, for example, have campuses that sustain themselves, campuses that bring profit, donations, and other minor sources of income.
  6. In all of these social enterprises, while revenue is a major aspect, I feel like they focus more on their social impact than just getting the most money.
  7. It is important to be flexible and change your business as the market changes to keep revenue flowing.
  8. Appeal to emotion plays a significant role in attracting customers. Greystone are not innovating in their product (they’re just brownies), but their hiring policy plays a big role in attracting consumers that view discrimination against inmates as a problem.
  9. Envirofit focused on producing a product that is very simple to use and distribute, leading a wider range of potential customers. This can be applied to our venture (smart cities) by ensuring that our app is easy to use among the children in schools.
  10. Scale at the right pace to maximize impact. Envirofit invested in education programs before they launched their product and that led to the demand for clean stoves rising, thus before launch, they knew it was a success.

Blog Post 9

Business Model

1.Value Proposition:

We are trying to combat the extreme levels of pollution by minimizing waste and promoting recycling. This would be considered a need for the citizens. We are trying to improve their quality of life.

2.Customer Segments:

Start with students and school teachers. They will use the app because it is entertaining, educational, and has actual rewards.

3.Channels:

  • App MarketPlace
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Internet 
  • Education market

4.Customer Relationships: We start by connecting with teachers who will integrate the app into the class in some form. They are the direct connection to our target customers: children. We get the customers from the teacher-student connection and keep customers through a semester long curriculum integration. We grow customers by first expanding to more schools, and then hopefully to adults. The app will promote user communities as well.

5. Revenue Streams:

  • Character development (micro-transactions) 
  • Advertisements 
  • Sponsorship
  • Potential usage fees

6.Key Resources: 

  • Physical: capital (money)
  • Intellectual: licensing for the app, technology to create apps
  • Human: people who know how to code our envisioned app, teachers to accept the app in Almaty, individuals on the main team to implement the application effectively

7.Key Partners and Suppliers:

    1. Team at KazNU 
    2. School teachers
    3. Kazakh Government/Municipalities (potentially) 
    4. App Development Team (software engineers, graphic designers, advertising, etc.)
    5. Local stores/companies that would provide vouchers, incentives, etc.

Strategic alliances between non-competitors

8. Activities:

    1. We are producing a mobile application so we are not required to have a production line or supply chain. Our solution would be considered problem solving. We are aiming to solve the issue of recycling through the development of an app.
    2. Maintaining the application
    3. Possibly gathering data

9. Costs:

      1. Development costs to maintain and update app (variable cost)
      2. Costs to conduct market research (fixed cost)
      3. Costs to have developers code the app (fixed cost)
      4. Costs of advertising (fixed cost)–will help our economies of scope 

Takeaways:

  1. Want to develop a method and process that is the same and can be used around the world (make the solution simple and reproducible). His inspiration from McDonald’s is interesting because you see how they’ve managed to sell the exact same thing everywhere.
  2. Need to evaluate business to make sure you are accomplishing the goal (reaching the people, and amount desired) and various points in the business growth process.
  3. Need to develop ways to optimize processes (speed, low cost, and high quality).
  4. Still treating some people for free, those who cannot pay, because people are the most important part. Those who could pay were only paying market cost. Making eye care affordable was their goal. In the second year because there were many more operations, they began to make a profit, and were able to bring down the cost even more.
  5. Productivity, focus on quality, patient centered care, efficiency, cost control, and achieving scale can solve the difficult conditions of; large population, cuts across all economic strata, equity issues, and cost-effective interventions.
  6. Creating compassion and having people own the solution is important.
  7. Sometimes we can overlook how much people around the world are in need of basic amenities, and these are the shortages in the world that should be approached.
  8. Investing in the younger generations as they will be the carriers of the experience and knowledge. In this case, they were the backbone of the logistics involved.
  9. Impact on competitors can be very significant and should be accounted for. In this case, the venture caused certain hospitals to double their output.
  10. Growth in spirit and empathy heals yourself of exploitation and bias and allows the implementation of successful need-oriented solutions.