Added yellr business plan (converted to markdown) #125
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| # yellr | ||
| ### report for your community | ||
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| Table of Contents | ||
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| *Executive summary* | ||
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| *Background research* | ||
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| *Situational Analysis* | ||
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| *Objectives* | ||
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| *Action Plan* | ||
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| *Financial Data* | ||
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| ## Executive Summary | ||
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| Who we are: | ||
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| Yellr was created as a hacks/hackers project by a group of volunteer developers and journalists in association with WXXI. | ||
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| What we sell: | ||
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| Yellr is a software platform and app for journalists to use to reach out and engage hyper-local communities by creating geo-fenced “assignments” which will notify users of questions that a journalist wishes to be answered by users. Users can anonymously post pictures, audio, videos, and text to WXXI, which can be curated by journalists to publish web stories. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. These show up as code blocks. Maybe it'd be better to have the subheaders ("what we sell," etc) as H3 or blockquotes and format this as normal text. |
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| Who we sell to: | ||
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| Yellr specifically targets news organizations as our main customers. We plan on assisting these organizations in the process of marketing the app to local communities by developing a customized yellr marketing plan. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Since it's a proper noun, Yellr should be capitalized here. |
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| ## Background Research and Industry Overview | ||
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| ### How Journalism has evolved | ||
| In 1983, 90% of the media was controlled by 50 companies, but by 2011 was consolidated to 6 corporations. The six corporations control news outlets and the delivery of news to the public through television, radio, social media, and more. 10% of news outlets operate | ||
| Social Media encourages citizen journalism | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This paragraph seems a little disjointed. Is there a missing portion of this paragraph? |
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| ### 21st Century Journalism Tools | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Not all MD parsers handle a lack of blank lines between headers and text. |
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| Upon the advent of the 21st century and the power of computing, the journalism industry is in the process of determining the proper strategy of competing in a shifting landscape. Technology and computing power has changed the face of journalism, as many organizations are emphasizing their focus on digital news rather than printed news. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Technically, they're focusing on the same news, but through a different media. |
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| ### Similar Applications/Competition: Private Sector News Media | ||
| - iReport (CNN app) FREE, 102,548 downloads | ||
| - Meporter, N/A, removed from Play Store (website still exists) | ||
| - hereME!, Free, 40 downloads | ||
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| ## Situational Analysis | ||
| Yellr Specific Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats | ||
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| *Strengths* | ||
| - Free to Download | ||
| - Anonymity | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. s/Anonymity/Anonymous/ Also, I don't have the latest version but I remember talking about nicknames being discussed, which would make it "pseudonymous." |
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| - Open Source Platform | ||
| - Geo-fencing | ||
| - Entirely new and unique product | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Uniqueness in a business plan is typically seen as a risk, since it means the market/model is unproven. Yellr is certainly novel, but there are some parallels with local community comment-oriented boards. Think regional/local subreddits, that type of thing. |
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| *Weakness* | ||
| - Still in beta | ||
| - Not on iOS App Store (at the moment) | ||
| - Smartphone exclusive | ||
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| *Opportunities* | ||
| - Promote citizen engagement and journalism | ||
| - Expand to multiple geo-locations for varied results | ||
| - Potential to become a common tool for news organizations | ||
| - Multiple forms of monetization can be applied | ||
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| *Threat* | ||
| - Not enough demand for this app at the current moment | ||
| - Entirely new and unique product, people may have trouble understanding its purpose. | ||
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| ## Market situation | ||
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| *Target market analysis* | ||
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| Market Segment: | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This doesn't render well, I think the "segment" here should be its own subheader. |
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| News Organizations and Citizens | ||
| Demographics and Psychographics: Male or Female, “Generation X” (age 27-35), middle class, “at-homers” who like to watch the news but feel as if their own opinion isn’t being heard. They like the convenience of using their smartphone to interact with others. | ||
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| *Motivation for purchase:* | ||
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| News Organizations: Yellr is committed to providing news organizations (in forms such as television, magazines, radio) statistical data that you wouldn’t find as an anonymous user. Organizations may use this data to create a new story or even as a source for a different topic. | ||
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| *Citizens*: For the everyday citizen, this is an entirely new way to not only receive news, but to also give your input on the topic as well. | ||
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| Expansion of the Target Market: In order to expand the target market, we need an aggressive social media/integrated marketing campaign that will attract a younger demographic; presumably college kids. We can start on RIT’s campus by sponsoring some events (Content Marketing), while giving them some sort of free incentive to download our app. | ||
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| ## Competitive Environment | ||
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| Large Digital News Outlets | ||
| - iReport by CNN | ||
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| Small Digital News Outlets | ||
| - Meporter | ||
| - hereME! | ||
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| These websites/apps are similar to Yellr however there is one certain factor that makes Yellr different. All of these apps require you to create an account thus removing some factors of privacy the user has when anonymous. We’ve learned that people want to openly voice their opinion but ironically a good number of them would like their identity to remain a secret. This benefits the users security as well because there’s no possible way to be tracked down. Another advantage we have is that Yellr is completely open source meaning we can continually create new features that are asked by the community. iReport is certainly our toughest competitor however it acts as more of a website and is available to the CNN app in limited features. Also credibility has gone down in recent years due to fake stories and a decline in quality produced content. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Might some users want accounts, to eventually gain trust/notoriety? Do users expect there to be some sort of account system? |
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| *Target market objectives:* | ||
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| Market Share | ||
| (Downloads were determined by # of reviews x20) | ||
| - iReport (CNN app) FREE, 102,548 downloads | ||
| - Meporter, N/A, removed from Play Store (website still exists) | ||
| - hereME!, Free, 40 downloads | ||
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| The market segment for this app at the moment is high mostly because the segment existed with iReport. Since the CNN product/service has gone down in quality, I feel that there is potential to take 8% of the market share (roughly 8,000 downloads) in our first year as long as we can translate the benefits for anonymity to our potential users. Our objective is for citizens and news organizations to download our app to create an community engaging environment. | ||
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| ## Channel Objectives | ||
| The yellr app is currently available through Google Play to Android users. | ||
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| 3 Main dealers: | ||
| - Google Play store | ||
| - iOS app store | ||
| - Website | ||
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| ## Promotional Objectives | ||
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| How will we build awareness? | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Add a newline here -- doesn't render properly. |
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| Yellr’s success will depend upon its ability to engage and interact with the community, journalists, citizen journalists, and news organizations. Our objectives are to increase the awareness through marketing techniques, community outreach events, and others. Yellr has already engaged in outreach events with the 19th Ward and the Gay Community in Rochester, NY. | ||
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| ## Marketing campaign ideas | ||
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| Yellr’s marketing campaign will focus on reaching out to news organizations personally and developing a deployment strategy for the app. We will test it with a few stories and ramp up over time. This will allow Yellr’s brand to enjoy benefits due to their association with well known news organizations. We will focus on marketing yellr to local news organizations of smaller size, and upon growth we will pursue business with larger organizations. | ||
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| ## Sales objectives | ||
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| How can we increase our consumer demand? | ||
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| The problem of news organizations failing to retain and monetize upon their readers/viewers is not a new one and as time goes on, the need for a solution only increases. Yellr can allow news organizations to have a personal and customizable communication with their viewers while simultaneously increasing a single journalist's ability to collect sources and information from communities. | ||
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| How do we make sure the news organizations will want it, and that locals will use it-- increase engagement and download #s | ||
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| We have been in discussion with WXXI as well as many other news organizations such as WDKX which have given positive feedback on the product and have expressed interest in it. Our partnerships and collaboration will be imperative to the initial market penetration of yellr. | ||
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| ## Market Research Objectives | ||
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| Since the app is already available on the play store and the app store, we can simply run focus groups to better improve our app. Focus groups are better that simply asking an assignment because you are able to get a person's input in real time and user are able to explain their problems without having a character limit. | ||
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| We have two main focus groups. News Organizations; they may be in a variety of forms, and also citizens that have an interest in local news. Since our product is a mobile app it has to have a “familiar” feel; familiar in the sense it is similar to other social media apps. “Generation X” is know to know their way around apps so it doesn’t have to be very easy to use. | ||
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| For internet marketing techniques we plan to use other social media outputs to create promotions. Facebook and Twitter can be used to update people on new assignments or even let them know when a Yellr event is happening near them. | ||
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| ## Technological Environment | ||
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| What will keep us ahead: Constant app updates, whether they are server updates, cosmetic updates, new features, etc. We will keep the question “What do you think of Yellr?” as a way to continuously gain feedback to improve our app. | ||
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| Security: Making sure we have preventative software as well as hiring security firms to find backdoors into our systems will be essential in protecting customer credit card numbers and location | ||
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| ## R&D Objectives | ||
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| How will our product stay up to date? | ||
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| Since Yellr is open source, we will continually build in features as asked by the community and leverage an volunteer community of contributors. Customers of the Yellr Company can contract the Yellr Company to build features for them. | ||
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| Having an active volunteer contributor community will allow us to loss-lead out competitors in terms of feature development at a much smaller price. The use of the AGPLv3 and other copyleft software licenses protects our assets from being pulled into proprietary software projects and therefore covers any issues of people using our code as a derivative work. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. The point of FOSS isn't to produce cheaper software, it's to produce better software that meets user needs and puts control in the hands of a community. |
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| Red Hat has shown to be a great success at using their customers as their contributors. Their support model has made it very easy for engineers to implement small features themselves that would take too long for Red Hat to implement and also be convenient. A similar model can be taken with Yellr so that we provide a comprehensive support and hosting package that makes using our software as easy as possible while also allowing our customers to have access to the source code that we deploy. | ||
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| ## Action Plan | ||
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| ### Product | ||
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| *What is our product? How will it saturate the market?* | ||
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| Our product will saturate the market mainly through the engagement with individuals/groups within the community and eventually towards our target market of news organizations and professional journalists. | ||
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| #### Key Features: | ||
| *What makes it different from the competition?* | ||
| *see market share* | ||
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| *Price* | ||
| Yellr will be priced on a tiered pricing system: | ||
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| | Feature | Bronze | Silver | Gold | | ||
| | ------- | ------ | ------ | ----- | | ||
| | Local Feed | x | x | x | | ||
| | Collections | x | x | x | | ||
| | Local Assignments <br> (25x25 miles) | x | x | x | | ||
| | Direct Messages to Users | | x | x | | ||
| | Unlimited Post Storage | | x | x | | ||
| | Infinite Assignment Area | | | x | | ||
| | 24/7 phone support | | | x | | ||
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| ## Promotion | ||
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| Yellr is currently partnered with WXXI, an NPR affiliate which has done the majority of the promotion so far for the app. We are also reaching out to local journalism programs at RIT to test the deployment of the app as a hyper-local reporting methodology. Once these programs are finished we will review and perform a post-mortem. The post-mortem will focus on the reports of journalism students who used the app to gather sourcing and media content from communities. | ||
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| ## Positioning/Place | ||
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| *Where will our app be sold?* | ||
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| Our app will be accessible from three main outlets: | ||
| - Google Play store | ||
| - iOS app store | ||
| - Website | ||
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| ##Financial Data: Assumptions and Forecasts | ||
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| Yellr has sourced funding from various entities, including the Knight Foundation. Financial forecasts are determined by our strategies to generate revenue. We will generate revenue through: | ||
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| *Server Hosting for Organizations* | ||
| - Customization | ||
| - Featurization | ||
| - Tech Support | ||
| - Possible In-App Advertising | ||
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| Willingness to pay by news organizations and journalists is imperative to generating revenue for yellr. To leverage news organizations we must increase the number of downloads to increase the value of the product. We will be able to determine how to price our Bronze, Silver, and Gold packages for journalists and news organizations based on the number of downloads. The number of downloads will determine value for news organizations and journalists. We will use the number of downloads to determine the value of the yellr to journalists and news organizations. The forecasted downloads per quarter were conducted based on small percentages of the Rochester population of roughly 210,000 in 2013. We believe this product will be downloaded by 0.5% of Rochester’s population in the first quarter, 1.5% by quarter 2, 3% by Quarter 3, and 7% by the end of our first year for a total of 14,700 downloads. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Number of downloads isn't very likely to make organizations willing to pay. They are likely to care much more about activity and number of posts/comments/etc since those are more indicative of users actually using the app, not just placing an icon on their homescreen. |
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Grumble, table of contents should probably be a list.