The Market Maker Experience was a fantastic opportunity for me to unleash my creative and business skills in a highly entrepreneurial context. In a team of 3 we developed a product/service that had the potential to become a viable business opportunity. We produced a business plan which outlined the business model and structure for our product/service and the vision that we saw it taking.

We used creative skills to our full potential and came up with an innovative idea, based on our market research data that was a solution to a common everyday problem.

·         Our idea is unique

·         Relevant

·         Popular idea with our target audience

·         Likely to succeed

·         More features than competititors

·         It can work from anywhere in the world

·         Market demand

 

Created & Developed by

Leannda Best

Rebecca Pridmore

Ashleigh Johnson

BTEC L3 Creative Media Production students

From North Hertfordshire College.

 

Focused industry:

The area our company will focus on is on the creative technology sector. This is because this industry is constantly growing and developing, it is an industry, which is relied on, by millions of people and therefore it is an industry we are likely to succeed in.

 

Companies/ Products in creative technology industry, which interest our team:

Apple

Androids

Tablets

Google play store

 

Product or service:

Our firm is a product, which provides a service to users. The app will be manufactured and sold, so therefore is a product. The actual app provides a service to the users; therefore our creation is a product and service.

 

Chief Executive:

Leannda Best

 

Marketing and Sales:

Rebecca Pridmore

 

Research and Development:

Ashleigh Johnson

 

Finance and accounting:

Leannda Best

Rebecca Pridmore

Ashleigh Johnson

 

Corporate Name:

‘appy house

 

Tagline:

Apps that make you ‘appy

 

Disruptive innovation or improvement to existing:

Our product/service will be a disruptive innovation. This is because, in comparison to the apps already out there that our similar to ours, we have more features on our app to offer, it is more unique because it is controlled by our stylists and has the potential to overtake the success of the similar apps to ours. Therefore making it a disruptive innovation.

 

Our Product/Service:

Our product is an app for apple users called ‘Clothing Crisis?’ the service that our app provides is that it generates an outfit for users when they don’t know what to wear. To do this app users have to upload photos of clothes, accessories and shoes from their wardrobe onto the app, and these items go into different categories (tops, dresses, jeans, trouser ect.) The user then selects what kind of weather it is, what the occasion is, and then a stylist behind the app generates an outfit from this information. If the user doesn’t like this specific outfit they can regenerate as many times as they like.

 

Name of our product/service:

Clothing Crisis?

 

Tagline:

Clothes that make you ‘appy

 

How often does it need to be purchased?

The app will only need to purchased once for a small fee and once it has been purchased the user can keep the download for as long as they like.

 

Price Range:

£0.00 - £3.00

This is our price range because from our research we discovered that in 2011, 37% of all apps were free and the average price of apps in 2011 was £2.26. Also, from our market research we found that most people were prepared to spend between £1 and £2. From this information, we chose to price our app at £1.50.

 

How soon could a prototype or proof of concept be developed?

For our product/service we could create sketches of how our app would work, what features it includes, and how it will look through sketches this could be used as proof of concept. It would take roughly a days work to produce this proof of concept.

 

Targeting home consumer, business or both?

We are targeting both the home consumer and business. Our app must appeal enough to Apple for them to want to sell our app in the app store. And we are also targeting home consumers, because it is males and females aged 15 – 30.

 

Competition:

Stylish girl app / cool guy app

Chic fashion app

 

These three apps were most similar to our app and therefore are our competition.

Stylish Girl app is very popular, it is rated 5 starts. Similarly to our app on stylish girl you upload photos of items from your own wardrobe, however unlike ours you put your own outfits together. Also it is only for girls.

Cool guy is the male version of stylish girl app; it isn’t as popular as the stylish girl app, although it does the same things.  It is also free to download.

Chic fashion app, this app is as popular as stylish girl, however it is still similar to ours. It is similar because of the weather and occasion categories. This app is only for girls and free to download.

 

Typical person purchasing our product:

Age: 16/17

Gender: male/female

Income level: student

Special traits: fashion conscious

 

The information above is based on most popular answers from our market research.

 

The 4 P’s:

Product/Service: Clothing Crisis? App

Price: £1.50

Placement: App store on apple products

Promotion: Advertised through: newspapers/magazines, Internet and app store promotions.

 

Development and Roll out schedule:

3 months: In three months the proof of content will be developed, and completed fully, total costs put together and evaluated, the arranging and implementing of marketing and sales strategy.

6 months: App submitted and approved by apple.

1 Year: Our app will available for customers to buy.

5 years: Numerous updates to app and discussions of launching new apps.

 

Where will our business operate?

Our business will operate from an office located in London. Within the office stylists, marketing and sales team, research and development team, finance and accounting and the chief executive will all be operating from this office.

 

What other positions will we need to hire?

The most significant positions we need to hire are the stylists. And the more successful the app becomes, the more stylists we will need to hire.  The stylists which will hire will be new in the industry rather than expert professionals, this is because it will save us money as we don’t have to pay them as much and also it will help to promote them as individual stylists and build up a profile, therefore its a win - win situation. There are also possibilities of us hiring a few people to work on our marketing and sales and research and development teams.

 

Start up costs:

Until revenue starts to be produced, how much will be spent monthly on:

Salaries: £6250

Operating expenses (electricity, rent etc.): £2500

Capital expenses (computers, machinery etc.): £17,000.

 

Break – Even analysis:

Monthly fixed costs:

Monthly salary costs: £6000

Operating monthly costs: £500

Capital monthly costs: £0

 

How much does it cost to produce our service?

The product/service we will provide will only need to be created once as it’s an app, and once its created it will be available for people to download. To develop our app it will cost £9,390.84 this is because our app is a ‘fully dynamic’ app, so its more expensive to create than a basic function app, database driven app and a game app. To add share capabilities to the app it is an additional £313.03 this means that users can share what they’ve been doing on the app to social media sites. For our app to be compatible on all iPhones and iPods and iPads it is an additional £937.50

 

How many units of our product/service will we have to sell to cover our monthly costs?

Total monthly costs: £6500

Price of app: £1.49

 

= 4362

 

We will have to sell 4362 apps a month to cover our monthly costs.

 

How long until revenue begins flowing into the business?

Taking into consideration the start up costs, monthly fixed costs, the price of our app and the fact that apple get 30% from each app we sell which is 45p. It should take us 1 year before revenue begins to flow.

 

Investment that we require?

After adding up our start up costs alongside how much our product will cost to produce, we came up with a total of £36,391.37. This is the investment that we would need to start up our app.