Answer the following questions from the statements above:

PROBLEM

- What is the current business problem?

KEY METRICS

- How will the growth trajectory be identified?

- How will success be measured? SOLUTION

- What asset (product/service) is available to solve the problem?

CHANNEL STRATEGY

- Where are you positioned to sell your product? Deliver? What opportunities are available?

UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

- What's compelling?

- Why would they buy from you?

COST STRUCTURE

- What are the cost drivers?

- How can they be improved?

CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

- What do people look like? Act like?

- What do they believe?

- What do they do? Where do they go?

REVENUE STREAM

- How do you generate revenue from your value proposition?

UNFAIR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

- What part of the company can not be duplicated?

Background

Business cases are generally designed with a linear objective. I.e., solve for X, identify alternatives for Y, etc. We're going to do things a little differently.Below you'll find a real startup that is looking to start a woodworking training/community educational platform. You'll find that John has thought through his idea as best as possible, identified a co-founder to help support the technology build and focus on what he's most passionate about and what he believes the market needs.

The CEO and Founder (John Peters) have estimated $1M in annual revenues within the next three years. Because John is not a technical founder, he has brought on an equity partner in exchange for the platform build (Ryan McClure). This partnership is 50/50. For startup capital, John has allocated $100,000 to get this project completed and available for the consumer market. The expected launch date is January 2023.

Your Role

John was referred to your company as a leading social media and product launch consulting firm. You've been asked to help John build and design a go-to-market strategy.

Category Background

According to a report on the Andreessen Horowitz website entitled, "Social Strikes Back", one of the top three categories for Social App development is Vertical Communities. The message of the series is that Social apps, once thought dead for development because of the dominance of big names like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., are anticipated to be a source of great growth. Not only are they seeing the rise of innovative new social networksfrom the earshare of Clubhouse to the seamless interactivity of cloud gaming they anticipate a fresh crop of specialized or niche platforms. But the key to all new platform development is having a social component that is ingrained in the app, not just layered on. The social component has become a powerful member acquisition and retention tool for every consumer-oriented, product-based application across education, shopping, fitness, food, entertainment, and more1.

As noted above, one of the top three categories of apps under development are vertical communities (those that enable further engagement around specific subjects or activities). Users can delve into their hobbies and passions with niche-tailored product features, and discover a community of like-minded people in the process.The article's authors believe an integrated social component will become a linchpin for emerging consumer companies and long relationships with their members.2

Platform Build

John and Ryan intend to address the adult learning market by creating a social platform targeting informal adult education, where adults who choose to pursue a specific interest or hobby, can follow a 10 step path along with others who share similar interests. This platform, where people can share learning experiences through social engagement and access to community provided materials, will be developed with the concept of members helping members. This community-based social learning platform will enhance the learning experience where adults who want to take on a hobby and along with other members of their "class" (I.e., people grouped by the software starting with relatively the same skill level) can progress over time through a consistent 9 step process to achieve their desired level of expertise. We also intend to build a way for adults to invite others and self-create their own classs if they so choose.

The concept is crowd-sourced education, that is, the ability to learn or improve a desired hobby or skill jointly with others who share similar desires within an open social environment.

A Note From the Founders

We intend to take this concept and apply structure so that our members have a framework or process to measure themselves against. We mentioned the concept of a class, so let us explain how we plan to group members so they can meet and progress with others at the same skill level. As new members enter the system, we'll ask them a series of questions about their particular skill level and assign them a pre-set starting point. We'll then look for other members with similar skills and group them together so they can progress through the course together. We'll provide forums that are geared towards their class and quick access to projects other members of their class have completed. We see the competition and gamification strategies as a core concept of our app.

We also intend to build in advanced capabilities with what we're calling our Recommendations Engine. This ML/AI driven engine will be designed to elevate our members skills in their chosen field using the data we collect to recommend to members the next steps in achieving their goals. I.e., what forums to present, people that might work well together and other tasks that normally would be associated with skill mastery.

The core challenge is to attract already skilled members who can serve as a resource for beginning members and their progress. The expectation is to incentivize skilled users/influencers to join the platform. At their core, most people like to share and promote their skills so allowing them to do that in a forum like ours is one enticement, but we know that won't be enough. We have to provide revenue opportunities along with the ability to help other members through forum entries, 1:1 breakouts, and a platform to sell finished projects.

Driving Revenue

Freemium Model - Ad option

Basic User - Subscription model / ad free

Platform Store - Retail makers with products to sell

One on One sessions with experts - connecting experts with learners (fee-based/min)

The opportunity to make money from a series of microtransactions is already well developed and accepted. COVID-19 has only accelerated an already vivrant gig economy ecosystem. Whether that's buying music, renting a vacation home, picking up a Target order, or hailing a ride, people are used to requesting and paying for services through an app. We see this platform as a way to attract those higher skilled members who could benefit financially by opening new points of access for their products/services for one on one voice and/or video sessions where members request support from a queue of qualified master members.

As part of the educational experience, we see the opportunity to become a catalog for learning events/resoruces that are accessed within the platform. I.e., If a member attends a beginner class, views a specific video related to a learning goal...we catalog and provide suggested members for them to connect with. I.e. Netflix version of, "you might also like..."

The concept of level or status attainment will keep members engaged over time and provide an educational, informational and fun experience as they review other members' work and progress in their own skills. Woodcrafts will be our initial target audience, but we could quickly branch out into other "maker-crafts" like car restoration, Leather goods, metalworking, sewing, different art categories, musical instruments, etc.

This upskilling approach through our Recommendations Engine will be one of our key differentiators in the market of community-oriented social applications, along with detailed analytics and an easily accessible interface. As traffic and revenue continue to grow on sites like Etsy, eBay, FB Marketplace and Amazon, or apps including Udemy and Future, we believe more and more people will look for ways to monetize their personal skills and seek out platforms that connect them with larger audiences.

What we'll replace

Learning a skill or hobby is a lot easier today than it ever was with platforms such as YouTube, Coursera, Udemy, MasterClass, etc.. People can search for videos and learn on their own by watching others, which is fine - it works. But there's no defined path, content is hit or miss and there's no way to identify users at a specific point in their skill mastery. There are other ways like forums, FB groups, other apps that join people with similar interests, but nothing is organized in a format to help the user grow, it's completely up to them.

So, if we ask ourselves these two key questions:

• What will make users join the platform
• What mechanism is required to maintain active users

We suggest these three things:

• Upskilling concept with levels of achievement will help members grow their skills
• Developing a curated recommendation engine
• Ability to formulate some social aspect of connection/curiosity within the craft building ecosystem

Members will also contribute to the growth of other community members through viewing and rating their projects. We intend to make it social, fun, and informational by engaging members in the pursuit of personal improvement in their hobby, while also keeping them engaged with the pursuit of higher levels of achievement.

The platform at a minimum will:

• Encourage members to highlight their personal projects with either pictures or videos and a short description
• Develop a rating system that is commensurate with their skill level and "promotes" members to the next level through algorithms
• Reward members with levels of achievement through community voting and acceptance
• Provide members with forums, real-time advice, and assistance from "Master" members
• Provide recommendations to plans and project ideas
  • Provide analytics so members can see trends and measure themselves against their peers
  • Provide a project management experience so members can use the platform while building their project and keep a record of their progress

Initial Release

We first plan to build the framework for wood-related hobbies because that's an area where the two founders have a passion and how the idea got started. Finding the right monetization strategy will be critical of course but there will be lots of options to make sure we have the right fit for what we're offering.

In conclusion, we believe:

• The combination of the human desires for personal growth in addition to the social engagement of like-minded people will drive acceptance of the app
• People are willing to pay for knowledge as long as they see value

We intend to create that value by leveraging the collective wisdom of the community, especially the experienced members of the community, to drive all the members forward.

Future Release

As our members progress and become more advanced users, or we have advanced users come in at a higher tier, we'll provide a project management component designed with a different set of goals in mind.

We'll target the hobbyist that's looking for that "side hustle" and use their creative skills to earn extra money and profit from their skill.

This feature set will be oriented to the member looking to improve productivity that will lead to more efficient project development which evolves into a more profitable hobby.

The benefits for the advanced user are:

• Improve member production and project turns with a project management application and a recommendations engine
• Provide a platform for members to sell their plans and allow them to profit within the app taking a small commission
• Build in a "Ready to Sell'' feature that allows the member to solicit feedback and see if the community thinks their project is ready to sell and at what price. The system will aggregate the responses and recommend a selling price.
• Members will be encouraged to enter the actual selling price after the sale for further data points and improve the engine.