Launching Your App For the World
It’s Mod 4 of Flatiron School and we are all doing our own personal projects. I’m sure some of us have thought about how we would launch our apps into the real world and turn it into a profitable business. So let’s get cracking!
Executive Summary
This just includes the mission statement, which should only be a sentence or two long. It concisely describes what your business will be doing.
Company Description
This takes a deep dive into what your mission statement is going to accomplish and what impact your business will make on the world. This specifically describes what problems your business will solve and the target market that your company plans to have as clientele.
Market Analysis
Understand what your competitors have to offer and more importantly, don’t have to offer and what will give you a competitive edge. Research the industry and knows the ins and outs as much as possible.
Organizational Structure
Just sketch out an organizational chart of who holds what title in your company.
Your PRODUCT
How are you going to create your first prototype to test? Is it scalable if your company expands? If you’re selling a physical product, where are you going to find a manufacturer? Although China is a top choice for manufacturing products because of the low cost, there are many issues with a lot of China’s manufacturing companies, like maintaining quality control and having Six Sigma standards. In addition, there are a lot of communication issues as most people in China don’t speak English as a first language, not to mention the time difference. 12pm in the States would be about 12am in China. From my personal experience, I would not recommend manufacturing your product in China unless until after doing extensive research on the manufacturing site.
Marketing Your Product
There’s no right way to go about this. Maybe you want a lower price for your product to appeal to more customers and sell more units. Or maybe you want a higher price tag to market your product as a higher-end product, but sell less units. How will you attract customers?
One great way to test your product is to have focus groups, where you invite a group of about 10 people to test your product and ask them how they would improve on the product and what they liked about it.
You could also send out a survey to see how much your customers are willing to pay for your product. People are surprisingly honest when you ask them how much they are willing to spend on your product or how much they think it’s worth. They won’t always choose the lowest price contrary to popular belief. Don’t leave any money on the table!!!
Financial Projections
Ultimately, if your business isn’t profitable, your business is going to sink regardless of how great your product is. Include some quick accounting statements like cash flow, balance sheets and income statements. The basic idea is
REVENUE — COSTS = PROFIT
And hopefully, profit is a positive value. Just do some research and calculations on how much your business is going to make, in addition to an approximation of how many units/customers you plan to have based on your surveys.
Pitching Your Business and Finding Investors
Finally, make an elevator pitch for your business and convince investors why they should invest in your business and what they will be getting out of it. Be ready to negotiate and be prepared to give out a percentage of your business. If you want ultimate control over your business, always hold at least 51% of the company so you maintain creative control!
