Complete a Business Model Canvas comprising key questions such as what is your revenue stream, what are key partnerships you’ll need to forge, and what resources are vital to your operation. The more detailed your canvas is, the more informed your implementation will be. Create a new post in your process journal with the completed canvas document.
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In order for our business model to function optimally, we will seek strategic partners. These partners include corporations looking for part time help, start up businesses looking to build strong teams, shared spaces where freelancers can often be found like WeWork, and volunteer organizations. These types of partners will provide projects for our future users and help build the reputation of our brand.
Key Partners are important for our early stages and long term plans. Strategically we plan to bring on Corporations and Startups who are committed to creating projects for freelanced assembled teams to join in the beta phase. In addition, work spaces like WeWork may be inclined to offer their members this opportunity to be an early adopter. We recognize that some of our competitors may actually be partners in the future as the entry point and exit point to our platform. There is possibility to align with online educational spaces, as well as incorporate the collaborative digital tools into and accessible by our platform.
To make this business successful, there are a few key activities we would need to accomplish. In order to make the solution successful, the team would need to develop with user research and feedback incorporated. Understanding the mindset of our target market and potential users will help us create user personas and develop a consumer-centric solution. Having a consumer-centric solution will help us with user adoption in the long term. It would also be key for us to create a services blueprint, showing and helping us understand when our consumers use our solution and what steps are needed to give them the best experience. This can also show us some resources we can share across our services or the pain points that need to be addressed. After some discussion, we see our users understanding the solution and its services through their desktop. Once they have made their connection with their passion project or company, they can communicate on the go using our application. We need to make sure that the solution not only allows people to connect with their passion projects, but also provides them opportunities to grow professionally. Other key activities to ensure is that the user data and software is ran on reliable servers like AWS, design a UX that empowers the users, connect like-minded people through profiles, and set up a our business account (banking, HR, team infrastructure, and more).
We have decided on Key Resources that will allow our business to scale accordingly. On the onset, we will need physical resources like a creative space whether digital or physical. We will also need a domain and data storage center. From an IP standpoint we will need to implement Machine Learning, adjust for Network Growth, formulate a strategic plan, create a Production Schedule in Phases and perform an Competitive Landscape/ SWOT. The Human talent and resources will be developers both for the technical and business development, marketers, operations/ finance/ HR, as well as project leaders and facilitators. Financially, we will require a bank account, funding both personally, as well as form VCs. There is potential for some crowdfunding opportunities for some of the non-profit activities.
The Value Proposition that our app and platform provides to customers is two-fold. One customer is the Individual freelancer; we will be enabling them to pivot careers, pursue their passions, find connections with other team members/ mentors, build their portfolios, transition with ease and take appropriate risk. For the Business organizations, we will connect them with the best talent for their project, headhunt potential full-time employees on trial run, freelance a team and connect and organize. Great value can be awarded to all parties involved.
The expected Customer relationships are as follows: Our Business to others Businesses, Our Business to the Individual User and Individual users to connect with each other. We act as a platform to create jobs, matchmaker, guide/ mentor, as well as perform the role of teacher and professional developer through training that we provide in future phases.
Since imPACT is a business that focuses on remote collaborative work that brings like minded people together to pursue their passions we will rely on remote collaborative platforms to target our audience. We will certainly be advertising on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In addition to the tradition social media / advertising platforms that help target ads to the correct audience we will also utilize blogging or channels platforms like Medium.com.
We will also need a sales team to form and build relationships with larger corporations, non profit organization, freelancers, and starts up that might benefit from using a service like ours. We will avoid cold calling but rather generate prospective partners or users through targeted advertising. Once a few key relationships are established, we will start to lean on our referral system to continue to grow our user database.
We can also utilize job posting websites like Shapr.com and LinkedIn.com to advertise the possibility of owning your own “small business” through managing several small projects you are passionate about. This will be a great tool for entry level employees looking to find their passion and build a portfolio through exploration.
Customer Segments/ User Types
Our target audience includes several categories. We have identified these personas as the following: The Hustler, The Adder, The Pivoter, The Impactor.
The Hustler is a freelancer that is looking to maintain steady income through several projects.
The Adder is looking for supplemental income while exploring their passions and building a portfolio that might also prepare them to move into the Pivoter role.
The Pivoter is someone who feels stuck in a position or feels out of place in their current role and wants to explore other opportunities while still having the security of their full time job.
The Impactor is someone who is looking to become more involved with non profit or volunteer organizations. The Impactor might be young and curious and can start to build an entry level portfolio through project based work while making a social impact.
In addition to these user personas, we are also targeting larger corporations, non profit organizations, start ups, or freelancers that could benefit from using our platform to build strong teams and help their project keep momentum. We will help these project facilitators connect to their strongest teams.
There are some costs that the team needs to consider before starting this endeavor. In the beginning (first three months), we would need full-stack developers to help create the solution on desktop and mobile. To create a PoC (Proof of Concept), we may need 3 full-stack developers, costing about $60,000. To set up our reliable technology stack and infrastructure (like databases and servers), we would need about $6,000. We can work out of an office or co-working space like WeWork for about $4,500. The marketing campaigns would cost about $4,050 if our goal was to reach out to 15,000 users. Business insurance would be about $6,000, branding and design around $15,000, and payroll for other business functions (operations, finance, hr) would be another $15,000. Overall, the initial costs to start within the first three months would be about $110,550.
Revenue Streams are achieved through the following: A fee to the business organization for curating and placing individual freelancers. A fee to the individual freelancer for educational opportunities. There is ad revenue on both the website and the app. In addition, there will be fees for additional support for the business organization for project management until our AI is fully developed and automated- this could be a concierge type of service in future phases. There will also be fees for professional setup for both the individual freelancer, as well as the business organization. All these fees will be established and allow us to use discounts and waived fees as promotion and marketing. Certifications and improved visibility fees are also things that can be implemented at later phases with subscriptions for the serial freelancer. Variables that could affect the fees are discounts and leapfrogging/ cutting out the app as a middle conduit.
