COMPANY REPORT

2016-2017 ⎟NorwayAdvisor: Torgeir Nygård⎟Teacher: Arne U. Hoff

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Executive  Summary  Birdsavers  is  a  mini-­company  from  Norway  that  was  established  at  Christian  Upper  Secondary  School  Trøndelag  (KVT)  in  2016.  The  company  consists  of  five  innovative  and  motivated  students  who  are  currently  on  the  Entrepreneurship  and  Company  Development  study  track.  

 Problem  A  huge  number  of  birds  dies  from  windmills  every  year.  Our  calculations  show  that  the  death  rate  is  even  higher  in  Scandinavian  countries.  This  leads  to  resistance  towards  development  of  wind  parks,  since  large  bird  stocks  are  being  killed.  Because  of  the  bird  stocks  there  are  also  restricted  areas  where  you  can’t  build  wind  parks.  Wind  energy  is  clean  energy  that  the  world  needs.      Solution  We  offer  a  product  that  solves  this  problem.  Our  product  are  UV-­reflective  stickers  which  prevents  birds  from  colliding  with  windmills.  These  will  be  mounted  on  the  windmills  and  the  stickers  will  scare  the  birds  away.  Scientific  research  from  our  company's  mentor  proves  that  birds  gets  scared  by  UV  and  will  fly  away.  Our  mentor,  Torgeir  Nygaard,  is  Norway's  leading  scientist  on  bird  vision.  Through  conversations  with  him  we  have  grown  confident  that  our  product  will  work.      Market  We  focus  mainly  on  the  Scandinavian  countries,  but  there  is  also  a  bigger  international  market.  We  have  worked  together  with  our  biggest  potential  customer  in  Norway,  Statkraft.  They  have  tried  solving  the  problem  themselves,  but  their  solution  turned  out  to  be  unsuccessful.  Statkraft  told  us  that  they  will  be  interested  in  buying  the  finished,  tested  product.  When  the  biggest  wind  energy  company  in  Norway  has  agreed  to  purchase  our  product  when  we  are  done  testing,  this  proves  the  potential  in  the  market.      Future  Potential  Today  we  are  in  the  development  phase  and  we  don’t  have  a  finished  product  yet.  We  have  big  plans  for  the  future,  and  will  soon  establish  a  limited  company.  We  have  made  an  agreement  to  test  the  product  on  a  windmill  in  2018  and  after  the  testing  we  will  start  sales.          

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Company  Overview  Business  Vision  Our  vision  is  that  Birdsavers  will  contribute  to  the  expansion  of  more  clean  and  renewable  wind  energy  in  Scandinavia.  We  want  to  remove  the  debate  between  wind  energy-­enthusiasts  and  people  who  are  against  windmills  because  of  the  bird  mortality.    Business  Concept  For  owners  of  windmill  parks,  we  offer  a  product  that  will  be  invisible  to  humans,  which  prevents  birds  from  colliding  with  the  windmill  rotors.  Our  product  is  unique  and  cost  considerably  less  than  previous  unsuccessful  attempts  at  solving  the  problem.    Problem  A  huge  number  of  birds  dies  from  windmills  every  year.  Our  calculations  show  that  the  death  rate  is  high  in  Scandinavian  countries.  This  leads  to  resistance  towards  development  of  wind  parks,  since  large  bird  stocks  are  being  killed.  Because  of  the  bird  stocks  there  are  also  restricted  areas  where  you  can’t  build  wind  parks.  Wind  energy  is  clean  energy  that  the  world  needs.  

   http://www.cedren.no/Forskningstema/Vindkraft  Solution  We  offer  a  product  that  solves  this  problem.  Our  product  are  UV-­reflective  stickers  which  prevents  birds  from  colliding  with  windmills.  These  will  be  mounted  on  the  windmills  and  the  stickers  will  scare  the  birds  away.  Scientific  research  from  our  company's  mentor  proves  that  birds  gets  scared  by  UV  and  will  fly  away.  Our  mentor,  Torgeir  Nygaard,  is  Norway's  leading  scientist  on  bird  vision.  Through  conversations  with  him  we  have  grown  confident  that  our  product  will  work.  We  have  done  a  huge  amount  of  research  ourselves,  and  contacted  a  lot  of  people.  We  needed  people  with  competence  on  birds,  bird  vision  and  windmills,  and  we  found  the  best  people  in  Norway.

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 This  is  an  animation  which  shows  how  the  product  works  from  our  video.    

Product  Our  products  main  purpose  is  to  be  mounted  on  new  windmills  before  they  are  put  up.  The  advantage  of  stickers  is  that  you  can  also  mount  it  on  existing  windmills.  The  material  used  in  the  stickers  is  similar  to  stickers  mounted  on  airplanes.  This  will  ensure  that  the  stickers  will  last  a  long  time  through  all  kinds  of  weather  and  wind  situations.    Product  Development  Today  we  do  not  have  a  finished  product.  It  is  hard  for  a  mini  company  to  test  this  on  the  level  it  has  to  be  tested  to  be  scientifically  bearable  in  just  one  year.  What  we  have  done,  is  make  an  agreement  with  Statkraft,  Norway's  biggest  wind  energy  company.  This  agreement  lets  us  test  our  product  on  one  windmill  in  2018.  Our  goal  is  to  have  a  finished  product  to  2020  when  Norway's  windmill  stock  will  double  with  the  giant  “Fosen  vind-­project”.  This  is  Europe's  largest  land-­based  wind  project.  Here  there  will  be  build  278  new  windmills.  When  we  have  tested  the  product  on  a  windmill,  and  it  turned  out  to  be  successful,  we  will  apply  for  a  patent.      Pricing  Strategy  We  are  considering  two  types  of  price  strategies  at  the  moment.  We  could  go  for  a  cost  based  or  a  marked  based  strategy.  Estimated  cost  of  production  per  windmill  is  €4000.  If  we  go  for  a  cost  based  strategy  we  will  sell  our  product  at  €6000,  giving  us  a  margin  of  €2000.  We  operate  with  very  few  fixed  costs  so  our  profit  is  close  to  the  contribution  margin.  If  we  get  a  patent,  we  will  be  able  to  use  a  market  based  price  strategy  since  we're  in  a  monopoly  situation.  Then  we  can  charge  considerably  more  for  our  product.    Production  Plan  We  have  not  chosen  our  producer  yet,  but  we  have  some  clear  guidelines  and  demands  for  our  producers.  Our  ideal  partner  is  3M  when  we  start  production  on  a  larger  scale.  This  is  because  they  are  the  best  and  biggest  producer  of  products  with  similar  materials.  3M  offers  9  years  guarantee  on  vinyls  for  cars,  which  is  close  to  what  our  product  will  be  made  of.  This  assures  the  customer  that  this  is  a  product  

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that  is  going  to  last  for  a  long  while.  In  the  early  product  development  phase,  we  will  look  for  a  small  producer  in  Norway.  Since  we  are  working  on  an  environmental  issue,  it  is  important  for  us  that  our  producer  follows  strict  rules  for  environmental  friendly  production.    

Market  We  focus  mainly  on  the  Scandinavian  countries,  but  there  is  also  a  huge  international  market.  We  have  worked  together  with  our  biggest  potential  customer  in  Norway,  Statkraft.  They  have  tried  solving  the  problem  themselves,  but  their  solution  turned  out  to  be  unsuccessful.  They  tried  painting  the  windmill  black  instead  of  white,  but  it  didn't  show  any  improvements  in  bird  mortality.  The  solution  they  tried  had  a  cost  of  57  200  euros.  Our  product  will  only  cost  about  a  tenth  of  that.  Also,  Statkraft  told  us  that  they  will  be  interested  in  buying  the  finished,  tested  product.  When  the  biggest  wind  energy  company  in  Norway  has  agreed  to  purchase  our  product  when  we  are  done  testing,  this  proves  the  potential  in  the  market.    Sales  We  have  worked  closely  with  our  potential  customers,  and  some  of  them  has  even  sponsored  us  financially.  Naturally  we  don't  have  any  sales  yet  since  we're  in  the  product  development  phase.    

Analysis  of  Financials  

   B  The  asset  is  a  windmill  we  have  bought  for  our  exhibition  stand.  Since  it  is  not  yet  paid  for,  you  will  find  it  listed  as  creditor  debt.    

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F-­J  Our  expenses  are  mostly  connected  with  these  national  and  regional  competitions.    L  All  of  our  total  income  so  far  has  come  from  sponsors  and  prices  from  national  and  regional  competitions.    Analysis  of  Overall  Business  Performance  and  Profitability    With  our  business  model  scalability,  we  will  be  able  to  take  orders  before  we  manufacture  the  product.  We  won´t  need  any  storage  and  that  takes  away  costs  and  risk.  If  we  sell  more,  we  will  just  order  more  from  our  producer.  We  do  not  need  any  storage  since  the  windmill  parks  are  not  in  a  rush.  Building  wind  parks  is  a  long-­lasting  process.  If  we  sell  more,  the  costs  increase  equally  to  the  income.  This  makes  our  business  scalable.      As  mentioned  in  the  pricing  strategy  paragraph,  we  have  not  chosen  a  price-­strategy  yet.  This  leaves  some  insecurity  about  the  numbers  in  the  budget,  but  we  know  that  we  have  very  few  fixed  costs  and  our  profit  will  be  close  to  the  difference  between  the  price  and  the  cost  of  producing.      

Management  Leadership  Our  mini-­company  is  made  up  of  different  roles.  We  chose  our  roles  early  in  August.  Since  then  we  have  grown  into  these  roles  and  become  a  lot  better  at  performing.  Kristian,  our  CEO,  has  been  doing  excellent  work  leading  the  company,  and  when  one  of  our  company  members  was  about  to  give  up  on  our  current  idea,  Kristian  took  matters  in  his  own  hands  and  called  for  a  brainstorming  meeting  to  solve  our  current  problems  and  disagreements.  In  our  company  we  also  went  through  a  process  and  a  discussion  to  see  what  specific  tasks  each  member  could  do  best.  Kristian  has  also  created  a  plan  for  each  of  the  members  of  this  company,  and  each  of  us  has  learned  a  lot  about  our  role.  Our  teacher  setup  our  business  after  a  personality  test(everything  disc)  and  we  also  have  different  school-­subjects  and  we  thought  about  all  this  when  we  organised  our  business.  

Advisor  and  link-­teacher  We  in  Birdsavers  got  a  good  teaching  lesson  by  our  teacher  Arne  Hoff.  He  taught  us  how  to  create  a  business  from  a  start-­up,  and  think  about  how  to  create  a  good  vision  for  our  own  learning  and  company. We  have  connected  with  our  mentor,  Torgeir  Nygaard,  and  he  taught  us  more  about  birds  and  their  vision.  He  has  helped  us  a  lot  and  given  us  lessons  about  this  project-­part. Torgeir  has  earlier  researched  this  problem,  and  gave  us  his  information  to  make  a  commercial  business.

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 Kristian  Hafsmo  

CEO  

•   Responsibility  for  registering  the  business  in  the  Brønnøysund  Register    

•   Set  up  goals  for  the  business  and  make  decisions  by  disagreement    

•   Ensure  that  interim  reports  are  completed  for  submission  to  UE    

•   Have  knowledge  of  various  laws  that  affect  the  business

 Benjamin  Schjetne                        HR  manager  

•   Make  sure  everyone  in  the  company  has  a  good  time  

•   Make  sure  everyone  is  happy  with  their  tasks  

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 Kristoffer  Nisja  

CFO  •   Responsibility  for  economics  and  

finance  •   Reaches  out  to  sponsors  and  

investors  •   Responsibility  for  payments  

Julie  Eidem  

CPO  •   Develop  a  prototype  of  the  product  •   see  that  the  product  fills  the  

customers  needs  •   Have  control  on  all  information  of  the  

product  

 Daniel  Hansen  

                                                     CMO  •   Do  market  research  •   Test  the  market  

 

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Future  Potential  We  will  establish  a  limited  company  the  day  we  close  our  mini  company.  Due  to  mini  companies  not  having  to  pay  tax  in  Norway,  we  can´t  open  the  limited  company  while  we  have  the  mini  company.  This  is  due  to  the  fraud  rules  in  Norway.  One  of  the  company's  members  is  a  chairman  at  a  limited  company  and  has  some  experience  in  these  matters.  This  makes  it  fairly  easy  for  us  to  establish  a  limited  company.  We  have  also  learned  a  lot  about  limited  company`s,  and  as  we  have  shown  through  our  mini  company,  we  are  good  at  implementing  the  theory  we  learn  in  school  to  the  real  business  life.        

"Keep the windmills spinning, and the

birds flying."