Fletch

Business Plan

ByNorm Staples

1. Table of Contents

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I. Table of Contents………………………………………………………… 2II. Executive Summary...………………………………………...….……… 3III. Mission .………………………………………………………..…………. 4IV. Mantra...…………………………………………………………...……… 4V. Vision ………………………………………………………….………….. 4

VI. Company Summary ………………………………………………….….. 5A. Location ……………………………………………………………. 5B. Management Team ………………………………………….….... 6C. Start-up Costs …………………………………………...………... 7D. Product/Service Description ………………………………...…... 8E. S.W.O.T. ………………………………………………….……….. 9

1. Strength …………………………………………...………... 92. Weakness ……………………………………………….....

113. Opportunity ………………………………….…………….. 124. Threat ……………………………………………………… 14

VII. Marketing ……………………………………………….………………. 15A. Target Market …………………………………….……………… 15B. Competition ………………………………………….…………… 16C. Marketing Strategy ………………………………..……...…..…. 16D. Promotional Strategy ……………………………………….…… 17E. Price and Sales Strategy ……………………………………….. 17F. Sales Forecast ………………………………………………...… 17G. Milestones ………………………………………………………... 18

VIII. Finance ………………………………………………………………….. 19A. Cost Structure …………………………………………………… 19B. Financial Statement …………………………………………….. 20C. Balance Sheet …………………………………………………… 21D. 3 Year Pro Forma ……………………………………………….. 22E. Summary of Findings …………………………………………… 23

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2. Executive Summary

About 50% of American college students will not graduate. This means that colleges are losing at least $15 billion annually to college dropouts. All of the 1 million students dropping out each year will have debt with no degree. Ohio State’s Office of Retention notes that meaningful peer relationships are the leading controllable factor in student retention.

Fletch is a college retention solution in the form of native iPhone and Android applications with web support. Fletch provides for social inclusion and academic support by empowering you to invite any classmate to a study group with just 3 taps on your phone, or get a quick answer at 2am when you are cramming for a midterm. On the backend, we have an algorithm that identifies which students are academically unengaged or at risk of dropping out and we target on campus resources to those students through push notifications.

In the spring of 2015, we had a highly successful pilot in which we had 10,000 students using our platform, a partnership with DeVry University and a paid deal with Pasadena City College. We are re-launching in late October 2015 with an improved design and a more robust application that we will be targeting at universities and community colleges with 20,000 or more students and graduation rates lower than 60%. We will be selling licenses to colleges at 5 times total enrollment (i.e. $100k per annum for an enrollment of 20,000 students).

We have a team uniquely skilled and passionate about solving the crisis in college retention. Marquett Burton, CEO and design lead, has over 6 years of experience working in educational technology. He has a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Instructional Technology from Johns Hopkins. He’s done operations for Teach For America, lead business development for EverFi in Washington, Oregon and CA.

Aditya Halan, CTO, has over 10 years as a full stack developer with domain expertise in building learning management systems and educational technologies, such as ClickForCoah and TeachDotMe. Diondre Lewis, Lead iOS Developer, holds a BA in computer science from Duke University and has 13 years of experience as a developer. He has founded IBG Institute, a world-class I.T. educational outlet.

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3. MissionThe mission at Fletch is college retention through technology by user created content while enabling college students to connect.

4. MantraSocial Studies has new meaning.

5. VisionHelp students graduate.

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6. Company Summary

a. Location

Fletch is an online app that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere through IOS and Android. Fletch headquarters is in the 1871 Workspace located at The Merchandise Mart out of Chicago, IL.

b. Management Team

Marquett Burton is the CEO and Designer of Fletch, he has a background in educational technology business development. Marquett has a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Teaching from The Johns Hopkins School of Education.

Previous employment includes ● Teach For America as a corporate member and an operations

manager.● EverFi Inc., a k-12/higher educational technology company. As the

Pacific Northwest manager he engaged in executive level business development in WA, OR and CA. He developed a portfolio of over $1,000,000.

Awards include● 2009 - Union Baptist Award for Community Organizing● 2011 - Mayoral Fellow● 2011 - Teach For America Alumni Induction Key Note● 2013 - Startup Weekend LA Champion● 2014 - TABE Outstanding Alumni Award● 2014 - People Space LA Startup Champions● 2014 -California State University Award for Leadership Excellence● 2014 - Digital LA Startup Showcase Champion● 2015 - International Purdue University Business Competition

Marquett graduated Berkley without ever being able to utilize the knowledge of the 200 students surrounding him in the lecture hall. Using the knowledge he gained from his masters at the Johns Hopkins School of Ed and his experience opening up west coast operations for EverFi, he decided to found Fletch.

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■ Aditya Halan

Aditya has more than 10 years of experience as a software developer in which he has worked in domains ranging from Ecommerce, IT Infrastructure, eGovernance, DMS & Workflow, mobile and web development. Educational background includes BA in computer science from Duke University.

Recently he led a technical team in charge of computerizing Records of Rights (digitization of maps and updating of land records) in Orissa.

Previous CompaniesClickforcoach.comTeachdotme.comIBG Institute

Marquett and Aditya started in October of 2013 when they won 1st place at Startup Weekend LA with the SmartyPants App (now known as Fletch). Since then, Marquett has been CEO (UI/UX designer) and Aditya Halan has been CTO. We both believe that the SmartyPants App can support student success in an environment in which learners will be increasingly isolated (distance learning, hybrid classes, MOOCs etc.) We've worked on other technologies like EverFi.com, Teachdotme.com, and Clickforcoach.com

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c. Start up

■ Budgetary Projections

Fletch

Budgetary Projections

Total

CEO & CTO Salaries 50,000.00

Independent Contractors 30,000.00

Conferences, Marketing, Recruiting

25,000.00

Customer Acquisition 15,000.00

Technical Purchases 10,000.00

Legal, Accounting, Miscellaneous

20,000.00

Total Expenses 150,000.00

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d. Product or service description

Fletch is a native iPhone app, native Android app and a web application that empowers students to invite everyone in their lecture hall to a study group and send push notification questions to get quick answers at any hours. We translate user activity into data to provide real time answers to the following questions for students/administrators:

1) How many hours is a given student studying?2) What are a given student or classes’ collaboration rate?3) Which students are retention risks?4) Which assignments are students struggling with?5) Which topics need remediation?

The student created content creates a data package that we deliver to instructors and institutions in real time that enables them to drive the critical metrics that lead to increased knowledge acquisition, higher knowledge retention and improved course satisfaction. Collectively, the foregoing leads to higher graduation and retention rates. Fletch’s real-time quantitative and qualitative data can inform institutions on class rigor and how often students study, collaborate and engage with content outside of the classroom.

At the close of each term we provide institutions with an overall (school wide) and class specific reports on how learning/retention can be improved campus wide and in certain courses.

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e. SWOT analysis

Strengths

● Retention Algorithms● User Created Content● First to Market

Weaknesses

● Adoption● Ambassador Program

Opportunities

● No Direct Competition ● Ambassador Program● Crowdsourcing

Threats

● School Based Systems

f. Strengths

■ Retention Algorithms

With the ever increasing rate of college drop-outs and recent decline in enrollment, we are the only web and application based service that has innovative retention algorithms that allow colleges to seamlessly receive information on students that may be at risk of dropping out or having difficulty in classes. A campus of 10,000 students that retains 10% of the original potential students that would otherwise drop-out would be an increase in revenue of approximately $18.75 million. As we continue to be the only application designed to facilitate in-person peer collaboration, we will be able to provide college institutions the information to retain students. We will also assist with increasing revenue, while giving universities the ability to decipher if classes may need to be adjusted. All of this is possible in support with our academically engaged algorithms.

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■ User created content

In-person peer collaboration allows students to collectively study material and share information that students may find beneficial for the course and increase their knowledge for the desired study material. This application is not only a way to retain students in the education process, but to increase their involvement with course material as a whole. Classmates will be able to share notes, course material, and other information that the students may deem important, all through a simple push notification process that will constantly keep students updated.

■ First to market

Fletch is the first social application designated specifically to increase the involvement of students to benefit their overall college experience while also allowing for relationship building through networking with students. Being the first in the market is essential to Fletch assuring and retaining a large portion of the market. When it comes to student retention and helping schools attain an increase in their revenue due to the decreased drop-out rates, it is especially important to be the first in this market. Gaining the trust of universities and having them partner with Fletch to receive vital student information is a partnership that will not be quickly broken or switched to a different provider as long as all criteria and expectations are being met. Fletch is the first known provider of this service to students and universities and can directly have a lasting relationship with major educational institutions. Acquiring more students and securing more partnerships with colleges in the shortest amount of time will deter future competition and assist in the largest acquisition in the market.

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g. Weakness

■ Adoption

The adoption faze is going to be one of the most challenging stages for Fletch. When it comes to user acquisition, gathering an ambassador base and finding colleges to adopt the services of Fletch will bring about its own challenges and difficulties. Each of these adoption stages require the other to gain traction. For the colleges to adopt the services there needs to be a large student user base. The user base is adequately supported by the framework laid out by the leaders of Fletch and the ambassadors within the universities. Without each of these supporting the other it will be difficult to build the groundwork of the company. It is necessary that the user-base continuously grows 2,000 per month and that ambassadors are placed at colleges as the universities look to adopt the student retention services and applications. To sustain adequate adoption, market growth, and to be able to showcase to investors monthly increases, it is essential that student-users are increasing along with a growing ambassador program that evangelizes for Fletch.

■ Ambassador incentive program (getting students to become ambassadors)

Fletch must be able to provide immediate and long-term incentives for ambassadors to help increase the rate of attaining ambassadors to assist in Fletch evangelism. Current ways of doing this are through letters of recommendation and other supporting documents that can help those involved further themselves in their careers. As a start-up, it may be difficult for Fletch to acquire the amount of ambassadors necessary to help kick-start the idea at universities. Offering other incentives like paying for a certain amount of curriculum for students after each successful semester of being an ambassador for Fletch can be enough incentive for those who want to be part of Fletch but feel they may not have enough time. Another way Fletch could offer a competitive incentive is to provide small sum scholarships for ambassadors who had the most student acquisition in a given year. This will not only create healthy competition, but will increase the amount of Fletch users while providing an outlet for students to get through their college experience easier with a Fletch Fund (scholarship).

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h. Opportunities

■ No direct competition

As Fletch continues to be the first and only application designed to facilitate in-person peer collaboration, we can forecast to see us obtain an increase of market share per year. Growing at a rate of 2,000 users per month and gaining university acquisition is a goal that will be much more attainable without having current direct competition. We do not have to go against other platforms that have already been adopted within universities, instead we can provide the first application that has been and will continue to be adopted by colleges. Having a successful test version run with over 10,000 students, that framework will be able to be applied to 3-5 colleges per year starting mid-2016. As the number of users and universities increases, we believe the adoption of colleges and users will increase annually.

■ Ambassador program

The main driving force to advertise and help assist the growth of student acquisition is the use of ambassador programs at colleges where Fletch users are at and going to be. To help grow awareness of the app and all of its services we will strategically find ambassadors at each college, at a minimum of five per college. We find a variety of aspiring individuals who are looking to be part of a community of other students and the leaders behind Fletch for our ambassadors. Fletch also offers incentives for ambassadors like recommendation letters and other supportive material to help students during their college experience and post-college ventures. Some experiences ambassadors can expect are emailing professors about Fletch, talking in-front of their current classes for five minutes while showcasing a video that demonstrates what Fletch has to offer, and explaining in what ways it can benefit the end-user (the students). The ambassadors will act as Fletch evangelists informing other students why they are ambassadors and why Fletch is meaningful to them. This will provide the basis for the collaboration and trust of other students within the campus. By focusing on freshmen and sophomore students to be the ambassadors we are able to reach large sums of students to help brand what Fletch is able to do for the up-and-coming students. Ambassadors will also be able to educate, inform, and set up group meetings with other students and ambassadors within their college community. This not only begins to create the framework for Fletch within the universities but creates a culture that supports learning.

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Ambassadors will also be able to see their ideas potentially implemented into Fletch and be able to utilize those ideas with other students that they are in the field with. The ambassadors will also be provided the resources and information to educate and properly inform other students that may be interested or are currently utilizing Fletch at their university. This will be done by hosting tables in the school commons, speaking during and/or after class time sessions, showing how-to and educational videos, and other material provided by Fletch.

Overall, the ambassadors will be creating a culture and community that other students will want to identify with. It is not just a way to get last minute information for exams and course material, but a chance to form relationships with other students that will last for years to come. Ambassadors are the groundwork to Fletch and the backbone to increasing awareness.

■ Crowdsourcing

With today’s ability to reach thousands of people, talk over different outlets, and collaborate in ways never before possible, Fletch is going to be utilizing all different avenues for crowdsourcing. To help keep costs down, accomplish certain tasks, and increase awareness of Fletch, we will be partnering with students all across the world to be part of our ambassador program. This is just one way we plan to collaborate and reach our goals with Fletch. By communicating with hundreds of students who have an unbiased view of Fletch we are able to take innovative idea generation by conversing with these students and apply those ideas into the application and framework of Fletch. This alone will bring our product development, marketing approach, and user acquisition many advantages. We will also be able to go through strenuous testing and feedback stages before implementing new ideas into the company. With the collaboration of students we will be able to put out quality material that will want to be shared and will begin to generate structured quality web content. It will sufficiently raise awareness of the product and inform others who are in a similar market to start utilizing Fletch. Another important aspect of crowdsourcing allows us to gain adequate market research. We will be dealing with students and others who will be the main users of the application. By gaining their immediate feedback we can adjust any material that we deem necessary for the health of the company.

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i. Threats

■ School based system (Blackboard)

School based systems, like Blackboard, can become a viable threat to the continued success of Fletch because of a few key reasons. One is the fact that the BB system is already integrated into the school system where-as Fletch has to work with universities to want to purchase their information that is attained by their algorithmic technologies. “ With Blackboard courseware used in over 31,000 institutions world–wide, students and instructors from kindergarten through doctoral programs — and those in the workforce as well — interact in Blackboard–structured classrooms (Burn, 2006) (Firstmonday, 2009).” If the developers of Blackboard work to have the same technologies implemented into their software then universities would already have a system accessible to all students. Another thing is the fact the schools already promote the use of Blackboard and are usually required for classes, especially as the classroom changes to an online format. If all of the user-friendly and class-room specific integrated information were to be integrated into Blackboard then it would be difficult for a third party, like Fletch, to get into the market of retaining students and increasing graduation percentages. This can be applied towards other systems that are used for universities outside of specifically Blackboard.

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7. Marketing

a. Target Market

In the fall of 2015 roughly 20.2 million students will be attending college. Of these students, 7 million will be attending a 2 year institution and 13.2 million will attend 4 year universities. Since 2000, there has been an increase by 4.9 million students enrolled in college. But as more students enroll, the graduation rate of these colleges have fallen. Roughly 59% of students who seek 4 year degrees will attain it within 6 years, while the other 41% do not. These students are the target users for Fletch because while there is an increase in the amount of students the retention rate is lower. Universities are losing out on over $15 billion annually.

Within this market we occupy a niche in which we are the only application designed to facilitate in-person peer collaboration. Collaborative learning requires working together toward a common goal. What they have in common is they all incorporate group work, a form of voluntary association of members benefitting from cooperative learning, which enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually. Fletch is the right vehicle to foster such peer-collaboration.

Higher education has seen enrollment decline by 1.5 million in the last 3 years while seeing over 1 million students drop out each year. Additionally, we have massive open online courses (MOOCs) creating alternatives to traditional colleges--although their fail rates, at 50 percent, are comparable to accredited universities.

Retention is the new revenue model for colleges; a classroom of a mere 40 students yields $1.5 million in revenue for a college. We can increase retention in all types of educational institutions by making it easy for their students to build the relationships that provide for adjustment in the college environment. Also, we provide the data that empowers colleges to address students at risk of retention proactively.

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b. Competition

1) Starfish Solutions is a web based, staff driven student retention solution.http://www.starfishsolutions.com/

2) Blackboard is a school based system that is centered around the admin/teacher. It is poorly suited for peer to peer use.

3) Student driven web/mobile platforms for online only collaboration (GetStudyRoom.com, ClusterFlunk.com). It does not let you organize and work with students from the same class.

4) Facebook.com – a poor workaround for collaborating/organizing study groups that limits the user only to those whom they are already connected with.

We are the only app optimized for organizing study groups or getting quick answers during those late night cram sessions. Colleges prefer us because we are able to identify which students are retention risks in real-time without any effort from college staff.

c. Marketing Strategy

Our advantage is that we are a student-run and managed brand. We utilize our student ambassador program to have students get their classmates setup on Fletch. This ensures that students are promoting and maintaining our brand while reducing our overhead of having employees.

To ensure that nearly all students in a lecture hall use Fletch, we not only use word of mouth but we also have a college ambassador take 5 minutes of class time to make an announcement and quickly take students through the setup process.

We also engage the office of retention or academic affairs at universities in which we already have student and college ambassadors on the ground. This ensures that the conversation is about how we can collaborate with colleges on how we can target particular on-campus resources to the appropriate students.

Step 1: Student downloads/uses Fletch at College X Step 2: We recruit college ambassadors at College X Step 3: We engage a College X’s Office of Retention on how we can

collaborate to improve student success.

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d. Promotional strategy

■ Merchandise - T-shirts to Ambassadors.■ Targeted Advertising - Through the internet such as social media,

targeted to college students.■ Word of mouth - Users will be encouraged to tell their classmates

about the program so they can fully utilize the software.■ Ambassador program - The Ambassador program is the focal point

of advertising for Fletch, it has little cost but can increase the user base substantially.

e. Price and sales strategy

We license the Fletch platform to colleges at $5 per student per annum. The target schools have 20,000 or more students with a college retention of 60% or less. This means for every school that we sign that has 20,000 students, each year the college pays $5 per student for the data pertaining to retention. This comes out to $5 per student x 20,000 students = $100,000.

f. Sales Forecast

Fletch has had 10,000 users just 3 months after launch. We have a paid deal with Pasadena City College and a partnership of DeVry University, the second largest college in the USA.

As Fletch continues to be the first and only application designed to facilitate in-person peer collaboration, we can forecast to see us obtain an increase of market share per year of:

1st Year - 3 Colleges on-board2nd Year - 5 Colleges on-board3rd Year - 8 Colleges on-board

With a total of 16 Colleges on board within the first three years.

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g. Milestones

● The Winner of the Big Sell.

● Hyde Park Venture Partners awarded Marquett $50,000 to a tech accelerator shared-space usage at 1871, in the Chicago Merchandise Mart.

● Fletch has had 10,000 users just 3 months after launch. We have a paid deal with Pasadena City College.

● A partnership of DeVry University, the second largest college in the USA.

● Android platform.

● Fletch has received recently iOS approval, per the CTO, Aditya.

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8. Financea. Cost Structure

Monthly Burn rate is about $6,000 per month. Our average deal should be about $40,000 per annum. We’ve currently have a deal for $5,000 with a single department at Pasadena City College. Two of these small deals per month would make us profitable.

Cost Structure

Item Monthly Fixed

Item Monthly Variable

Hosting $100 College Ambassador Stipend

$100

Google Apps $20 In-Person Meeting $450

CEO Salary $2,000

CTO Salary $2,000

E&O Insurance $100

Miscellaneous Tech (iOS/Android developer licenses}

$800

Co-Working Space Membership

$140

Marketing $500

TOTAL $5,660 $550

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b. Financial statement

Total Income $ 1,307.48

Gross Profit $ 1,307.48

Expenses

Bank Charges 180.00

Dues & Subscriptions 414.90

Job Materials 806.44

Legal & Professional Fees 2,344.25

Meals and Entertainment 262.85

Payroll Expenses - Salary - CEO 22,000.00

Promotional 131.95

Stationery & Printing 5.60

Subcontractors 22,664.24

Taxes & Licenses 372.51

Travel 493.51

Travel Meals 15.00

Uncategorized Expense 500.00

Total Expenses $ 50,191.25

Net Operating Income -$ 48,883.77

Other Expenses

Miscellaneous 143.05

Other Miscellaneous Expense 500.00

Total Other Expenses $ 643.05

Net Other Income -$ 643.05

Net Income -$ 49,526.82

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c. Balance sheet

Fletch

Balance Sheet

As of November 13, 2015

Total

ASSETS

Current Assets

Bank Accounts

Checking 25,498.18

Total Bank Accounts $ 25,498.18

Total Current Assets $ 25,498.18

TOTAL ASSETS $ 25,498.18

LIABILITIES AND EQUITY

Liabilities

Total Liabilities

Equity

Opening Balance Equity -24,975.00

Paid-In Capital or Surplus 100,000.00

Retained Earnings 0.00

Net Income -49,526.82

Total Equity $ 25,498.18

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY $ 25,498.18

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d. 3 Year Pro Forma

Fletch

3 Year Outlook

January 1, 2016 - December 31, 2018

2016 2017 2018 Totals

Staff Expenses

CEO Salary 24,000.00 24,360 24,725.40 73,085.40

CTO Salary 24,000.00 24,360 24,725.40 73,085.40

Full-Time Ambas. Manager 34,800.00 34,800.00 34,800.00 104,400.00

3 Full-Time Technical Developers 153,000.00 153,000.00 153,000.00 459,000.00

Part-Time Ambas. Coordinator 0.00 14,560.00 14,560.00 29,120.00

Part-Time Designer 0.00 18,686.00 18,686.00 37,372.00

Other Expenses

Travel Expenses 750.00 1,250.00 2,000.00 4,000.00

Advertisement Supplies/Media 7,200.00 7,500.00 8,000.00 22,700.00

College Ambassador Stipend 1,200.00 1,500.00 1,850.00 4,550.00

Miscellaneous Tech 9,600.00 9,600.00 9,600.00 28,800.00

Co-Working Space 1,680.00 1,680.00 1,680.00 5,040.00

Total Expenses 256,230.00 291,296.00 293,626.80 841,152.80

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9. Summary of findings (where did you get your info)

Aspects of the Pro Forma was retrieved from www.payscale.com

Information on amount of Institutions utilizing Blackboard retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2434/2202

Statistics regarding student retention and annual graduates received from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372+http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cva.asp

http://fletchapp.com/

https://www.f6s.com/fletchap p/about

http://www.marquettburton.com/

#Marquettism

Doing what is right in a challenging world.

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