The past two weeks were very productive, but unfortunately very administrative. This is what we were up to:
In preparation for the big competition in London from Oct. 18-23, the team was compiling all of the information to date. This includes, prototyping, surveys, and build of the team. The initial drafts were sent to the Professors at the ECE for some valuable feedback. The team now is starting rehearse the pitch.
Next, the team has submitted their application for the World Startup Factory in The Hague. This is an incubator program where they will take 10 startups on and give them 15,000 eur, office space and mentorship. Fortunately, Beep Beep has been doing some great networking and have had multiple Skype calls with the organization to go over the concept. Tonight we were invited to the Hague to meet some of the World Startup Factory team for a networking event.
Here's what we told them:
"BeepBeep Parking simply helps people find parking spaces in
big cities. In a world where technology allows for certainty, why do we still
leave parking up to chance? We provide a mobile application to help solve
street parking issues through a shared economy. Each day people in cities spend
time looking for a space which means increased fuel costs, lost time, headaches
and impacts to both the environment and existing infrastructure. Our app looks
to be unique in the fact that we use technology to suggest "optimal path
directions" based on how long a space has been open, the distance, the
number of spots open along the path and the success rate of the spot still
being there. We will under promise since
the spot can't be ensured to be there, but over deliver using analytics.
Gamification will help users share information about leaving, to nudge them
that they need to share so they can search when they are on the other side of
the game. We want to create easy to push
chat features where users can connect.
Beep Beep believes in scalability, user base and the ability to get a
fragmented paid-for parking market on our map in the future. This will penetrate the private spots (airbnb
model) and parking garage space optimizer (hotels.com model). But first we will use the free model for
majority users (waze traffic app model), where users will share as part of a
community. Our team is going to compete
in London for a 100k pounds development package (1 of 5 teams) on October 22. Also accepted to present a booth at Web Summit
in Dublin (Nov 3-5), the largest tech conference. At this stage we have a basic static
prototype showing the "gamification" and are using it for field
visits in Amsterdam to get feedback for out pilot city. We have had multiple interviews, multiple field
observations and online surveys.
Currently taking a class at the ECE to use a dashboard method to test
our hypothesis and our leaps of faith, and dial them in. Beep Beep is a logistics company who happens
to use an mobile app!"
The team has also made some adjustments to the prototype based on the feedback we have received. :
- A red dotted line that passes by at least 3 available parking spots, suggesting the maximum probability to get a spot. If the user selects to navigate on an alternate route, then it should also show the probabilities for that route to get a spot.
- Clear post and park buttons, as now it's not clear that "home" is the park page.
- Make more clear that each search takes away a letter. This could be achieved by animation and sound. We are also thinking in make each search a "beep", limiting free searches to two. In return, a parking spot share would return two searches or a full "beep beep".
- Continue to improve app design, specially for map and chat.
The team is also looking into a target base market where we can beta test on loyal users:
The electric car market! There are currently 1,300 public charging parking spaces in Amsterdam. This is expected to grow to 4,000 in the next 2-3 years. There is also competition with car2go organizing and providing over 300 public EV cars, but possible niche market to explore!
Lastly, looking into identifying user worth and user acquisition cost. Here are some rough conservative numbers:
How much is each general consumer worth (conservative)
Life of consumer is expected to be 10 years.
(From launch of Beep Beep to new innovation in market)
Revenue:
1.Subscription (assume 2 EUR
/ mon) = expected for 2 out of 10 users. (25 EUR/year) = 4.8 average consumer *
10 years = 48 EUR
2.Gamification (assume 1 EUR
buy) = average user 0.25 per month * 12months * 10 years = 30 EUR
3.Private Spots = Ave. street parking = 4.50 EUR/hr, so average
private rentals will be less, assume 3 EUR.
Average stay 5 hours. = 15 EUR Transaction charge = 10% so BeepBeep makes 1.5
euro, so Average consumer uses 6 times/year (mix of 1 time users & daily) =
9 EUR * 10 years = 90 EUR
Consumer worth = 48 + 30 + 90 = €168 / consumer
compounded at 10% growth year over year = € 268 / consumer
Lifetime net value of customer = €268
Rule of thumb is spend 15% per acquisition = .15 *
€268 = €40 /customer acqu.
Mailing list size Amsterdam (assume user
base is ages 20-45 and 2/3
of drivers)
= (2/3) *
250,000 drivers = 167,000 drivers to reach
Average mailing list response rate is 3% (range 1-5%)
Average conversion rate is 15% (range 10-30%
very conservative, conversions already factored)
Total Campaign Cost: € 20,000 (includes list, design, printing, and mailing)
Acquisition per customer = 167,000 drivers * .03 response rate * .15 conversion rate = 750 users
Cost Per user = € 20,0000 campaign / 750 users = €27 EUR user
€27 EUR cost/cust.
< €40 EUR worth/cust.
That's all for now!
