INVESTOR PITCH

For our final assignment we were asked to finalize our Business Canvas Model, create a Investors Deck, and make sure we know our investors. We edited and finalized our Business Canvas Model, which we will post on our blog page. For this last assignment we created a clear and simple presentation. We included in the slides, our Business Elements to show we did our homework, our work so far, the uncertainty investors may have, information about our team, and “the ask”- what we will do with the rest of our money.

The problem that we found was that there was no network like this in Tel Aviv. We wanted there to be a network where those looking to practice yoga could find all the information they need in one location. Our solution was the creation of our start up company, OM CITY. OM CITY would provide as a networking website where yoga lovers can easily access information about yoga studios in their city, and network with people in their yoga community.

In our Business Elements we discussed was the importance of having a strong relationship with our customers and investors. We want to provide clear information for our users by creating an accessible webpage. We want to provide online and offline channels. We also discussed our Revenue. We plan to receive revenue from OM CITY subscriptions and from advertisements from other external investors. We also hope to get money from yoga studio investors and other yoga companies for investing in our business.

To explain the work we have done so far we discussed how we launched our website- omcity.net. We also mentioned how we used Google AdWords to set this up, and for different testing features for the website. We set it up to allow members to sign up for a newsletter. We have also created a Facebook page so that members can follow us. We also mentioned the start of our sales acquisition.

In our presentation we also discussed the positive feedback that we got from individuals. We mentioned that our website got over 100 sessions in a few days and that 40% of the people stayed on our page. We also had 13 people who would have purchased the OM CITY Yoga Pass. Through our research, we got positive feedback from various yoga studios and from friends and family.

Most importantly, we discussed the core of our business, the TEAM! We included a portion of our presentation re-introducing our positions and ourselves. Olivia Koehler, the CEO of our business, and Becca Cohen, the CSO/CMO of our start up business. We stated that we both have a passion for Yoga and are familiar with the field.

End the end of our presentation we discussed the important solution to “The Ask.” The big question of what we did with our money. We discussed how we used our money for the development of our web service and for marketing purposes. We used this money to figure out how people will sign up for our site and sign up for yoga classes through our site.

We are happy to be concluded with this project for now. Our hard work has paid off.

-Becca and Olivia

TESTING OF THE WEBSITE + UPDATED BUSINESS CANVAS MODEL

For testing our Business Model we rebuilt the website and added two pages to the landing page. One focusses on the OM CITY map and one page focusses on the OM CITY "YOGA PASS". With this we wanted to track what people are more interested in.  We also set up a Facebook page, but it was not the goal to push the Facebook page, we wanted people to be on the webpage to track their activity. 

We ran a Google AdWords campaign to promote our page to various people that live in Tel Aviv. Through this we gained 22 clicks in two days. It cost us $40 which we think might be a bit high. There is probably a way to improve in this.

After launching the website and checking Google Analytics we were pretty happy with our results. According to Google Analytics we had 160 page view on our page, 128 unique page views, 87 sessions, and 71 users. Most of the viewers happened to be in Tel Aviv, which is our target market, but we did gain viewers from other cities as well. 

We totaled 81 sessions for our starting page, with 60% drop-offs. The other percentage clicked through the page - less people clicked on the OM CITY PASS though. We want to mention that we built the page of the yoga pass in a way that it seemed that people would already sign up for a pass (if they click on the icon). Considering that it's a good sign that 6 people right away and 4 people later clicked on it.

Also 6 people subscribed to the newsletter. Moreover, we got a good feedback from a Yoga studio that we contacted. They would be happy to be involved. Additionally, one private Yoga teacher saw our post and wrote us on Facebook and she asked how she can add her Yoga studio to our page. This showed us that there are people out there - both Yoga studios and potential users - who are interested in our service.

Also find our updated "Business Canvas Model" below.

NEW NAME + WEBSITE

After making some changes to our original idea we were able to come up with a stronger idea. We brainstormed a new name - OM CITY - for our start up company and developed our Minimal Viable Product. 

The MVP is now our new website which we have created. We have designed a responsive landing page where we can collect emails from potential users who are interested in our idea. We implemented a mock up to give our viewers a preview of our site. We have created a Facebook page as well which is also shared as a link on our website. These features will give us feedback if people are interested in our product. 

Check out: www.omcity.net

MINIMAL VIABLE PRODUCT

Right now we are working on our Minimal Viable Product.... This following video helped us a lot to remember again what the MVP is all about and what we should focus on. 
It's a talk from Eric Ries under the topic #leanstartup.

NEW UPDATE- NEW FOCUS + QUESTIONS AND RESULTS FROM OUR SURVEY

To be more precise about our market size we did another research on Yoga, Dance and Kitesurfing on Facebook. We found that there is a huge potential for Yoga based on the likes for a lot of Yoga places we found. Because of that we made the decision to only focus on Yoga for our web service.

//
YOGA
more than 100 places on facebook for “Yoga & Pilates Studios”
Ashtanga Yoga Tel Aviv - 1.634 likes
Iyengar Yoga Center - Tel Aviv - 1.145 likes
Yoga Store - 9.011 likes
Prana Yoga - 11.383 likes
Bikram Yoga Israel - 3.772 likes
EllaYoga - 5.830 likes
yoga.co.il (on fb) - 2.625 likes
//


In order to get some feedback we decided create a survey to send out. All people that took part in the survey are practicing Yoga. We resulted in getting a lot of feedback (41 people). 
Here were the percentages that we got from the survey. 

Questions from the survey:

Have you ever been in a position where you wanted to look for more information of different places to practice yoga?
The answers showed us that almost everybody was at least once looking for information which would create a need for our web service.

When you were looking for information to do yoga where did you find most of the information?
Most people were trying to find information over google search. That's good, because then they would find our website that helps them.

If you accessed the internet to find information about where to practice yoga, where did you find most of the information?
Not many but at least some people had difficulties in finding information. The survey was not limited to Tel Aviv, that means that the result of this question doesn't have a big weight.













If you accessed the internet for information what did you find difficult about the search?
The most answers addressed that the information was not organised and difficult to navigate and that they  would have liked to see more interaction, such as comments and ratings from others.

Would you be interested in having a pass where you could use at different yoga studios? (i.e- a pass that you could use for different yoga classes)
These answers showed us that there is a big potential and interest for the YOGA PASS.

Is a healthy lifestyle important to you? 
This showed us that there is a potential to also include the whole healthy lifestyle of Yoga people in our web service.

*We were happy to have had many responses. This will help us in figuring out our basis to progress further. We are now  working on our website. 
We will also be making alterations to our start up company, taking these results into consideration. 

HYPOTHESIS AND EXPERIMENT OUTLINE

Section 1:  Value Proposition   

H: Sports lovers will look on the internet to see if they can easily and quickly locate places to do their favorite sports (kitesurfing, yoga and dance) in Tel Aviv.

Experiment:

Interview and ask newbies in TLV and that are doing/did kitesurfing, yoga or dance:  

Q: When you arrived, did you ever wonder or try to find where you could do your favorite sport?

Q: Where did you look for these information?

Q: How was their experience on finding the information they needed on the internet.

Pass Signal?

If we succeed with this experiment people will state that it is or was hard for them to find information. People may share stories about a time when they actually tried to find where they could do sports.

Did they visit places, talk to people, post on facebook, etc?

Fail Signal?

If  we fail this experiment the people will state that they had no problems finding information or already found web pages with all the information they needed.

People answer that they wanted to but just didn’t have the time or decided to wait until they got home. The hypothesis fails if we cannot find anyone who actually tried to search and connect.

Section 2:  Customer Segments   

H: People want to stay active with their favorite workout activity or sport when they travel abroad for an extended time (stay longer than 2 -3 weeks).

More Focused:  People  (ages 18 and up) who are active more than 3 or 4 times per week at home, but plan to travel for more than 2-3 weeks. People who want to know where they can connect to sports community/activity  of choice.

Experiment:

Ask: People that are in Tel Aviv for an extended period of time: Are they looking to continue doing the sport (Yoga, Dance, Kitesurf) they do at home?

Pass Signal?

We will find that a majority of people we asked were looking to continue to kitesurf, do yoga, or dance in tel aviv.

Fail Signal?

We will find that a minority of people we asked were not looking to continue to kitesurf, do yoga, or dance

Section 3:  Channels   

H: Information needs to be easily accessible and navigational, our site should be easy to find and well advertised- diffused through other offline channels.

Aside from immediate friends, people will check the internet first to see if they can find out about things to do abroad.

Experiment:

Ask people that just had moved to Tel Aviv- how they found out about sports in Tel Aviv.

Pass Signal?

Check to see if answers reflect targeted channels identified by team. Be on the lookout for those who were successful in their search and those who were not.  What happened after the failed searches?

* Key…  Do most people report that they check the internet first for information about activities?  People who are looking to connect should report they checked the internet at some point.

Fail Signal?

If the majority of the people reported finding their favorite sports community without checking internet, or hearing about it from sports stores or schools.

Section 4:  Customer Relationships

H: People want quality information and multiple input from other people so they can find a trustworthy option for a place to do the sports they love in Tel Aviv.  

How we will test

Ask people: Are you active in any online communities?  What do they do that you like?  (More Direct): What would you like to see on our site that would keep you coming back and refer us to your friends?  What do you pay for on the site? Would you trust comments and ratings from other users.

Pass Signal?

People will either tell you about the sites they are members, how often they use and if they pay any services or products on the site.  Or… they tell us what they would like to see a site like ours.

Fail Signal?

If we ask people and find that most of the sites have old pictures and dated information and people don’t care. We need to find out why.  Maybe our site will not have an advantage for the user over the other sites. If people say they get bored quickly with the sites they access we need to find a way to keep them engaged.

Section 5:  Key Activities    

H: Creating a simply designed and easy to use website with quality content will be crucial to the success of the site. This will require time at the start.

Pass Signal?

Are more users attracted to site after the first month?  second month?

Develop a beta site or a facebook page or private web page to test the structure of the site and program use.

Fail Signal?

No new  activity on the site after 3 months- people are not revisiting the site

Section 6:  Key Resources   

H: The website and it’s simplicity itself is a main advantage to our customer. That’s why we need a web developer for the main developing of the page.

Pass Signal?

Have people use the site as a trial - have them rate their experience.

Fail Signal?

Discovery of too many glitches.  Beta users report difficulty.  If mostly poor ratings- look at site redesign and navigation path.

Section 7:  Key Partners   

H: We have to have a very close relationship with various partner who want to commit and be involved in our project.

Pass Signal?

More  than 30% yield of shops/studios agreeing to partner with the site

Fail Signal?

Less than 20 % don’t want to or care to be involved with site.

Section 8:  Revenue Streams   

H: The site will not generate large revenues on end-user memberships alone. It will have to provide opportunities for product purchases,  classes, and advertising from stores, and yoga and dance stores.  Partnerships and opportunities to co- create will be critical to maximize revenues.

How we will test

Conduct a survey of extreme sports stores, dance, and yoga studios. Ask them would they pay a premium for on- site publicity on our web site. Would they pay 100.00 shekels?  50?

Less Direct:  What do you do to promote your store/shop/classes?   Would you partner with a online interactive directory and referral site?

Pass Signal?

Positive responses.  Requests for more information.  Will work with the Israeli answer: “It Depends”.

Fail Signal?

We can’t find any shop owner or studion owner who has ever paid for advertising or publicity.

Section 9:  Cost Structure   

H: Our largest initial expense/costs will for the web platform and the reseach the will go into it including the involvement our partners.

A focus on communicating of our value proposition to the end-user and our target shops and studios will help us finance it.

Hypothesis #2  We expect that professional web developers will want compensation for their services.  We can save money by contracting with young professionals or web developers that are looking for internships.  

Hypothesis #3  There are opportunities to partner with web-technology start-ups where we can exchange publicity for low cost or free development services.  

Hypothesis #4  Our current business model suggest that we start small and develop/grow in stages.  This method is not likely to attract venture capital.  

Hypothesis #5  This idea is scalable.  This idea is franchisable. But in increments.

How we will test

Ask free -lance web developers we know if they can work on the site for us in exchange for free publicity and referral.

Pass Signal?

People are eager to work with us on building a platform for site

Fail Signal?

We can not secure expert technical support to build out site due to lack of funds.

MARKET SIZE

We want to focus on people who just moved to the Tel Aviv area. These may include people of all ages. Here are some statistics that we have found, that will help us get a jumpstart on a better idea for our market size...

“Tel Aviv has the highest percentage of young people of any city in Israel” (http://english.tau.ac.il/tel_aviv_global_city)

“Sports activities are an integral part of the of the city's residents day to day life. The city produces 70 mega-events annually, attracting over 200,000 participants. More than 55% of the city's residents participate in sports activities in the city.” (http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/eng/visitors/Pages/Sports.aspx?tm=3&sm=57)

Tourism: 53 hotels with close to 6,846 hotel rooms, over a million guests and 2.7 million overnight stays. (http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/eng/AboutTheCity/Pages/CityNumbers.aspx)

Here are some statistics we want to focus on. We are also going to look into the amount of people at TAU (and other universities within israel). We could use the influx of people in universities and other locations, such as hotels for the spread of our start up company.

We are still working on consolidating our EXACT market size, but these statistics and ideas will give us insight to progress forward.