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Teach high schoolers the financial skills they will need to manage a salary, buy a car and avoid debt.

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The film about money
https://wetheeconomy.com/films/

GDP
GDP smack down
https://wetheeconomy.com/films/
P32 work about GDP

Lesson 2.

Supply and demand
https://wetheeconomy.com/resources/WTE_Complete_Companion_Guide_compressed.pdf
P27
Draw the grid

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lesson 1.
Play video
The film about money
https://wetheeconomy.com/films/that-film-about-money/

https://wetheeconomy.com/films/that-second-film-about-money/?autoplay=yes

How does this look like in Australia?
Describe the steps of money flow starting from you when you borrow money. Where does it go?
Scenario 1: buy a car or mobile phone
Scenario 2: buy an investment property
Scenario 3: Open a restaurant, sports store, bookshop or another business

How about when you place your money in savings? Where does it go?

Would you like to explore more like this?
https://wetheeconomy.com/films/

Lesson 2
1. Credit cards
Difference between credit and debit cards
https://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/learn/credit/credit_basics
What is a credit score and how does it affect your borrowing power?
https://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/learn/credit/credit_scores
How to keep a high credit score?
https://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/learn/credit/building_credit

2. Millennial money
https://www.cnbc.com/millennial-money/
Select a person’s profile and learn how they manage and make their money.
Write a short report on the topic, with a catchy headline, targeted to students like you. 7-10 sentences

3. Play games
Loan and profit on loans
https://shadysam.com/
Saving
https://buildyourstax.com/

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Wendy De La Rosa uses behavioral science to help people make better financial decisions.

Why you should listen

Wendy De La Rosa is cofounder of Common Cents Lab, which works to improve financial well-being for low- to moderate-income people. She helped start Google's first behavioral economics unit, optimizing product strategy and design, customer retention and engagement, and revenue across more than 30 teams. She was a researcher at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she collaborated with Dr. Adam Grant on research and application projects on organizational behavior, employee motivation and burnout. She was also a private equity investor at Goldman Sachs.

De La Rosa's work has been published in Scientific American, PBS Newshour, Forbes and Tech Crunch and was named a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree and a Daisy and Paul Soros scholar. She holds a PhD from Stanford's Graduate School of Business focusing on consumer behavior as well as a bachelor's in economics with a concentration in management and finance from Wharton. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. In her spare time, De La Rosa leads a monthly behavioral economic reading and discussion series.

Wendy De La Rosa's TED talks

More news and ideas from Wendy De La Rosa

Behavioral economist Wendy de la Rosa regretted how much she was spending, but felt like she couldn't stop. She shares the lifehack that got her spending under control -- and two other money-saving tricks.

Continue reading

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You have JavaScript disabled Wendy De La Rosa uses behavioral science to help people make better financial decisions. Wendy De La Rosa is cofounder of Common Cents Lab, which works to improve financial well-being for low- to moderate-income people.

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Wendy De La Rosa: Why talking to your friends can help you save money

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Wendy De La Rosa: Why talking to your friends can help you save money

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What convinced British citizens to send in their taxes on time? And what resulted in San Diego residents reducing their energy consumption? Learning that their neighbors were doing it. Behavioral psychologist Wendy De La Rosa shares the surprising power of our peers and how we can use it to improve our financial habits.

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How to take charge of your personal finances

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It's hard to know where to start with personal finance - saving, budgeting and everything else in between. These TED Talks provide insightful perspectives and practical advice to help you face your financial situation with honesty and compassion.

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How to take charge of your personal finances | TED Talks

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It's hard to know where to start with personal finance - saving, budgeting and everything else in between. These TED Talks provide insightful perspectives and practical advice to help you face your financial situation with honesty and compassion.

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This checklist is the primary guide to the business plan and assessment.

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3. Business Major Work: Storyboard Checks - 31 Jul

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Example and template for business plan storyboard 

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Example and template for business plan storyboard 

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You can use this template and follow the instructions to develop the  business plan, or create your own. Make sure you use the checklist to ascertain that all the key points are included.

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Business Plan Template - Storyboard example

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Bplans: Business Planning Resources and Free Business Plan Samples

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How to use sample business plans to help you write your own

Use our exclusive gallery of more than 500 free sample business plans from a wide variety of industries to help you start writing your own business plan today.

How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started.

If you're looking for a tool that offers step-by-step plan writing guidance, we recommend LivePlan, especially if you're writing a business plan to get a bank loan or outside investment and need a plan in an SBA-approved format.

Get LivePlan in your classroom

Are you an educator looking for real-world business plan examples for your students? With LivePlan, you give your students access to industry-best business plans and help them set goals and track metrics with spreadsheet-free financial forecasts. All of this within a single tool that includes additional instructional resources that work seamlessly alongside your current classroom setup.

With LivePlan, it's not just a classroom project. It's your students planning for their futures. Click here to learn more about business planning for students.

Prepare to pitch your business

If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides.

Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest. Luckily, just like you can leverage a sample business plan template to write your plan, we also have a gallery of over 50 pitch decks for you to reference.

With this gallery, you have the option to view specific industry pitches or get inspired by real-world pitch deck examples. Or for a modern pitch solution that helps you create a business plan and pitch deck side-by-side, you may want to check out LivePlan. It will help you build everything needed for outside investment and to better manage your business.

Here's how to get the most out of a sample plan

Choose a sample plan from a similar type of company

You don't need to find a sample business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match exactly to the plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a plan that's related to the type of business you're starting.

For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.

Use a sample as a guide

Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying a sample plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your plan to be a useful tool for starting a business-and getting funding if you need it.

One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market, and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful.

You'll also look at where you stand among your competition (and everyone has competition), and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet. Looking at a sample plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business.

If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, this guide on how to write a business plan is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template, or get started right away with LivePlan.

Think of business planning as a process, instead of a document

Think about business planning as something you do often, rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business. It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page.

Adjust your plan regularly to use it as a business management tool

Keep in mind that businesses that use their plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis.

If things are going well, your plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast. Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities-it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business.

Ready to get started?

Now that you know how to use a sample business plan to help you write a plan for your business, it's time to find the right one.

Use the search bar below to get started and find the right match for your business idea.

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Use our exclusive gallery of more than 500 free sample business plans from a wide variety of industries to help you start writing your own business plan today. How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before?

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This a detailed example of a business plan aimed for general information

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Founders have to learn so many new skills when they're launching a startup, and writing a business plan is a big one. When you're writing your business plan for the first time, things can get... intimidating.

What do you include? What kind of wording should you use? What do make sure not to include?

It's enough to make even a stalwart startup founder throw in the towel before they've even begun.

Lucky for you - we've created a complete guide to writing your business plan. Check it out if you haven't already. (And if a link from there brought you here, just keep reading!)

But, while it's nice to be guided step-by-step, it can also really help to have concrete examples when you're approaching creating something for the first time.

So, with that in mind, here are four sample business plans from the Startups community that we think really stand out from the crowd.
Click on the below links to see fully formatted versions or continue reading for the text-only version of Culina's.
Fast Facts:

Founded: 2013
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founder: Kent McClure
Market Size: $12.5 billion
Target Audience: Homeowners; property managers; insurance providers.

Quick Description:

Culina is a San Francisco-based IoT and home automation company. We design an advanced smart hub technology that enables users to interconnect and remotely monitor all of their cooking devices and kitchen appliances through a single user-friendly platform.

Our Mission:

To make homes smarter, more connected, and safer for families while helping them save money and conserve energy through the power of affordable, automated technology.

Our Vision:

To become the leading provider of IoT technology for kitchen appliances on a global scale with application across both residential and commercial properties.

Company Synopsis:

Culina Tech is the next leading name in home automation and IoT. We're committed to leading the charge in creating the ultimate smart kitchen for homeowners all around the world. Our revolutionary Smart Plugs enable users to make any kitchen appliance or cooking device intelligent. Compatible with all existing brands that plug into standard two or three-prong wall outlets, Culina creates an entire network of Wi-Fi-connected kitchen devices. The Culina App allows users to remotely monitor the status of and control all devices connected to our Smart Plugs. Whether it's remotely turning on the coffee pot after getting out of bed, turning off the stove if it was accidentally left on via smartphone, or switching on the crockpot before getting home from work, Culina is purpose-built to deliver unrivaled convenience and peace of mind.

With the ability to set energy usage caps on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, Culina helps homeowners stay within their monthly utility budget and save energy in the kitchen through more efficient use of the dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, stove, and other common appliances.

When a device reaches its energy limit, Culina alerts users through their smartphone and is built with the ability to power down the device automatically if the user chooses. The App measures key usage metrics in real time, allowing users to get an instant dashboard view of energy consumption as it occurs.

Our team has already finished the product development and design phase, with 3 prototype iterations completed, and we are now ready to begin mass manufacturing. We've also gained major traction among consumers and investors alike, with 10,000 pre-ordered units sold and $5 million in capital secured to date.

With this round of funding, our objective is to ramp up hardware manufacturing, improve software UX and UI, expand our sales and marketing efforts, and fulfill pre-orders in time for the 2017 holiday season. We are currently seeking a $15M Series B capital investment that will give us the financial flexibility to achieve these goals. On behalf the entire Culina Tech team, we'd like to thank you for your time and interest in our company and this investment opportunity.

Funding Allocation:

Team Overview:

The kitchen is the heart of the home. It's a quintessential gathering place where families and friends come together to break bread, be merry, and make memories. But the kitchen is also where tragedy often strikes due to misuse of appliances. Kent McClure and his team set out to make the kitchen a safer and more energy-efficient place for the family after a tragic fire struck his own kitchen in late 2012. Thankfully, no lives were lost and everyone in his family made it out safe and sound, but Kent couldn't help but wonder "what if."

With decades in the industrial design space, Kent knew he had the knowledge and the industry contacts to set out to improve upon home automation devices for the kitchen with a solution that not only made homes safer, but also cut down on energy consumption and the associated costs. In early 2013, Culina was born. Since that time, Kent and the Culina team have made it their mission to completely revolutionize the home automation and IoT space with innovative, AI-powered technology.

Kent McClure | Founder & CEO
Kent is a Carnegie Mellon graduate with over 10 years of executive leadership experience in industrial design and engineering. He has a successful entrepreneurial history, founding a prior tech-based startup which he grew to $100 million in revenue, followed by acquisition in 2010 and then IPO shortly after.

Sherri Carlson | COO
Sherri earned her MBA from Harvard Business School. She oversees all of Culina's ongoing operations and procedures and is responsible for driving Culina to achieve and surpass sales, profitability, cash flow, and business goals and objectives.

Martin Frink | CTO
Martin is a Stanford University alumnus with extensive technical expertise and over a decade of experience at venture-backed tech companies. He is responsible for Culina's technical vision, heading up all aspects of our technological development, strategic direction, development, and future growth.

Margaret Burns | CFO
Margaret earned her degree in Financial Management from NYU. Prior to joining Culina, Margaret spent seven years as CFO for a publicly-traded mobile tech company headquartered in Silicon Valley. She currently manages Culina's financial risks and handles all financial planning, record-keeping, and reporting.

Market Opportunity

An enormous need exists for dramatic reductions in energy consumption. Businesses alone consume 12-20% of the total US energy supply on food production, processing, manufacturing, distribution, and preparation.

On the residential side, the Energy Information Administration estimates that the average US household uses 11,280 kWh per year. Many homeowners are simply unaware of the large amount of energy consumed by many small household kitchen appliances:

Dishwasher: 133 watts
Television: 1,200 to 2,400 watts
Coffee Maker: 900 to 1,200 watts
Washing Machine: 350 to 500 watts
Toaster: 55 to 250 watts
Window Fan: 800 to 1,400 watts

The majority of US households now spend roughly 35 percent of their energy consumption on appliances, electronics, and lighting.

Most homeowners don't think about the little details that can help save them money on their energy bill. The vast majority of people keep the refrigerator or freezer too cold, fail to make sure refrigerator door seals are airtight, neglect to regularly defrost fridges and freezers, overload their dishwashers, and keep dishwasher water temperature too hot. As a result, energy consumption remains high, and energy bills remain high.

Not only do kitchens represent a primary source of the household energy consumption, but also a primary source of house fires. More fires start in the kitchen than any other room in the home, and household cooking appliances frequently account for the billions of dollars in fire-related insurance claims every year. The number one cause of house fires and house fire injuries is the stove.

✓ 46% of house fires caused by cooking equipment
✓ 62% of house fires caused by ranges or cooktops
✓ $4,000 average fire and smoke damage repair costs

Culina is actively solving both of these common challenges caused by cooking equipment simultaneously. Our technology provides homeowners with immediate,
real-time insight into their energy consumption by aggregating data for all kitchen appliances connected to our Smart Plugs while also delivering the preventative intelligence necessary to reduce kitchen-related disasters.

Key Features and Benefits:

We designed our Culina Smart Plugs to work in tandem with an intuitive, user-friendly mobile application - allowing users to gain a much-needed technological upgrade to the most popular room in the house.

Easy Setup:

Culina Smart Plugs work with standard two and three-pronged appliances and cooking devices. Simply attach the Culina Smart Plug to the appliance's electrical, plug it into the wall, download the Culina app, connect, and configure.

Constantly Learning:

Powered by machine learning artificial intelligence, our Intelligent Culina Response System learns user habits every time someone uses an appliance connected to one of our Smart Plugs.

Multi-Threat Sensors:

Our state-of-the-art sensors detect a variety of potential threats to the kitchen - including sudden and unusual temperature fluctuations, poisonous gas and emissions, toxic smoke, and more. Homeowners receive alerts whenever unusual activity is in progress such as a stovetop being left on for too long or during an unusual time of day.

Remote Monitoring:

Users can monitor all information directly from an easy-to-navigate dashboard in real time using the Culina App for iOS and Android. Users can check metrics such as fridge and freezer temperature, cook time, and usage data as it is being gathered.

Remote Appliance Control:

With the Culina App, users can control all connected appliances and devices. If our Smart Plug is attached to a crockpot, for example, a user can add the ingredients before they head to work, activate the crockpot remotely, and come home to a readymade meal waiting for them the moment they step through the front door.

We designed our Culina Smart Plugs to work in tandem with an intuitive, user-friendly mobile application - allowing users to gain a much-needed technological upgrade to the most popular room in the house.

Remote Shut-Off:

Not only does remote operation over appliances provide convenience, it also serves to prevent kitchen-related hazards. The Culina App includes auto shut-off capabilities allowing users to turn off appliances using their smartphone even when they're not at home. This is particularly useful in the event that users forget to turn off the oven or stove to prevent potential house fires.

Advanced Notifications:

In addition to notifying users if an appliance is left on by accident or if it detects a potential hazard, Culina also reminds users anytime regular maintenance is required.

Energy Consumption Data:

Users can also monitor energy consumption on a weekly basis right from the Culina App. By providing at-a-glance insight into whether energy use has gone up or down, users gain the ability to adjust their usage accordingly in order to conserve energy and ultimately save money in utility bills the long term.

Inter-operability:

Our cloud-based technology integrates with other popular platforms including Google's Nest and Lowe's Iris.

Cost-Saving Benefits:

Not only can users conserve money in energy consumption bills with Culina, but new insurance guidelines also provide significant discounts for homeowners who deploy smart technologies in their homes.

Pricing and revenue

Culina will initially monetize from hardware sales.

Hardware:

Our product will sell for $149 MSRP with approximately 40% profit margin. We will initially sell our product through popular e-commerce platforms and through our website - followed by brick-and-mortar outlets including Lowe's, Best Buy, Home Depot, and other major big box retailers.

Company Milestones:

With much of the heavy lifting already completed, Culina has laid the groundwork for rapid expansion going forward. Here's an overview of our accomplishments since first founding the company in 2013.

Consumer Validated:

Our first generation product is market-ready and primed for commercial manufacturing. We have pre-sold 10,000 units, representing approximately $1,890,000 in pre-launch revenue. Our immediate customer base growing by the day and we have successfully proven that this is a product that consumers want and are enthusiastic about.

Investor-Backed:

We have secured a total of $5 million in funding among angel investors, founder capital, friends and family, and VCs.

Proprietary Technology:

We have applied for and have been granted a provisional patent for our Smart Plug technology.

Strategic Partnerships:

We are in the process of building relationships with notable industry leaders, influencers, and development teams in the home automation sector. We are also in advanced-stage partnership discussions with a number of major name insurance providers.

Press Mentions:

Culina has received coverage in many of today's most renowned tech and entrepreneurial publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, The Verge, WIRED, and Engadget, among others.

Manufacturing:

A US-based contract manufacturer has been secured and is ready to begin production with the capacity to produce around 50K units per month as we scale.

Future Development

Our initial focus on the consumer space with our launch product is just the first step in our long term roadmap to growth. In order to capture a larger market share and continue scaling the company exponentially, we are planning on rolling out a B2B model in the future. This will provide Culina with new revenue streams and will offer a valuable, tech-driven solution for businesses.

Commercial Kitchens:

Commercial kitchens consume a huge amount of energy - roughly 2.5 times more per square foot than any other commercial space, according to the EPA.

The Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI) estimates commercial kitchen equipment is often only 50% efficient. The challenge with reducing energy consumption in commercial kitchens is that it's neither practical nor affordable to replace all kitchen equipment or redesign entire work spaces.

In an effort to reduce CO2 emissions, some governments are offering incentives to business who can cut back on their carbon footprint. In the UK, Enhanced Capital Allowances allow businesses to benefit from 100% tax relief on their qualifying capital expenditure on energy-saving equipment. This can provide a cash flow boost and an incentive to invest in energy-saving equipment which normally carries a price premium compared to less efficient alternatives.

Our 2nd generation product will represent a revenue-generating and energy-saving solution for commercial kitchens where equipment is frequently selected based on low capital cost with little regard to whole life-cycle cost and the resulting negative energy consumption.

Built on cloud computing, machine-to-machine communication, and information-gathering sensors, the Internet of Things market is rapidly making more and more commonplace devices "smarter." Factor in the increasing prevalence of smartphones and tablets, and home automation and IoT products are now becoming much easier to use and significantly more affordable than they have ever been before.

What was once only reserved for the wealthy and tech-savvy, everyday consumers now have direct access to and can take advantage of a growing number of home automation devices. The evolution of the Internet of Things has enabled consumers to digitally connect and remotely control everything from their door locks to their thermostat to their garage opener and essentially everything else in between. Evidence of the enormous impact home automation tech has had in the consumer space can be seen in the enormous adoption of products like Nest and Amazon Echo.

The home automation market and Internet of Things (IoT) space is a thriving industry with growth expected to exceed $50 billion by 2020. This represents an estimated 300% increase from today's market of $12.5 billion. Around 8.4 billion connected devices will be installed globally by the end of 2017, representing a +31% increase in just one year. Around 63% of these devices will be used by consumers, with the remainder deployed by businesses.

Culina is perfectly positioned to capitalize on a major multi-billion dollar market opportunity to provide greater protection, actionable intelligence, lower energy consumption, and more cost savings to the millions of homes in the US.

Target Audience

We are directly targeting three specific target populations for our product:

Homeowners:

Homeowners are our end users and will benefit the most from our product. For homeowners, Culina represents safety, peace of mind, increased convenience, and an economically-wise investment that pays for itself over time.

Residential Property Managers:

Including apartment complex and student housing owners. Culina offers increased owner ROI, occupant satisfaction, significantly lower operational and maintenance costs.

Insurance Companies:

By reducing home fires caused by unattended cooking and the resulting billions of dollars in related insurance claims filed every year. Insurance companies can also leverage our technology to adjust homeowners insurance policy pricing.

Marketing Strategy

Culina has carefully developed a diverse marketing plan intended to keep our brand in the hearts and minds of our existing and prospective customers, enabling us to continue expanding our reach, and grow our business. Between our massive social network followings and email database contacts, we regularly communicate directly with over 100,000 consumers.

SEO & Social:

We will drive traffic and conversions to our website using social media marketing via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and others. We are also exploring SEO and SEM.

Content Marketing:

We consistently release marketing content through our blog that aims to educate our audience about the value that our product provides. Our content marketing efforts aim to influence and persuade readers without having to rely solely on conventional direct selling tactics.

Influencer Marketing:

We will launch an initiative to guest blog articles and features in IoT, home automation, and startup tech publications like TechCrunch, Wired, VentureBeat, and other outlets in our industry.

Competitive Landscape

Primary competitors for Culina include other companies that are currently operating in the home automation and Internet of Things space, such as Nest Labs, Amazon Echo, and Wallflower Labs.

Leading home automation company Nest introduced their first product, Nest Learning Thermostat, in 2011. The company was founded in 2010 by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Nest was acquired by Google on January 14, 2014 by Google for $3.2 billion and still operates under its own brand identity.
Features:
Nest Labs designs programmable, self-learning, sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats, smoke detectors, and other security systems.
Pricing:
The 3rd generation Nest Thermostat prices at $249; Nest Indoor and Outdoor Cams are $199; and their Smoke & CO Alarm retails for $99.
Key Weaknesses:
After Nest's acquisition, the company has underperformed in sales and fallen below the expectations that Google set for them when it purchased the startup.

Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo, also known as Alexa, is a voice command device powered by artificial intelligence and designed by mega online retailer Amazon.com. The smart home hub was initially released November 2014.
Features:
Alexa is a voice-activated virtual assistant housed within the Echo smart speaker. Users simply say her name and then ask a question or give a command.
Pricing:
The Amazon Echo retails for $99 for Amazon Prime members and $170 for everyone else.
Key Weaknesses:
However, some users have noted uneven sound quality and limited "skills" capabilities. Users can also only interact and communicate with Alexa in English and German.

Wallflower

Founded December 1, 2013, Wallflower Labs is a Charleston, MA-based startup that designs an internet- connected smart plug that works with any freestanding plug-in electric stove. The company's founder previously founded Yap - a speech recognition technology that was acquired by Amazon in 2011 to help develop Alexa. The startup has raised a total of $2.5 million from three rounds of equity funding to date, with the most recent funding reported at $1.5 million via convertible note on August 30, 2016.
Features:
The smart plug sounds an alarm and alerts homeowners via smartphone when the stove is turned on, someone forgets to turn it off, when a cooking time expires, or the smoke alarm activates.
Pricing:
Because Wallflower Labs are still in the pre-launch phase, the company has not yet publicly released consumer pricing information.
Key Weaknesses:
Unlike Culina, which connects with all smart appliances and cooking devices in the kitchen, Wallflower Labs is solely focused on monitoring stove usage.

How Culina Measures Up:

Differentiating Factors

Culina maintains a unique competitive advantage over other existing home automation and IoT products in several categories. Our biggest differentiators include:

Diverse Product Capabilities

Culina makes it possible to gain an across-the-board view from an entire network of interconnected devices. Whether they're connected to the refrigerator, a gas or electric-powered stove, a microwave, or dishwasher, our Smart Plugs can deliver insight into everything from smoke and gas detection, temperature changes, and usage metrics - regardless of the brand and through a single, user-friendly app.

User-Friendly

Our technology is easy to use and doesn't require any technical-savvy. Setup and configuration is simple, users are able to be up and running out of the box in approximately 10 minutes, and software updates are deployed over-the-air.

Affordability

Culina is priced below our competitors' products while delivering superior functionality and value. This will be an essential factor in helping us continue to gain market share nationally.

Team Strength Our team is comprised of industry veterans who bring decades of experience to the table across industrial design, mobile tech, cloud-based technology, artificial intelligence, and more. Our leadership team has a history starting and leading companies to successful exits and have established valuable relationships with industry leaders along the way that will help the us strategically position Culina as a market innovator in the days ahead.

Investment Opportunity

Culina is currently seeking a total of $15M in Series B equity financing to fuel the next stage of company growth - including manufacturing, pre-order fulfillment, ongoing development of our platform, and marketing efforts in order to continue expanding the Culina brand. Any remaining funds will be allocated as operating capital.

Why Invest in Culina? With Culina, investors have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with a company that's positioned to grow into a leading innovator in the home automation and IoT space.

With Culina, we've tapped into something truly extraordinary that's being celebrated by both early adopters and investors alike. With 10,000 units pre-sold and $1.89M in pre-launch revenue , we've already successfully demonstrated validation in the consumer space. With over $5 million in funding secured across several financing rounds, we've already proven that investors believe in our company, our mission, and our ability to succeed.

We've also established a scalable business model and robust product pipeline that will prime us for widespread expansion in the days ahead. We're now seeking investors who share our passion and commitment to pushing the boundaries of what home automation can be and do through nextgen technology.

We're looking forward to working with you in accelerating Culina's growth to become a dominant player in the booming global home automation and IoT industry.

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Founders have to learn so many new skills when they're launching a startup, and writing a business plan is a big one. When you're writing your business plan for the first time, things can get... intimidating. What do you include? What kind of wording should you use?

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Before you start this article... Have you set up your clothing line budget? If not, check out this article. Once your budget is set, come back to this article and get started on your clothing line business plan.
But, before we get started - make sure to check out theFREE 7- Day Startup Crash Course- are you ready to start your fashion brand, but are not sure of the first steps to take? This free week long crash course is just what your inbox needs! In 7 days you will learn how to set up your business for success, create and source a product that will sell out, connect with customers to boost sales, scale your company, avoid burnout, and so much more. The course is only free until August 2021, so make sure to signup while you still can.
Now, Don't Skip This Step

A clothing line business plan is a crucial (and often forgotten step) that is needed before starting your brand. The plan will help you define and streamline both your long term and short term goals. It will also help you set a path to reach those goals. Not only does a business plan help you by setting a road map, but it also shows suppliers, investors, and other businesses that you are serious about your company by having a profitable plan of action.

As a bonus to this guide, I use my brand, virtue + vice, to give step by step examples, and show you how it's done. and, there's more, I have a free downloadable template to help you get started!

A Business Plan Is A Living Document

One of the most commons mistakes I see is that founders will write their business plan, launch their product, and then never look at it again. Don't make this mistake. A clothing line business plan is a living document. You should use it to check in with yourself and make sure that you are meeting your goals. You can also make changes to it as your business changes.

As we all know, we can plan, and plan, and plan, but we can not plan for the chaos of life happening. So, as situations change, go back, update your plan, and re-strategize.

Keeping your business plan handy even after your launch will set you up for accountability and success.

Lastly, before we get started I am going to warn you. Starting your own clothing line is a lot of fun. But, it's also a lot of work. Writing this business plan is the work portion of the job.

How To Write A Clothing Line Business Plan

Some business plans are extremely long, repetitive, and in my opinion kind of convoluted. They are a lot of words, that sound fancy and business-like, but are kind of just saying the same thing over and over. That is why I am keeping this short and brief. I have heard of people spending 6 months to a year working on a business plan. That is far too long. A month is enough - just keep it simple and don't get carried away with jargon and corporate speak.

THE 9 PARTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN

They are...

So, let's get started.

Sections 1 + 2: Executive summary and Company Overview

An executive summary and company overview are basically a recap of your overall business plan. While they are the first section of your clothing line business plan, you actually want to write them last. So, we will circle back at the end this guide.

But, what you can do is work on your companies mission, vission, and values.

Mission

Why are you starting this company? How will your company change the market place, or even the world?

Vision

What does success look like to you? Is it money? Or, is it positively impacting people's lives? How will you measure your success in the world?

Values

What are your companies guiding principles. What values are at your core that determine and influence your business decisions?

Mission, Vision, Values Workbook Page

Section 3: Product And Services

This section should include...

A description of the product/ service

Features and benefits

Development

What Is The Product Or Service?

So, what is it that you are actually selling? And, how will you make money?
In this section, you want to be clear about the type of product or service you are offering and how that will lead to profits.

My Service Offering For virtue + vice

virtue + vice is a consulting agency dedicated to helping companies clean up their supply chains. Target partnerships are existing and established brands with strong supply chains that need help creating transparency or sourcing ethical and sustainable components, as well as, startups who are focused on creating conscious products.

virtue + vice profits through consultancy fees paid by the customer. virtue + vice specializes in the following - sourcing, product development, production management, sustainable design, supply chain transparency, and ethical and sustainable storytelling.

To Recap Products + Services...

See, it's quick and easy. What am I selling? My consultancy services. How am I making money? Through consultancy fees.

What Are The Features + Benefits?

What are you offering that makes your company unique or special?

virtue + vice features and benefits

One key feature that separates virtue + vice from other consultancy firms is our sliding scale for pricing. Because we believe in our mission, virtue + vice pricing structure is on a sliding scale based on a companies profits. We choose to operate like this as a way to give back to small businesses, which we believe in, who might not have the finances to pay our full rates that larger corporations can afford.

Secondly, virtue + vice operates transparently with our customers. Our supplier is your supplier. Many consultancy firms keep their supplier contacts close to the vest and do not share, we welcome our clients to come and visit our partner factories in China and India, and work directly with them

To recap...

Again, super quick and easy. What makes us different. One, we offer sliding scale prices to help small businesses (we aren't only about corporate life). Two, we work transparently without supply chain secretes like many other sourcing agents.

Development

This section answers what happens when your company grows. Or how business people like to ask "how do you plan to scale".

How does virtue + vice plan to scale?

At about 20 clients, that is manageable for me as a solo-preneur. But what happens when I have 100 clients or more? How does my company grow?

As my company grows I plan on hiring support staff in three key areas. Product development, production, and storytelling. Product development employees will assist in taking our client's projects from initial inception, all the way through sourcing and sample development up until production. The product team member will be responsible for production, and shipping logistics of that production order. And, the storytelling team will assist our clients in telling the story of their products through photos and video for social media, copy, look books, line sheets, website design, etc.

I am actually excited to soon been announcing my first hire on the product development team (but more on that on the about us page.)

To recap...

So, here I have made a plan for the future. What happens when it gets to be all too much for me alone? Who do I hire to help? I have chosen to separate tasks into three main categories that make the most natural sense for my business model.

Section 4: Marketing strategies

This section should include...

Market analysis

Target customer analysis

And, your unique selling proposition that makes your product and business different from everyone else's

Market Analysis

Do you understand the market that you are getting into? Like, do you really understand it?

This section of your clothing line business plan starts to get into proving that there is a need for your product or service. Even if something sounds great to you, if there are no customers that want it, then there won't be sales, and you won't have a successful clothing brand.

Here is how I break down my market analysis for virtue + vice

Sustainable and ethical fashion is a trend that has been growing year over year. In this article from Sourcing Journal they reported: "Overall, searches including sustainability-related keywords increased 75 percent year-on-year, amounting to 27,000 searches for sustainable fashion every month, according to the report."

This means that there is currently a sizable market share, that is growing rapidly for brands selling sustainable products to customers. And, those brands need help changing their traditional supply chain models to tap into the growing trend of sustainable fashion.

So, to recap.

What's the market doing, and how does my business play a part in that? Sustainable fashion is a proven growing trend, here is a little industry data to back that up. And, this is how my business plans to be part of that. Instead of choosing to sell direct to consumers, we are choosing to help brands that do.

Target Customer Analysis

Who is your target customer, who would want to buy your brand?

Here is who I target

virtue + vice plans to approach brands and companies that founder Melanie DiSalvo has been working with for the past decade. Because she already knows the ins and outs of their supply chains, she hopes to offer valuable changes and suggestions on targeted areas to help them become more ethical and sustainable.

Now, I understand that everyone does not have a built-in customer base like me. One of the most beneficial pieces of advice I can give is that you should go niche, and not broad.

To simply say "we are targeting people interested in making more sustainable and ethical purchases". Well, every big brand from H&M with their conscious collection to Walmart with their recycled t-shirts is doing that.

To recap

What makes you special? Pick something, one thing that makes your customers different. Maybe they are really into composting, so all of your materials are compostable. Maybe they are really into clean water, so your entire supply chain is dedicated to conserving water resources.

Again, I am saying this again, because it is so, so, so important. You can't be everything to everyone. Choose something laser-focused, and then as your brand grows you can expand into other areas.

How Are You Unique?

Did you see what I did there? By choosing a very niche target customer, you have already made yourself unique, and you stand out from the crowd.

How is virtue + vice unique?

virtue + vice is unique because of founder Melanie DiSalvo's extensive time spent living and working in countries like China, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic. She has spent over 1/2 of her career working overseas and that offers her a unique and detailed first-hand perspective on how the fashion industry really works and the best ways to implement change quickly and effectively.

My tips for this section.

Don't be afraid to get a little braggy. Why does your customer want to buy from you? What makes your product so great that it's better than what is already out there on the market. Don't hold back.

Section 5: Sales Strategy

This section should include...

Sales Goals

Price Strategy

Sales Plan

Investments into sales

What are your sales goals per quarter? For the year? The next 2-5 years? What is your pricing strategy? How will you sell? Do you have an online clothing store? Do you have plans to hire support staff for sales, as a showroom, salesperson, or go to trade shows? Will you open a boutique? Will there be promotional campaigns to support sales like partnerships, advertising, fashion shows, and events, etc.

Sales Goals

How much, and how often do you need to sell to turn a profit? At what rate do you plan to grow?

This is what I have in place for virtue + vice

I am uncomfortable sharing that. Here is what I will tell you. My consultancy business is strong enough that I am able to offer all of this information that some other companies charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for, for free.

My business is healthy enough that I am able to give back to the fashion community at this time.

Price Strategy

Are you going to try and sell tons of product at a low price, or fewer units at a higher price? Do you plan to drive sales through special discount promotions?

As I mentioned earlier virtue + vice works on a sliding scale so we are able to help smaller brands build their businesses.

How Will You Sell?

Are you direct to consumers, selling online? Are you business to business? Will you wholesale, will you have a distributor? What is your plan and break down?

At the moment virtue + vice relies mostly on word of mouth and referrals.

Do you need to hire support staff? What does that staff need to do their job?
Can you sell on your own, or do you need help from a pro? For example, if you hire a showroom, not only will you have the monthly cost of the showroom, plus a cut of sales that the sales agent will take. But, you will also have fees to be in the showrooms booth at trade shows. Maybe at the tradeshows, you will need some special promotional items like look books, line sheets, or even a giveaway so buyers remember you.

It Costs Money To Make Money

All of the costs associated with sales, need to go back into your price strategy. Price strategy is like a balancing act. You need to invest in it, but you need to make sure that your sales are more than the investment so that you can be profitable.

This is the hard part

This part of your clothing line business plan should probably take the most time, Really research what everything costs, what your product will cost to make, etc and come up with a well-researched plan.

How I invest in my sales

At virtue + vice I do everything myself. But, people reading this that want to sell a service like me, it's important to remember that your own personal time costs something. While it's not a salary, or an actual expense, the hours that you devote to generating sales for your company should be compensated for.

Section 6: Competitive Analysis

This section should include...

How Do You Compare To The Competition?

This is where you get a little stalkerish. In this section, you need to identify your competition and then the advantages and disadvantages of your competitors. You will need to research things like how long they have been in business, their annual sales (if they are public). How they market themselves. Then compare your price, quality, and general vibe to theirs. Maybe you are selling the exact same thing but have a totally different target customer and vibe you are putting out.

One of the best ways to get you started is through a SWOT analysis.

Ok, so let's get to it with virtue + vice

Who is my main competition?

I just did a quick google search of "sustainable fashion consultant". The top 3 hits are recloseted, Make Good, and Carmen Artigas. Luckily I do not know any of these companies or people personally. So, I don't have to hold back in this analysis.

Before we dive into the SWOT analysis, here is a little info about each company.

Recoseted

"Recloseted is a consulting agency that scales slow fashion brands and helps apparel companies become more sustainable. We also raise awareness and educate consumers about conscious fashion."

The website was launched in August of 2018.

The founder Selina Ho, based in Vancouver Canada, has no information about her experience. But a quick google and Linkedin search shows her background is in marketing for telecommunication companies.

MAKE GOOD

"WE ARE A STRATEGIC ADVISORY FOR FASHION AND APPAREL COMPANIES. Our focus is on business strategy, product sustainability,
circularity, and using innovation to create positive change. We provide services to a diverse range of designers and brands at every stage of their journey, to design, source, and produce their products responsibly, for the benefit of people and the planet. "

Founder Jacinta Fitzgerald, of New Zealand, started her sustainable and ethical fashion consultancy business over 8 years ago with 20 years of fashion industry experience. And, has worked with many small, yet well known sustainable fashion brands like KowTow and Project Just.

Carmen Artigas

"From strategy to execution, Carmen Artigas works closely with clients to integrate sustainable practices, while keeping a competitive edge. From businesses and nonprofits, to trade organizations and educational institutions, Carmen provides you with the complete sustainable brand package: supply chain management, design and development, and education and training."

About the founder Carmen Artigas

"With over 20 years of design experience working with brands from high-end to mass-market such as Donna Karan, Swatch, Kate Spade, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart, Carmen has become an expert at anticipating challenges in the marketplace.

Currently, she advises start-ups, established brands, and trade organizations interested in improving their sourcing, manufacturing, and labor practices. Her goal is to help build resilient businesses while minimizing their human and environmental impact.

In 2010 she spearheaded the sustainable design curricula and undergraduate programs at three major design universities: Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons the New School for Design, and Pratt Institute. "

Competition is a good thing

A lot of times when people start their SWOT analysis they see other people doing what they want to do and they give up.

Don't do that. Competition is good.

Two of these ladies have been in the clothing business for over 10 years working in sustainable fashion consulting. That means it's a good market to be in. They have been making living out of sustainable consulting for a decade. So, business must be good!

Think about fashion in general. There are so many brands, like super successful American Eagle, which was basically just a knock of Abercrombie back in 2003. Don't' let competition discourage you.

The point of SWOT is to figure out your advantages and how to position your brand in the market.

I am working on writing a full SWOT and fashion business competition analysis post, that will be coming soon. For now, I will just quickly go through one example. For this article, I have chosen MAKE GOOD because their business most closely resembles mine.

How To SWOT

SWOT stands for strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, threats.

Like I mentioned, a lot goes into a SWOT analysis. I am just doing a quick one here to give you a brief idea about what it is.

Strengths

What advantages does your brand have?

virtue + vice is located in NYC, one of the fashion capitals of the world. GOOD MADE, in New Zeland, has a much smaller fashion scene, and the geographical distance makes networking and partnerships more difficult.

I spend 1/2 the year in India. This keeps me close to my supply chains on the ground, and able to help clients with content about how their products are made as well as live updates. It also offers an added layer of authenticity.

Opportunities

Opportunity is a natural progression from strengths. How can you use your strengths to become even stronger?

My geographic strength of being in NYC leads to more networking opportunities and the ability to attend more fashion events. My life in India allows me to be on the ground working directly with factories so I am first in the know with the latest news.

Weaknesses

GOOD MADE has been at this longer than me. Almost exactly twice as long as me. Also, one of the things that I thought made me unique - my long history working with well-established brands is also a strength of Jacinta's. We have even worked with some of the same brands!

Threats

Threats, analyze what obstacles you face because of your weaknesses. For me one of virtue + vices threads is authority. The fact that GOOD MADE has been in business for twice as long, gives them more authority in this space.

Now there are tons more strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats that I could add. And I would recommend doing this exercise for at least 3-5 competitive brands. Again if you want to learn more I will be putting out a full competitive analysis guide with a lot more details and info on how to do a proper SWOT. But for now, I think you get the idea.

Section 7: Production Plan

This section should include...

Company development, sales, production, and delivery calendar

The Importance of Timelines

This is basically a development and inventory calendar. How many seasons a year will you produce? When will you develop them? Sell them? When will you produce them? And, when will they sell in stores, and even be discounted?

virtue + vice follows our customer's timelines. So, what I am working on for them, depends on their business model. Some of our customers are seasonal, and only put out one main collection per year. Some two seasons, and some up to seven. And, our clients are all over the world. So our southern hemisphere clients are working on a totally different season than brands in the North.

For example, I am working on everything from Summer 2020 (happening like now!) for quick deliveries to Fall 2021, that's not this fall coming up but the fall after it (18 months from now).

How To Set Up Your Calendar

As a brand, I would recommend setting up your calendar around industry tradeshows to start out. The below break down is for America's sales season.

There are 6 major fashion seasons. They are spring, summer, fall, winter, holiday, and resort.

And, there are 4 main dates you need to keep track of for each season. They are development dates, sell dates, and production dates, and delivery dates.

development dates

Are the times you will be developing your product for the next season. You are going to want to plan for 3 months of development time before your sell dates.

sell dates

Are the dates there will be trade shows and other sales opportunities for that season.

production dates

Are when you need to start producing the goods, and when they need to be finished by.

delivery dates

Are when the goods need to be delivered to your customer. Remember it can take over a month to ship goods from a factory if you are shipping by sea, so factor that in.

the fashion calendar

Get Detailed

But, this section needs to go even more in-depth than just a timeline.

To understand what goes into product development, production, and sales and marketing schedule I am working on writing full courses on all of those coming soon!

Section 8: Operation Plan

This section should include...

What Do You Need To Keep Your Business Running On A Daily basis?

Remember that budgeting guide I wrote? This is where all that info goes. Filling out this part of your clothing line business plan should be easy if the budget was done correctly.

virtue + vice operatin plan

I work from home, so that saves me a lot of money. I don't have full-time employees, so that also requires me to have less capital for salaries. Where I personally spend most of my money is on travel.

And, no it's not the glamorous kind of travel. It's me booking a ticket at 6 am for a flight to India at 9 pm that same day so I can go straighten out some sort of supply chain issue we are having in person.

Do I have to travel? Well, that's 50/50. A lot can be done remotely. But, there is always a special touch that comes when you do business in person. You will find that almost any time in business when you are face to face the dynamic is different. Even just taking a conversation off of email and onto the phone can makes huge difference.

Necessary recurring monthly costs for me are the website domain, hosting for the website, apps, and programs I use like Grammarly, Adobe, and quick books.

Basically you can take your budgeting template and use it for this section. Yay! The work is already done for you.

Section 9: Financial Analysis + Projections

Again, this is where budgeting is going to come in handy. You might even want to hire a professional bookkeeper or accountant for help with this.

This section should include...

The money you need to get started

How you will use that money

The income you hope to make off of your products

Expenses

Cash flow

And, balance sheet

Financials make most peoples heads spin, that is why I definitely recommend talking to a pro for this part.

At virtue + vice I have a full-time bookkeeper and an accountant. I am uncomfortable sharing my companies finances publically. But, if you need help with this section, please reach out to virute+ vice clothing items and I am happy to put you in touch with a few professionals that help brands with the nitty-gritty details of their financials.

Back to Sections 1 +2: The Executive Summary + Company Overview

Now back to the top. Remember, we skipped the executive summary and company overview. Now that we have mapped out our entire business plan we need to write those two summaries.

Executive Summary

This is where you can hook potential investors. It's the first section anyone reads of your plan, so make it clear and quick.

Here is mine for virtue + vice

virtue + vice is a consultancy firm dedicated to helping companies clean up their supply chains. We are located between NYC and Goa, India. Our dual locations allow us access to the world's fashion capital, while our time spent in India allows for close monitoring of our supply chains.

Our goal for virtue + vice is to assist companies who are realizing that sustainable and ethical fashion is not a trend that is going away anytime soon, and want to be the process of cleaning up their supply chain. We offer support across all product life cycle steps including - conscious design, sourcing, product development, production, marketing and branding, retail and sales, storytelling, and content.

Key things to include in your executive summary

What you do. Where you are located. Benefits of your location. What you are selling. Why what you are selling is a great idea. Again, it's ok to get a little braggy here.

Company Overview

You can use this part to dive a little deeper into you and why you are starting your brand. Who are you? Why this product? How are you qualified to do this, etc? Why are you designing the type of products you are designing (hint, hint, market research). Etc...

this is my company overview for virtue +vice

virtue + vice was founded by Melanie DiSalvo. In her own words
"After working in fast fashion for 7 years I left my position as Director of Product Development with the goal of helping brands clean up their supply chains. At the time I had a great salary, was working my way up the corporate ladder, under 30 and already had a director's title, and was traveling the world to developed and produce products for brands like Walmart, Target, Ralph Lauren, and Levi's to name a few. The problem was that I saw and learned too much about how our clothes are really made in dark corners of the world. So, I made it my goal to expose the industry by educating curious customers and help brands choose better supply chain partners. I have been featured in publications like WWD, VOX, Sourcing Journal, and more. And, was a speaker at SXSW."
virtue + vice aims to target clients from the fashion industry with well-established brands as well as startups to aid them in supply chain transparency and creating conscious products for this growing market share. virtue + vice will work with each client individually to meet their seasonal needs.

We believe our strength is our 10 years experience in this industry and the supply chain partners we have developed relationships along the way. Our plan. is to operate out of NYC and India for the foreseeable future where our founder has homes, and hopefully to expand to a third location in China in the next 5 years.

We believe that our dedication to quality and transparency, along with a sliding consultancy rate, will keep us profitable in years to come.

company overview recap...

See what I did here? I spoke more about myself and created a little background story. Then I hit all the other points of the business plan quickly - marketing, sales, competition, production, operation, financial.

And, We're Done!

And there you have it. A clothing line business plan. I hope this helps. After coming across so many generic business plan templates online, I was inspired to write something a little more intimate. I really wanted to show you what goes into making a business plan, and in the spirit of transparency open up about how my business works.

Remember, business planning is a lot of hard work. But, when clothing brands put in the effort at the start of their business, they have a much higher chance of success and growth.

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How To Create A Clothing Line Business Plan - w/ Template

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Before you start this article... Have you set up your clothing line budget? If not, check out this article. Once your budget is set, come back to this article and get started on your clothing line business plan.

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And choose the right medium for your message

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Ecourse
Presentations are one of the most powerful tools for persuasive communication, but they're not always the right vehicle to deliver information. Sometimes, people need to digest ideas at their own pace, or they need more in-depth information than you want to put on a slide.

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Nancy Duarte

Nancy Duarte is a communication expert who has been featured in Fortune, Time Magazine, Forbes, Fast Company, Wired, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, and on CNN. Her firm, Duarte, Inc., is the global leader behind some of the most influential visual messages in business and culture. As a persuasion expert, she cracked the code for effectively incorporating story patterns into business communications. She's written five best-selling books and four have won awards.

Read Profile

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Slidedocs®: Spread Ideas With Visual Documents

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Ecourse Presentations are one of the most powerful tools for persuasive communication, but they're not always the right vehicle to deliver information. Sometimes, people need to digest ideas at their own pace, or they need more in-depth information than you want to put on a slide. Enter slidedocs.

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When I meet with clients, much of our time is spent around crafting a business plan that sets the business owner up for success - whether they're going after outside funding or the plan will remain an internal strategy document - and one of the things that nearly every entrepreneur I've ever worked with misses is bottom up calculations.

Many of you are probably shaking your heads in confusion so let me explain. Top down calculations for a company figuring out potential annual revenues look something like this: "The total U.S. market for widgets is $20 billion so if we get just one half of one percent of the market we'll be a $100 million revenue company." They're called top down because you're starting at the top, the high level, the whole market, and working your way down to your overall business.

The trouble with this is that it has no strategy attached to it whatsoever. Cool, you can do math to figure out that one half of one percent of $20 billion is still a lot of money, but it doesn't mean anything for your business. I could say if I just managed to get one half of one percent of Ben and Jerry's sellers to give me a free pint of ice cream I would eat Ben and Jerry's for a year at no cost, but I'm probably not going to be buying extra freezers to house all of my Ben and Jerry's because I have no plan for making that happen. In a business plan, it's the HOW that we need to focus on to produce the what, not the what itself. If you have no how, you just have a top down calculation and you're giving yourself away as being naive about how challenging it is to acquire a customer and making yourself look unsophisticated.

So that brings us to bottom up calculation, which will give you a more accurate prediction of the future of your business, if you do them right. Now, in contrast to top down, which started at the high level and moved to down to the business, bottom up starts at the individual sale and moves up to the overall business. So, for example, if you're going to use Adwords as one of your marketing paths, you might say, "Okay, I will run ads with abc keyword, which has an average cost per click of x, an average click through rate of y, and average conversion rate of z, for an average sale of $lmnop and build up from the cost to acquire one customer to the total projected revenue for the business. You can see that the bottom up calculation is inseparable from the plan for how you will achieve that final revenue number, so it's a more useful method of estimating. If you notice that you have revenues in your pro forma income statement that are not directly accounted for with a marketing expense, you're probably not using bottom up and likely want to take another look and see what you're basing your revenue predictions on.

If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, the best thing you can do for yourself is to just get started. Pick up my business planning ebook to be guided through the whole business planning process for less than $5. More of a video person than a text person? Click to try my ecourses instead.

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Understanding Top Down vs. Bottom Up Calculations for Business Planning

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When I meet with clients, much of our time is spent around crafting a business plan that sets the business owner up for success - whether they're going after outside funding or the plan will remain an internal strategy document - and one of the things that nearly every entrepreneur I've ever worked with misses is bottom up calculations.

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We're fortunate to have worked with the biggest brands and leaders in the industry. From life-changing technologies to philanthropists improving the public good, world leaders who, well, lead the world-we have had the privilege of helping some of the most talented people spread their ideas. Our projects are often confidential so we can't show you everything, but take a look at some of our favorite projects.

Let's talk. Contact us to create presentations that incite action.

What I love about working with Duarte is the confidence that I feel when I engage with them. I know the result is going to be first class. Duarte is great at bringing our ideas to life."

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Why Partner
With Us? &nbsp

of the top US-based tech companies rely on Duarte's presentation and training services.

of the world's biggest brands rely on Duarte's presentation services.

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Presentation Showcase Of Duarte Supporting The Top Companies

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We're fortunate to have worked with the biggest brands and leaders in the industry. From life-changing technologies to philanthropists improving the public good, world leaders who, well, lead the world-we have had the privilege of helping some of the most talented people spread their ideas.

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Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air.

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Business Ethics in Australia - What you need to consider - MT Corporate Advisory

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As Australians, we consider ourselves a society of fairness and respect. Similarly, when it comes to business, we take a broad view of what is ethical - it's more than just how we do business and treat our customers, it's about respecting individuals and their privacy, and communicating and negotiating directly and honestly.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbjej4A6oRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szw6KlTMUT4
https://www.ideou.com/blogs/page/make-your-ideas-tangible-through-prototypes

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Sketching with David Kelley
You can make anything tangible through a rough and rapid prototype. Think of your prototype as a prop that invites others to experience your idea and helps you transform an abstract concept into a meaningful product or service.

Sketching is a foundational skill of prototyping and one of many ways you can make your ideas tangible.

This video is part of a lesson from our Hello Design Thinking online course.

choosing a selection results in a full page refresh

press the space key then arrow keys to make a selection

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Make Your Ideas Tangible Through Prototypes

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Sketching with David Kelley You can make anything tangible through a rough and rapid prototype. Think of your prototype as a prop that invites others to experience your idea and helps you transform an abstract concept into a meaningful product or service.

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Collection of Business Cases using Systems Thinking

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Collection of Business Cases using Systems Thinking

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More descriptive here
http://www.moss.org.au/100-innovations
https://www.theblueeconomy.org/innovations.html

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Sustainable Business Models - Systems Design

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Sustainable Business Models - Systems Design

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Orange Farm and Vortex

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Example Business Models - Systems Design

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A very raw presentation, but down to earth

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Systems Thinking: How Billionaires Think

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Systems thinking for idea generation - dynamic systems design

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Systems thinking for idea generation - dynamic systems design

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Learning the theory and skill

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Learning & Teaching
Introduction to System Dynamics
The CLE has created a packet of key articles that touch on the important concepts of system dynamics, How to implement SD in K-12 Education, and How to explain systems thinking in 25 words or less.

A variety of simulations allowing students to explore the consequences of actions. Explore how logging and planting rates impacts forests, see what happens to the number of friends based on actions, and many more.

A Guide to Learning System Dynamics

Road Maps is a self-study guide to learning system dynamics. It is organized as a series of chapters, and was developed by the System Dynamics in Education Project (SDEP) at MIT under the direction of Professor Jay Forrester. Ten chapters of Road Maps are available for download. Road Maps teaches the reader how to identify different kinds of systems all around us and how to model these systems. Road Maps can be a resource for both beginners and advanced system dynamics modelers, and requires no previous system dynamics knowledge and only basic math skills.

Getting Started with Road Maps

Each chapter contains a number of individual papers - use the links below to navigate to each chapter. With each paper, a short annotation is included.

To learn more about Road Maps, please see the introduction (D-4500-10). The introduction gives a summary of the contents of each chapter, advises on the best way to use Road Maps and explains what you will need to begin your study.

Road Maps Appendix & Books

The Road Maps Appendix contains a collection of short papers that are designed to help the reader during the process of going through Road Maps. The papers include the Road Maps Glossary (pdf), A guide to using Vensim and converting from STELLA to Vensim, and a series of papers on system dynamics modeling.

There are several books required to help you complete Road Maps.

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Learning & Teaching Introduction to System Dynamics The CLE has created a packet of key articles that touch on the important concepts of system dynamics, How to implement SD in K-12 Education, and How to explain systems thinking in 25 words or less. A variety of simulations allowing students to explore the consequences of actions.

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Business models for something out of nothing or leftovers - WATCH THIS!

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Business models for something out of nothing or leftovers - WATCH THIS!

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Blue economy explained
Exit nuclear energy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLNuF0CoYO4

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Do you want to live healthy, and have joy in life? Do you want to be an entrepreneur, and figure out how you can make a difference? This is not about the good and the bad, this is about how you can do it better.

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BLUE ECONOMY  -The rules of the game /Gunter Pauli - ENGLISH

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The Future of Work Series: McKinsey on Skills for the Digital Future of Work

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Automation as a trend and influence on business

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Automation as a trend and influence on business

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The Future of Work Series: The Future of Work - Will Our Children Be Prepared?

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Business influences - future of work & other trends

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Business influences - future of work & other trends

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The Future of Work Series: Deloitte on "The New Realities of Work"

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http://oslomanifesto.org/3-sustainability-lessons-from-forward-thinkers-in-design/

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Disruptive Innovation Series: Uber's Business Model - What Makes it so Disruptive?

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Starting a new company is exciting. So is gauging an industry's profit potential or forecasting a revenue goal for your business. But as you start calculating, you must remember to root these figures in reality.

If you don't, you could enter a market that doesn't have a large enough market size to convince investors to back you, or you could set an unrealistic revenue goal for your business and burn your employees out.

To help you avoid these issues, we've put together a guide that'll teach you exactly how to calculate your industry's total addressable market, serviceable addressable market, and share of market.

These metrics are key components of a business plan, particularly as you craft your marketing and sales strategy, set realistic revenue goals, and choose to enter the markets that are worth your time and resources.

TAM SAM SOM Definitions

TAM (Total Addressable Market)

Total addressable market or TAM refers to the total market demand for a product or service. It's the maximum amount of revenue a business can generate by selling its product or service in a specific market.

Total addressable market is most useful for businesses to objectively estimate a specific market's potential for growth. This data also helps companies figure out product market fit.

SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market)

Due to the limitations of your business model (such as specialization or geographic limitations), you'll have a tough time servicing your total addressable market.

Serviceable addressable market is most useful for businesses to objectively estimate the part of the market they can acquire to figure out their targets.

SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)

Unless you're a monopoly, you most likely can't capture 100% of your serviceable addressable market. Even if you only have one competitor, it would still be extremely difficult to convince an entire market to only buy your product or service. That's why it's crucial to measure your serviceable obtainable market to estimate how many customers would realistically benefit from buying your product or service.

Serviceable Obtainable market is most useful for businesses to determine short-term growth targets. It can also help with competitive awareness and strategizing.

Why TAM SAM SOM Matters

TAM, SAM, and SOM are essential to business strategy and growth planning. This is because these metrics show how much opportunity a particular market holds at every stage of business growth.

TAM SAM SOM is also useful because it's a simple and succinct way to present the value of an idea. This data gives teams an idea of the target audience and income opportunities for a market or niche.

These metrics can also help businesses share key insights with investors if they are seeking funding. The process makes it easier to make decisions that impact growth.

For example, say you don't have a clear picture of the right segment for your SAM. This could make your serviceable addressable market too big, which can then impact your SOM.

TAM SAM SOM Template

Now that you know what each of these acronyms is and what they're used for, let's get into the nitty-gritty of how to calculate TAM, SOM, and SAM. Doing so requires advanced market research ahead of time, but here are the formulas once you're able to get those figures:

Total Addressable Market (TAM) Calculation

The best way to calculate total addressable market is by running a bottom-up analysis of an industry. A bottom-up analysis involves counting the total number of customers in a market and multiplying that number by the average annual revenue of each customer in this market.

Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) Calculation

To calculate your serviceable addressable market, count up all the potential customers that would be a good fit for your business and multiply that number by the average annual revenue of these types of customers in your market.

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) Calculation

Divide your revenue from last year by your industry's serviceable addressable market from last year. This percentage is your market share from last year. Then, multiply your market share from last year by your industry's serviceable addressable market from this year.

Right Size Your Market Opportunities with TAM SAM SOM

As you get started, keep in mind that these figures will largely be estimates to inform your strategy. The more market research you do and the more historical data you build up, the more precise your planning will be.

Don't just figure out the opportunities in your market. Use your research to decide who you want to target and how you plan to engage them with your products. Then, use these templates to make your plans clear.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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TAM SAM SOM: What Do They Mean & How Do You Calculate Them?

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Find out how to calculate your TAM, SAM, and SOM so you can start setting realistic revenue goals and entering markets worth your time and resources.

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Multiple streams of revenue - ethical and sustainable 

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Multiple streams of revenue - ethical and sustainable 

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TEDxFlanders - Gunter Pauli - System Design

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Steps to describe and visualise the business model

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Systems thinking, spinning your flywheel, and using visual language to tell compelling stories

Dave Gray in his book Gamestormingoutlines what he calls "The Game of Business". Basically, business is built around goals. Goals which set a tension between some initial point A, and some targeted future state B - the goal.

Business is a set of processes designed to move us from initial Point A to targeted Point B. In between these points is something called the "Challenge Space".

Inside this Challenge Space is a mess of busy-ness in the form of money, people, infrastructure, and strategies all attempting to find alignment to move jointly towards targeted point B. Management is usually seen as the corralling of resources towards the execution of those processes.

From the diagram below we can see that alignment creates significant efficiencies in business models.

Diagram from Bill Aulet, Entrepreneurship Professor at MIT

Alignment is the difference maker that the top companies wield to outperform their competitors. Companies like Commerce Bank - that ruthlessly cut everything that isn't directly executing on their vision (the best customer service in consumer banking). Hiring, marketing, management, infrastructure - everything is done with the direct intention of realizing that vision.

Alignment requires clarity, and to be clear on something we need to trim away all the fat so we understand exactly what our business does, who it does it for, and why it's doing it. This simple model of a business is known as a Business Model.

The best business modeling technique I'm aware of is called the Business Model Canvas. It arose first from a 2004 paper by Alex Osterwalder, and then graphically from his 2010 "handbook for visionaries" Business Model Generation. Alex broke down the business into 9 components, seen below.

The incredible benefit of a tool like this is its creation of a shared language between practitioners - enabling them to speak concretely about a business as it moves through the design process - from ideation to implementation.

The drawback, however, is it's static. It fails to convey the movement and complexity of real-world business models. In my practice, I've found it extremely useful as a teaching aid. But when you deconstruct a business model into neat boxes - you lose some of its soul.

With the rest of this article, I'm going to propose a methodology for visually outlining business models in a way that communicates clarity and alignment, and captures the dynamic movement or "soul" of real-world businesses.

I love using visual language to help make complex things simple. This practice is also extremely helpful in sharing complex things to other people and helping them to understand the important bits.

Visual language can seem intimidating - but as Dave Gray pointed out in Gamestorming - there's really only 12 shapes or "glyphs" that make up every 2D object you can imagine. Shown below is our Visual Alphabet.

Point, Line, Angle, Arc, Spiral, and Loop.

Oval, Eye, Triangle, Rectangle, House, and Cloud.

Try drawing these shapes using the 12 glyphs. Easy, right?

In Donella Meadow's wonderful book Thinking in Systems, she outlines a methodology for visually mapping systems that I'm going to borrow for this article, shown below.

A very entertaining systems map of a coffee drinker's energy levels

The boxes are stocks, the taps flows, and the arrows external factors that influence the flow of the resource we're mapping, which in this case is the coffee drinkers energy level.

Systems are sets of interconnected things whose influence on each other forms a whole. Systems are defined by the movement or "flows" of resources between reservoirs or "stocks". Sound familiar?

Businesses are systems. They're complex systems. Ones that have many moving pieces, and lots of noise blocking out crucial signal. Systems mapping is that act of converting that noisy reality into a simple diagram that outlines the important flows and stocks and communicates alignment.

Let's bring this all together. We're at some Point A and we want to get to our goal at Point B through the Challenge Space. To reach Point B - we need to align our resources, avoid any actions that misalign our resources, and then start pushing our Flywheel. The model for doing that is our business model. Which is a model of the flow of resources between stocks. Resources like money, people, and infrastructure.

Oliver Emberton attempted this process with McDonald's, and Google (specifically their AdSense platform), seen below.

Both of these business models are very clean and lose much of the nuance that makes up extremely complex companies. However imagine you'd never heard of McDonalds or Google before, and someone was trying to explain to you what they do. These would capture the soul of those models while masking much of the noise.

This is the third iteration of this business model map.

Here's a rough sketch of an Innovation Consulting company - Boardroom Labs. I've attempted to find a balance between granularity, and clarity. I want you to see the nuance of the business, without losing the dynamism.

Here's another example of one that's been refined and graphically rendered. This is for a women-led coworking space named 51%.

Does this seem extremely complex? They're actually quite simple to construct.

The building blocks of your business model are your Customer, Offering, and Goal. I call this the COG model of business modeling. Customers are the people buying your offering. Your offering is the solution to their problem. Your goal is your Point B - the place you're building this machine to reach. These are your stocks, to use the Thinking In Systems vocabulary.

The loops of your business model are your Channels, Relationships, and Growth. Channels are the paths your customers follow to go from having never heard of you, to purchasing your offering. Relationships are the paths your customers follow after purchasing your offering. Growth is what happens after your offering to align your offering with reaching your goal. These are your flows.

Lists are nodes of your business model that require elaboration. For instance, in my Innovation Consulting model. I have several possible problems I'm solving, which requires a list to explain. The key with lists is moderation. Only use them when the added granularity is worth sacrificing the visual clarity of the model.

1. Lay the foundation with your building blocks. Customer on the left, Offering in the middle, and Goal on the right.

2. Chart out your loops in between. Channels connect your Customer and your Offering. Relationships loop your customer between your offering. Growth connects your Offering and your Goal.

3. Elaborate on key nodes using lists. Generally - these are the points where someone looking at your model might stop and ask - what's going on here? In some cases a list might actually be another loop in disguise. To identify these - look for interdependencies between the points of the list.

4. Look over your map. The above 3 steps are a simple framework to build out the skeleton of your business model map. By poring over it and looking for weaknesses, confusing points, or opportunities you can refine your model until it effectively conveys the soul underlying your business, and nothing else.

5. You may find like with 51% that you have more feedback loops that reinforce your offering. If that's the case, feel free to add additional loops beyond the three core loops. The purpose is to filter your business down to its core parts and then show how those parts connect over time.

I call this ontology Business Model Mapping or BMM. It's a process for simplifying complex systems that exists between systems thinking, business modeling, conventional strategy, and visual language.

Use it when you're trying to understand new technologies implications, innovate within an existing organization, or plan a new venture.

I've cited a number of different works that influenced my thinking. They're only a fraction of who I owe a great debt to. Other authors include Steve Blank, Geoffrey Moore, Frederic Laloux, Eric Von Hippel, Clayton Christensen, and Fred Kofman.

I also owe a debt to Antony Upward and his Flourishing Business Canvas. His visit to one of my classes several years ago is what first got me thinking about externalities in business modeling and how to reframe them as strategic advantages.

I plan on releasing a white paper on this topic eventually. If you'd like to be contacted when that happens - visit my blog and subscribe to my newsletter.

I'm also hard at work on releasing two new innovation tools. One for helping navigate venture growth during the scaling phase, and one for understanding the context your primary stakeholder operates within - beyond the scope of an Empathy Map.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium's largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +409,714 people.

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A New Methodology For Business Model Mapping

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Dave Gray in his book Gamestorming outlines what he calls "The Game of Business". Basically, business is built around goals. Goals which set a tension between some initial point A, and some targeted future state B - the goal. Business is a set of processes designed to move us from initial Point A to targeted Point B.

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In this post, you will learn about the Uber business model. I'll cover how Uber works, how Uber makes money, Uber's strategy and how they harness their platform technology to expand into new markets.

What Is Uber?

Uber is an on-demand ride service that connects passengers with drivers of cars through an app. The Uber platform connects drivers with people that are looking for a ride.

Anyone with a driver's license, a new car and that has no traffic tickets can become an Uber driver. People simply hail an 'Uber' via an app on their phone. Uber finds a driver, 'hails them' and takes care of the whole process including payment.

The whole system works on simplicity, convenience and ease of use for both parties - driver and passenger. However, underlying this simplicity is a sophisticated set of technologies. I'll take you through the technologies, the Uber business model and their strategy.
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First, let's take a look at how what made Uber successful, its ride-hailing service.

How Does Uber Work?

Uber works as a car-for-hire service, in other words, people use their personal vehicles to offer rides through the Uber service to people who are looking for transport.

First of all, Uber is not a taxi service. Uber drivers cannot simply pick up riders off the street. Uber works as a car-for-hire service, in other words, people use their personal vehicles to offer rides through the Uber service.

Uber benefits from smartphone technology. Both the person who wants and Uber and the driver use the app. Both use the smartphones technologies and this is critical to their business model.

The app (the Uber platform), takes care of everything, from the initial ride-hailing through to the payment process. When a person needs a ride, they use the app to tell Uber their pickup location.

The Uber app hooks into smartphone technologies such as geo-location and integrations with payment gateways to process payments (in other words it's cashless). The system, called " RideCheck, " also uses the GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, and other sensors on the driver's smartphone to check for irregular activity, like an unexpected long stop, or a car crash.

The Uber business model relies on ease of use for the value proposition. But, there is much more under the hood of their platform that makes Uber so much more interesting.

Before moving onto the business model let's take a look at some of the big numbers and key facts about Uber.

Quick Facts On Uber

Since Uber's conception, it has grown to be a major force in the transportation industry and has now started to harness the power of its platform to disrupt other markets. Let's examine Uber's core business model to understand how it's able to move easily into other markets.

The Uber Business Model

Uber Business Model Canvas

The Uber Business Model is built upon its digital platform. Like other platform business models e.g. Airbnb, Apple App Store or Amazon they rely on creating demand on both sides of the platform - the supply-side and the buy-side.

There are four main types of platform models:

The Uber platform provides a matching service. As an example, it helps complete match driver with someone wanting a ride. Or in the case of Uber eats, a three-sided market, it matches someone who wants to order food with a restaurant and a delivery method.

What underpins the Uber business model is the technology they employ to identify where people are using Google maps API (on the app) and match this to a driver who is nearby. Additionally, they have a dynamic pricing system that adjusts pricing according to demand in an area.

What is Uber's Value Proposition

Uber's value proposition is based on convenience for the rider, and for the drivers and easy way to make money at times that are convenient to them.

One of the most important outcomes of developing a business model is the value proposition. In other words, how you create, deliver and capture value.

The Uber business model for Uber rides offers the following value propositions:

On-demand cab bookings (Convenient)

Real-time tracking

Accurate ETAs

Cashless rides

Low wait time for a ride

Upfront pricing

Multiple ride options

The Uber Business Model Map

Uber BusinessModel Anlaysis

Uber Business Model Ecosystem

Although most people associate Uber with rides, they have since expanded into other transportation and are expected to enter into the driverless vehicle market.

The core of their capabilities is the ability to match and track objects - a vehicle for most cases. But more recently shipments.

uber business model analysis

How Uber has different sided platform models

The Uber Business Model is shifting as they harness the power of the platform, AI and new driverless technologies towards a future where hailing a ride might not involve a driver (a human) at all. Uber business model and the platform:

Single-sided market - Uber is the supplier to the market.

Two-sided market - matching suppliers to buyers.

Three-sided market - matching suppliers, buyers and deliverers.

Uber technologies

Uber mentions the term artificial intelligence six times in its IPO filing, highlights machine learning 11 times and the word algorithm 16 times. Those mentions aren't by accident. Uber makes it clear that its data science and algorithms are critical to its marketplace technologies.

Uber has built its own proprietary marketing, routing and payment technologies. The bridge between Uber's various ventures is its marketplace technologies.

Uber's technologies comprise the real-time algorithmic decision engine that matches supply and demand for our Personal Mobility, Uber Eats, and Uber Freight offerings.

A demand prediction engine to predict volume, supply and demand and location dynamics with current and historical trends. Data visualizations are available for zones with unique pricing characteristics.

Matching and dispatching algorithms that review and consider variables such as distance, time, traffic, weather and even meal preparation times for Uber Eats.

Pricing tools that set real-time prices at the local level based on demand.

The Uber business model relies on Uber continually investing in their new technologies and harnessing new AI to reshape the future of transportation.

Ubers Key Metrics

The Uber business model is based on some core metrics which guide how well it is performing. First of all, per customer averaged over a month indicates loyalty plus the number of services a customer uses.

Driver incentives. Driver incentives refer to payments made to Drivers e.g. a consecutive number of trips or a cumulative number of trips over a defined period of time.

Driver referrals. Driver referrals refer to payments that we make to existing Drivers to refer new Drivers.

Excess Driver incentives. Excess Driver incentives refer to cumulative payments, including incentives.

Gross Bookings. Gross Bookings are the total dollar value, including any applicable taxes, tolls, and fees, of Ridesharing and New Mobility rides.

Monthly Active Platform Consumers ("MAPCs"). MAPCs are the number of unique consumers who completed a Rides or New Mobility ride or received an Eats meal on their platform at least once in a given month.

Uber Acquisitions

The Uber business model has transformed Uber's capabilities and presented further opportunities for expansion. Moreover, with the focus on AI it points to smarter segmentation of customers based on use and other data.

The Uber business model is changing and adapting and these acquisitions point the direction for how Uber will expand and address problems that its technology can solve in different markets.

Uber Business Strategy

What's Uber business strategy

Uber's Strategy

The ride-hailing market has become more competitive as others have entered the market, received funding and taken on Uber head to head. The largest of these is Lyft.

Any company that has invested heavily in its resources and built unique capabilities needs to exploit them whilst maintaining a focus on its core market. The long-term play is in autonomous vehicles but it is many years before they will be a day to day reality.

The core focus is to use an existing core base of users who want convenience and a variety of ride experiences and scaling the network effect which results in more liquidity. As I have mentioned before in my talks, it is the customer experience that will underpin how they achieve this.

In many developing countries that do not have a strong logistics infrastructure, there is a need to connect suppliers with customers. As an example, most retailers are still supplied from a host of different suppliers rather than a wholesaler. The Uber business model provides new opportunities for trade and efficiencies.

We can see from Uber's acquisitions that they have identified opportunities to improve the transparency and access between supplier and buyers.

The Uber business model is rapidly evolving as they expand into new geographies and new markets.

How does Uber make money

Uber business model - how Uber makes money

Uber History

Uber's story began in Paris in 2008. Two friends, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, were attending the LeWeb, an annual tech conference the Economist describes as "where revolutionaries gather to plot the future".

In 2007, both men had sold startups they co-founded for large sums. Kalanick sold Red Swoosh to Akamai Technologies for $19 million while Camp sold StumbleUpon to eBay ( EBAY) for $75 million.

Rumor has it that the concept for Uber was born one winter night during the conference when the pair was unable to get a cab. Initially, the idea was for a timeshare limo service that could be ordered via an app. After the conference, the entrepreneurs went their separate ways, but when Camp returned to San Francisco, he continued to be fixated on the idea and bought the domain name UberCab.com.

Ryan Graves, who was Uber's General Manager and an important figure in the early stages of the company, became CEO of Uber in August 2010. In December 2010, Kalanick took over again as CEO, while Graves assumed the role of COO and board member.

The Cease-and-Desist Order

In October 2010, the company received a cease-and-desist order from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. One of the main issues cited was the use of the word "cab" in UberCab's name. The startup promptly responded by changing the name UberCab to Uber and bought the Uber.com domain name from Universal Music Group.

Uber Timeline

Uber has taken an interesting path in its 10 years in business. Here's a brief timeline underscoring its biggest and most noteworthy moments.

March, 2009. Kalanick and Camp, along with college buddies Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan, create the "black car" ride service model that would ultimately become UberCab.

June, 2010. UberCab is launched in San Francisco, and the ride service immediately connects with the city's tech-heavy, and car-ownership averse, urban professionals.

October, 2010. UberCab is renamed Uber, and the company snares $1.25 million in capital funding to expand. Former Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning is an early investor. Two months later, CEO Graves steps down and is replaced by Kalanick.

May, 2011. Uber rolls out in New York City, and is met with heavy resistance from the city's massive taxicab industry. Six months later, Uber launches in Paris.

December, 2013. Uber drivers join up to file a lawsuit against Uber, looking to be designated as employees, and not contract workers. It's the first of multiple showdowns between drivers and Uber.

August, 2014. Uber introduces UberPool, a ride-sharing model that enables riders to "pool" their rides and split the fare between multiple parties.

April, 2015. UberEats is launched in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, giving consumers the Uber experience with food delivery. The service immediately catches on with young millennials too busy on the job to cook dinners - giving Uber another profit line in the process.

February, 2017. Uber is hit with its first of several charges of sexual harassment in the workplace. A blog post from a former company engineer lights the fuse with charges of a sexist workplace culture at Uber. Management responds to the resulting outcry by hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the matter, and to look into the company's workplace culture. Five months later, Kalanick resigns as CEO after strong pressure from the company's board of directors. He is replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi, the former CEO at Expedia.

May, 2019. Uber goes public on the New York Stock Exchange, with an initial share price of $45, and a market capitalization of $75.5 billion.

Who has funded Uber

In the 10 years since its inception, Uber has found support among some of the world's biggest backers, with outsized pockets to match. Its largest shareholder is SoftBank (SB Cayman 2), which invested $9.3 billion of its Vision Fund in the company last year.

Other shareholders include Google's Alphabet and Garrett Camp's startup studio Expa-1. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the country's sovereign wealth fund, has also invested in Uber, sending $3.5 billion by wire transfer-then the largest payment ever sent in one lump sum-in June 2016. It remains the largest investment made by a foreign government in a venture-backed startup.

MORE Resources

Uber Business Model

Uber Business Model

If you have any comments on the Uber business model please leave them below or jump onto the chat.

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Uber Business Model - 1 Platform Attacking New Markets

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In this post, you will learn about the Uber business model. I'll cover how Uber works, how Uber makes money, Uber's strategy and how they harness their platform technology to expand into new markets. Uber is an on-demand ride service that connects passengers with drivers of cars through an app.

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Look at the content in the sample to guide your process

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HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations (HBR Guide Series)

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HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations (HBR Guide Series) eBook : Duarte, Nancy: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store

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When was the last time you ran a competitive analysis for your brand? And most importantly, do you know how to do one efficiently?

If you're unsure or if the last "analysis" you ran was a quick perusal of a competitor's website, you're likely missing out on important intelligence that could help your brand grow.

In this detailed guide, you'll learn how to conduct a competitive analysis to give your business an advantage.
Table of Contents
A competitive analysis can help you learn the ins and outs of how your competition works and identify potential opportunities where you can outperform them. It also enables you to stay atop of industry trends and ensure your product is consistently meeting - and exceeding - industry standards.

Let's dive into a few more benefits of conducting competitive analyses:

Helps you identify your product's unique value proposition and what makes your product different from your competitors, which can inform future marketing efforts.

Enables you to identify what your competitor is doing right. This information is critical for staying relevant and ensuring your product and marketing campaigns outperform industry standards.

Tells you where your competitors are falling short - which helps you identify areas of opportunities in the marketplace and test out new, unique marketing strategies they haven't taken advantage of.

Learn through customer reviews what's missing in a competitor's product, and consider how you might add features to your own product to meet those needs.

Provides you with a benchmark against which you can measure your growth.

What is a competitive analysis?

Competitive analysis is a meticulous strategy that dives deep into the operations of your prime competitors.

It's not just about knowing what they offer. You need to understand their sales strategies, marketing tactics, and the ethos driving their brand.

Why is a competitive analysis important?

The ripple effects of a well-executed competitive analysis are manifold:

Strategic business decisions. Anchoring your business strategies on solid, data-driven insights ensures you stay ahead in the game.

Fortifying defenses. By knowing what your competitors are up to, you can better defend your market share and even capture new territories.

Unearth golden opportunities. Delving into the intricacies of your competition's operations can spotlight areas where you can shine brighter.

Beyond Just the Basics

While it's essential to understand how your competition operates, the real magic happens when you can:

Spot your unique value. What sets you apart? How can you amplify that difference in your marketing efforts?

Learn from their triumphs. Your competitors might just be doing something genius. Identifying their strengths ensures you're always at par, if not ahead.

Discover their shortcomings. Every brand has its Achilles' heel. Find it. This knowledge can carve out opportunities and new strategies for your business.

Tap into customer sentiments. Dive into customer reviews. What's lacking in their product? Can you incorporate those missing features into your offerings?

Benchmark your progress. Your journey is unique. However, setting a benchmark based on your competitors can offer valuable growth metrics.

What is competitive market research?

Competitive market research is a vital exercise that goes beyond merely comparing products or services.

It involves an in-depth analysis of the market metrics that distinguish your offerings from those of your competitors.

A thorough market research doesn't just highlight these differences but leverages them, laying a solid foundation for a sales and marketing strategy that truly differentiates your business in a bustling market.

In the next section, we'll explore the nuts and bolts of conducting a detailed competitive analysis tailored to your brand.

Competitive Analysis in Marketing

Every brand can benefit from regular competitor analysis. By performing a competitor analysis, you'll be able to:

Identify gaps in the market.

Develop new products and services.

Uncover market trends.

Market and sell more effectively.

As you can see, learning any of these four components will lead your brand down the path of achievement.

Next, let's dive into some steps you can take to conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis.

To run a complete and effective competitive analysis, use these ten templates, which range in purpose from sales to marketing to product strategy.
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1. Determine who your competitors are.

First, you'll need to figure out who you're competing with to compare the data accurately. What works in a business like yours may not work for your brand.

So how can you do this?

Divide your "competitors" into two categories: direct and indirect.

Direct competitors are businesses that offer a product or service that could pass as a similar substitute for yours and that operate in your same geographic area.

On the flip side, an indirect competitor provides products that are not the same but could satisfy the same customer need or solve the same problem.

It seems simple enough on paper, but these two terms are often misused.

When comparing your brand, you should only focus on your direct competitors. This is something many brands get wrong.

Let's use an example: Stitch Fix and Fabletics are both subscription-based services that sell clothes on a monthly basis and serve a similar target audience.

But as we look deeper, we can see that the actual product (clothes in this case) is not the same; one brand focuses on stylish everyday outfits while the other is workout-centric attire only.

Yes, these brands satisfy the same need for women (having trendy clothes delivered right to their doorstep each month), but they do so with completely different types of clothing, making them indirect competitors.

This means Kate Hudson's team at Fabletics would not want to spend their time studying Stitch Fix too closely since their audiences probably vary quite a bit. Even if it's only slightly, this tiny variation is enough to make a big difference.

Now, this doesn't mean you should toss your indirect competitors out the window completely.

Keep these brands on your radar since they could shift positions at any time and cross over into the direct competitor zone. Using our example, Stitch Fix could start a workout line, which would certainly change things for Fabletics.

This is also one of the reasons why you'll want to routinely run a competitor analysis. The market can and will shift at any time, and if you're not constantly scoping it out, you won't be aware of these changes until it's too late.

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

At the heart of any business is its product or service, which is what makes this a good place to start.

You'll want to analyze your competitor's complete product line and the quality of the products or services they're offering.

You should also take note of their pricing and any discounts they're offering customers.

Some questions to consider include:

3. Research your competitors' sales tactics and results.

Running a sales analysis of your competitors can be a bit tricky.

You'll want to track down the answers to questions such as:

What does the sales process look like?

What channels are they selling through?

Do they have multiple locations, and how does this give them an advantage?

Are they expanding? Scaling down?

Do they have partner reselling programs?

What are their customers' reasons for not buying? For ending their relationship with the company?

What are their revenues each year? What about total sales volume?

Do they regularly discount their products or services?

How involved is a salesperson in the process?

These helpful pieces of information will give you an idea of how competitive the sales process is and what information you need to prepare your sales reps with to compete during the final buy stage.

For publicly held companies, you can find annual reports online, but you'll have to do some sleuthing to find this info from privately owned businesses.

You could find some of this information by searching through your CRM and reaching out to those customers who mentioned they were considering your competitor.

Find out what made them choose your product or service over others out there.

To do this, run a report that shows all prospective deals where there was an identified competitor.

If this data is not something you currently record, talk to marketing and sales to implement a system where prospects are questioned about the other companies they are considering.

Essentially, they'll need to ask their leads (either through a form field or during a one-on-one sales conversation) to identify who their current service providers are, who they've used in the past, and who else they are considering during the buying process.

When a competitor is identified, have your sales team dive deeper by asking why they are considering switching to your product. If you've already lost the deal, be sure to follow up with the prospect to determine why you lost to your competitor.

What services or features attracted the prospect? Was it about price? What's the prospect's impression of your sales process? If they've already made the switch, find out why they made this decision.

By asking open-ended questions, you'll have honest feedback about what customers find appealing about your brand and what might be turning customers away.

Once you've answered these questions, you can start scoping out your competitor's marketing efforts.

4. Take a look at your competitors' pricing, as well as any perks they offer.

There are a few major factors that go into correctly pricing your product - and one major one is understanding how much your competitors are charging for a similar product or service.

If you feel your product offers superior features compared to those of a competitor, you might consider making your product or service more expensive than industry standards.

However, if you do that, you'll want to ensure your sales reps are ready to explain why your product is worth the additional cost.

Alternatively, perhaps you feel there's a gap in your industry for affordable products. If that's the case, you might aim to charge less than competitors and appeal to prospects who aren't looking to break the bank for a high-quality product.

Of course, other factors go into correctly pricing a product, but it's critical you stay on top of industry pricing to ensure you're pricing your product in a way that feels reasonable to prospects.

Additionally, take a look at any perks your competitors offer and how you might match those perks to compete. For instance, perhaps your competitors offer a major referral discount or a month-long free trial version.

These perks could be the reason you're losing customers, so if it feels reasonable for your brand, consider where you might match those perks - or provide some unique perks of your own if competitors don't offer any.

5. Ensure you're meeting competitive shipping costs.

Did you know expensive shipping is the number one reason for cart abandonment?

Nowadays, free shipping is a major perk that can attract consumers to choose one brand over another. If you work in an industry where shipping is a major factor - like e-commerce - you'll want to take a look at competitors' shipping costs and ensure you're meeting (if not exceeding) those prices.

If most of your competitors offer free shipping, you'll want to look into the option for your own company. If free shipping isn't a practical option for your business, consider how you might differentiate in other ways - including loyalty programs, holiday discounts, or giveaways on social media.

6. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

Analyzing your competitor's website is the fastest way to gauge their marketing efforts. Take note of any of the following items and copy down the specific URL for future reference:

Do they have a blog?

Are they creating whitepapers or e-books?

Do they post videos or webinars?

Do they have a podcast?

Are they using static visual content such as infographics and cartoons?

What about slide decks?

Do they have a FAQs section?

Are there featured articles?

Do you see press releases?

Do they have a media kit?

What about case studies?

Do they publish buying guides and data sheets?

What online and offline advertising campaigns are they running?

7. Take note of your competition's content strategy.

Then, take a look at the quantity of these items. Do they have several hundred blog posts or a small handful? Are there five white papers and just one e-book?

Next, determine the frequency of these content assets. Are they publishing something new each week or once a month? How often does a new e-book or case study come out?

Chances are, if you come across a robust archive of content, your competitor has been publishing regularly. Depending on the topics they're discussing, this content may help you hone in on their lead-generating strategies.

From there, you should move on to evaluating the quality of their content. After all, if the quality is lacking, it won't matter how often they post since their target audience won't find much value in it.

Choose a small handful of samples to review instead of tackling every single piece to make the process more manageable.

Your sampler should include content pieces covering a variety of topics, so you'll have a fairly complete picture of what your competitor shares with their target audience.

When analyzing your competitor's content, consider the following questions:

How accurate is their content?

Are spelling or grammar errors present?

How in-depth does their content go? (Is it at the introductory level that just scratches the surface, or does it include more advanced topics with high-level ideas?)

What tone do they use?

Is the content structured for readability? (Are they using bullet points, bold headings, and numbered lists?)

Is their content free and available to anyone, or do their readers need to opt in?

Who is writing their content? (In-house team? One person? Multiple contributors?)

Is there a visible byline or bio attached to their articles?

As you continue to scan the content, pay attention to the photos and imagery your competitors are using.

Do you quickly scroll past generic stock photos, or are you impressed by custom illustrations and images? If they're using stock photos, do they at least have overlays of text quotes or calls-to-action that are specific to their business?

If their photos are custom, are they sourced from outside graphic professionals, or do they appear to be done in-house?

When you have a solid understanding of your competitor's content marketing strategy, it's time to find out if it's truly working for them.

8. Learn what technology stack your competitors use.

Understanding what types of technology your competitors use can be critical for helping your own company reduce friction and increase momentum within your organization.

For instance, perhaps you've seen positive reviews about a competitor's customer service - as you're conducting research, you learn the customer uses powerful customer service software you haven't been taking advantage of.

This information should arm you with the opportunity to outperform your competitors' processes.

To figure out which software your competitors use, type the company's URL into Built With, an effective tool for unveiling what technology your competitors' site runs on, along with third-party plugins ranging from analytics systems to CRMs.

Alternatively, you might consider looking at competitors' job listings, particularly for engineer or web developer roles. The job listing will likely mention which tools a candidate needs to be familiar with - a creative way to gain intel into the technology your competitors use.

9. Analyze the level of engagement on your competitor's content.

To gauge how engaging your competitor's content is to their readers, you'll need to see how their target audience responds to what they're posting.

Check the average number of comments, shares, and likes on your competitor's content and find out if:

Certain topics resonate better than others.

The comments are negative, positive, or mixed.

People are tweeting about specific topics more than others.

Readers respond better to Facebook updates about certain content.

Don't forget to note if your competitor categorizes their content using tags and if they have social media follow and share buttons attached to each piece of content.

10. Observe how they promote their marketing content.

From engagement, you'll move right along to your competitor's content promotion strategy.

Keyword density in the copy itself

Image ALT text tags

Use of internal linking

The following questions can also help you prioritize and focus on what to pay attention to:

11. Look at their social media presence, strategies, and go-to platforms

The last area you'll want to evaluate when it comes to marketing is your competitor's social media presence and engagement rates.

How does your competition drive engagement with their brand through social media? Do you see social sharing buttons with each article? Does your competitor have links to their social media channels in the header, footer, or somewhere else? Are these clearly visible? Do they use calls-to-action with these buttons?

If your competitors are using a social network that you may not be on, it's worth learning more about how that platform may be able to help your business, too.

To determine if a new social media platform is worth your time, check your competitor's engagement rates on those sites. First, visit the following sites to see if your competition has an account on these platforms:

Then, take note of the following quantitative items from each platform:

Number of fans/followers.

Posting frequency and consistency.

Content engagement. (Are users leaving comments or sharing their posts?)

Content virality. (How many shares, repins, and retweets do their posts get?)

With the same critical eye you used to gauge your competition's content marketing strategy, take a fine-toothed comb to analyze their social media strategy.

What kind of content are they posting? Are they more focused on driving people to landing pages, resulting in new leads? Or are they posting visual content to promote engagement and brand awareness?

How much of this content is original? Do they share curated content from other sources? Are these sources regular contributors? What is the overall tone of the content?

How does your competition interact with its followers? How frequently do their followers interact with their content?

After you collect this data, generate an overall grade for the quality of your competitor's content. This will help you compare the rest of your competitors using a similar grading scale.

12. Perform a SWOT Analysis to learn their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

As you evaluate each component in your competitor analysis (business, sales, and marketing), get into the habit of performing a simplified SWOT analysis at the same time.

This means you'll take note of your competitor's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats any time you assess an overall grade.

Some questions to get you started include:

You'll be able to compare their weaknesses against your strengths and vice versa. By doing this, you can better position your company, and you'll start to uncover areas for improvement within your own brand.

Competitive Product Analysis

Product analysis drills down to discover key differences and similarities in products that share the same general market.

If you have a competitor selling products in a similar market niche to your own - you want to ensure that you aren't losing market share to the competition.

Leveraging the example above, we can drill down and discover some of the key differentiators in product offerings.

Step 1: Assess your current product pricing.

The first step in any product analysis is to assess current pricing.

Nintendo offers three models of its Switch console: The smaller lite version is priced at $199, the standard version is $299, and the new OLED version is $349.

Sony, meanwhile, offers two versions of its PlayStation 5 console: The standard edition costs $499, and the digital version, which doesn't include a disc drive, is $399.

Step 2: Compare key features

Next is a comparison of key features. In the case of our console example, this means comparing features like processing power, memory, and hard drive space.

Step 3: Pinpoint differentiators

With basic features compared, it's time to dive deeper with differentiators. While a glance at the chart above seems to indicate that the PS5 is outperforming its competition, this data only tells part of the story.

Here's why: The big selling point of the standard and OLED Switch models is that they can be played as either handheld consoles or docked with a base station connected to a TV. What's more, this "switching" happens seamlessly, allowing players to play whenever, wherever.

The Playstation offering, meanwhile, has leaned into market-exclusive games that are only available on its system to help differentiate them from their competitors.

Step 4: Identify market gaps

The last step in a competitive product analysis is looking for gaps in the market that could help your company get ahead.

When it comes to the console market, one potential opportunity gaining traction is the delivery of games via cloud-based services rather than physical hardware.

Companies like Nvidia and Google have already made inroads in this space, and if they can overcome issues with bandwidth and latency, it could change the market at scale.

Competitive Analysis Example

How do you stack up against the competition? Where are you similar, and what sets you apart? This is the goal of competitive analysis.

By understanding where your brand and competitors overlap and diverge, you're better positioned to make strategic decisions that can help grow your brand.

Of course, it's one thing to understand the benefits of competitive analysis, and it's another to actually carry out an analysis that yields actionable results. Don't worry - we've got you covered with a quick example.

Sony vs. Nintendo: Not all fun and games

Let's take a look at popular gaming system companies Sony and Nintendo.

Sony's newest offering - the Playstation 5 - recently hit the market but has been plagued by supply shortages.

Nintendo's Switch console, meanwhile, has been around for several years but remains a consistent seller, especially among teens and children.

This scenario is familiar for many companies on both sides of the coin; some have introduced new products designed to compete with established market leaders, while others are looking to ensure that reliable sales don't fall.

Using some of the steps listed above, here's a quick competitive analysis example.

1. Determine who your competitors are.

In our example, it's Sony vs Nintendo, but it's also worth considering Microsoft's Xbox, which occupies the same general market vertical.

This is critical for effective analysis; even if you're focused on specific competitors and how they compare, it's worth considering other similar market offerings.

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

PlayStation offers two PS5 versions, digital and standard, at different price points, while Nintendo offers three versions of its console.

Both companies also sell peripherals - for example, Sony sells virtual reality (VR) add-ons, while Nintendo sells gaming peripherals such as steering wheels, tennis rackets, and differing controller configurations.

3. Research your competitors' sales tactics and results.

When it comes to sales tactics and marketing, Sony and Nintendo have very different approaches.

In part thanks to the recent semiconductor shortage, Sony has driven up demand via scarcity - very low volumes of PS5 consoles remain available. Nintendo, meanwhile, has adopted a broader approach by targeting families as its primary customer base.

This effort is bolstered by the Switch Lite product line, which is smaller and less expensive, making it a popular choice for children.

The numbers tell the tale: Through September 2021, Nintendo sold 14.3 million consoles, while Sony sold 7.8 million.

4. Take a look at your competitors' pricing, as well as any perks they offer.

Sony has the higher price point: Their standard PS5 sells for $499, while Nintendo's most expensive offering comes in at $349. Both offer robust digital marketplaces and the ability to easily download new games or services.

Here, the key differentiators are flexibility and fidelity. The Switch is flexible - users can dock it with their television and play it like a standard console or pick it up and take it anywhere as a handheld gaming system.

The PS5, meanwhile, has superior graphics hardware and processing power for gamers who want the highest-fidelity experience.

5. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

If you compare the marketing efforts of Nintendo and Sony, the difference is immediately apparent: Sony's ads feature realistic in-game footage and speak to the exclusive nature of their game titles.

The company has managed to secure deals with several high-profile game developers for exclusive access to new and existing IPs.

Nintendo, meanwhile, uses brightly lit ads showing happy families playing together or children using their smaller Switches while traveling.

6. Analyze the level of engagement on your competitor's content.

Engagement helps drive sales and encourage repeat purchases.

While there are several ways to measure engagement, social media is one of the most straightforward: In general, more followers equates to more engagement and greater market impact.

When it comes to our example, Sony enjoys a significant lead over Nintendo: While the official Playstation Facebook page has 38 million followers, Nintendo has just 5 million.

Competitive Analysis Templates

Competitive analysis is complex, especially when you're assessing multiple companies and products simultaneously.

To help streamline the process, we've created 10 free templates that make it possible to see how you stack up against the competition - and what you can do to increase market share.

Let's break down our SWOT analysis template. Here's what it looks like:

Strengths. Identify your strengths. These may include specific pieces of intellectual property, products that are unique to the market, or a workforce that outperforms the competition.

Weaknesses. Here, it's worth considering potential issues around pricing, leadership, staff turnover, and new competitors in the market.
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Opportunities. This part of the SWOT analysis can focus on new market niches, evolving consumer preferences, or new technologies being developed by your company.

Threats. These might include new taxes or regulations on existing products or an increasing number of similar products in the same market space that could negatively affect your overall share.

Competitive Analysis: FAQs

What is a competitive analysis framework?

A competitive analysis framework is a structured approach used to evaluate potential competitors and understand their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

This framework serves as a guide for businesses to identify competitive advantages, understand market positioning, and inform strategic decisions.

Depending on the industry and the company's objectives, this framework might focus on areas like product features, market share, pricing, customer feedback, and more.

How do you do a good competitive analysis?

Conducting a thorough competitive analysis involves several steps:

Identify competitors. Start by listing key competitors in your market, both direct and indirect.

Evaluate their products/services. Analyze what they're selling and how it compares to your offerings.

Analyze market position. Determine their market share, brand perception, and unique value proposition.

Check their marketing strategies. Observe their advertising, content marketing, PR efforts, and online presence.

Assess their financial health. If available, review financial statements, annual reports, or investor presentations.

Gather customer feedback. Reviews, testimonials, and surveys can give insights into competitor strengths and weaknesses.

Regularly review and update. The market evolves, and competitors change strategies, so it's vital to keep your analysis current.

What are the 5 parts of a competitive analysis?

The five key components of a competitive analysis include:

1. Company overview. A brief snapshot of the competitor, including its history, size, and mission.

2. Product/service analysis. An examination of their key products or services and how they compare to yours.

3. Marketing strategy. Insights into their promotional tactics, target audience, and unique selling propositions.

4. Operational analysis. An understanding of their supply chain, distribution, and customer service practices.

5. Strengths and weaknesses. A clear breakdown of where the competitor excels and where they might be vulnerable.

What are the 3 C's in a competitive analysis?

The 3 C's refer to a strategic model that considers three main factors when understanding the broader business environment:

1. Company. Understanding your own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

2. Customers. Knowing who your target audience is, what they value, and how they behave.

3. Competitors. Analyzing direct and indirect competitors to determine market dynamics and potential threats.

Is SWOT analysis a competitive analysis?

Yes, SWOT analysis is a type of competitive analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a strategic planning tool used to identify and analyze these four elements of a business.

While a SWOT analysis can be focused internally on a company's own attributes, when used as a competitive analysis tool, it assesses a competitor's SWOT to understand where your business has advantages or might be vulnerable.

How does your business stack up?

Before you accurately compare your competition, you need to establish a baseline. This also helps when it comes time to perform a SWOT analysis.

Take an objective look at your business, sales, and marketing reports through the same metrics you use to evaluate your competition. Record this information just like you would with a competitor and use this as your baseline to compare across the board.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published prior to July 2018 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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What is a Competitive Analysis - and How Do You Conduct One?

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In this detailed guide, learn how to conduct a competitive analysis that will give your business a competitive advantage in the market.

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The Explainer: Writing Great Business Plans

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The Explainer: Writing Great Business Plans

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Structure Your Presentation Like a Story

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The idea of "purpose" has swept the corporate world. Encouraged by evangelists like Simon Sinek, myriad firms like Nike, Adidas, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola are devoting real time and attention to explaining why they do. The idea of purpose was central to a book I co-authored.

But activating purpose is impossible without storytelling, at both the corporate and individual levels. As I've written previously, while purpose is essential to a strong corporate culture, it is often activated and reinforced through narrative. Individuals must learn to connect their drives to the organization's purpose and to articulate their story to others.

This is hard for most business leaders. Great leaders are often humble and reticent to speak about themselves. This impulse is admirable, but it falls short of what's needed to inspire people to join in the purpose of an organization. And many businesspeople feel more comfortable with waterfall charts and P&Ls than with telling their own stories. Only narrative can do that. Storytelling is a skill that leaders can - and should - hone.

I learned this lesson, most acutely, from Marshall Ganz, who teaches what he calls " public narrative" at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Ganz argues that for people to inspire others with the mission of their organization or cause, they must first link that mission to their own motivations, and then connect it through story to those of the people they are hoping to persuade. Ganz has developed a simple framework for those hoping to develop a narrative approach to their purpose-driven organizations: " Self, Us, Now."

To create a public narrative for your own organization, start with "self." This is perhaps the most difficult part for many businesspeople because it involves focusing on real events in one's own life and explaining how these incidents established the values that will later link to the values of the organization.

An excellent example of this is Steve Jobs's address to the Stanford graduating class in 2005. The address was largely a deeply personal reflection on Jobs's personal history - his working-class upbringing, his dropping out of college. Perhaps more importantly, however, he spoke about how his love of calligraphy instilled with him a love of design that would later guide his work at Apple, and how his cancer diagnosis reinforced in him a deep desire to live passionately and authentically - as if each day were his last. It's beautiful storytelling, and it gives you a glimpse into who Jobs was, what he valued, and how that would later guide his work at Apple and elsewhere. What's compelling about Jobs's address is that it seems authentic and raw. A great story of self has to be a real story of self. Finding that story may require a leader to reflect deeply on her past and motivations, and communicate them honestly - even those parts that are embarrassing or imperfect.

The next step, "us," aims to connect these values with broader shared values of the audience - clients or employees, for example. In this step, you weave your own personal narrative into the narratives of others through shared values, experiences, hopes, and aspirations. In doing so you create a common narrative for the group or organization. In literature, a well-known example of this (one that Ganz often highlights in class) is the St. Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare's Henry V. In it, King Henry, attempting to motivate an English army demoralized by their lack of strength, calls on his troops to be a "band of brothers" fighting valiantly together for each other, their country, and the values they share.

While it's miles away from the battlefield of Agincourt, Burt's Bees is a good example of how a business has applied this technique. They feature the story of their founder, Burt Shavitz, on their website, and use a separate section to document how the story of Burt and his partner Roxanne became "our story," the story of the company and its clients. Before his death, Burt himself was a company spokesperson for years beyond his operational involvement. A great "story of us" establishes a community, its values, and how they came to be.

Finally, the close is what Ganz calls the "now" - an urgent call to action for those who wish to share the purpose of a group or an organization. Consider St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The organization's purpose is "Finding Cures. Saving Children," and their site is filled with the stories of the kids they serve. Their call to action - often, simply to give financially - is simple, direct, and compelling in their videos and materials.

Kickstarter, similarly, has an impactful way of asking people to join its team. That narrative starts by having its founder tell the story of the company (the "self"). Their website includes pictures and short descriptions of each and every company employee ("the us"). Finally, the narrative culminates its "now" call to action with a careers page asking: "Love Kickstarter? You'll fit right in." These stories are most powerful when they are individually authentic, build to a collective narrative and values, and then seal the deal by asking the person reading, watching, or listening to join in.

Storytelling can be awkward and unfamiliar to many professionals, particularly if you're sharing personal experiences. Yet the motivation for this storytelling is not self-aggrandizement, but to create a purpose and culture that others can share. Purpose is what builds real passion, motivation, and buy-in for the stakeholders of any organization. And it can be articulated by leaders who've learned to tell their stories and the stories of the organizations, people, and causes they serve.

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Use Storytelling to Explain Your Company's Purpose

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The idea of "purpose" has swept the corporate world. Encouraged by evangelists like Simon Sinek, myriad firms like Nike, Adidas, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola are devoting real time and attention to explaining why they do. The idea of purpose was central to a book I co-authored.

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https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/writing/Pages/litfocuswritingprocess.aspx

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Transformation of a savanna in a tropical forest

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Transformation of a savanna in a tropical forest

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The benefits of reforestation and the revenues generated for the community

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Uber and others
Business model canvas

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That Uber has put its stamp on the taxi industry is without discussion. It has created a shift in the way we think about personal transportation. Whatever the future of Uber will be, one thing is obvious: we are never going back to the old situation. Of course, Uber still has its challenges with lawsuits, expanding to new cities (chicken and egg) and trust/safety issues. But with a presence in over 600 cities, 1 million rides on average a day, over 50 million users, 7 million registered drivers, sufficient funding coming in (last was $22 billion in December 2017) and a company valuation of over $70 billion we can state that Uber is very successful. The main reason for that is that Uber has an exponential business model.

Exponential in many ways

Uber's business model is exponential in many ways. The most important one of them all is that they solve a problem for the many. Getting from A to B without your own transport is a worldwide 'job to be done', it exists almost everywhere. Next to that, one of the most relevant changing consumer needs we see is the longing for no hassle and easy services. Combine those two and link it to the 'old way' of taxi transportation and you see a worldwide problem to solve. Uber addresses the hassle with ordering a taxi (in a foreign language), lack of information, paying, insecurity what to tip, if the taxi driver can be trusted, if he drives the optimal route and other irritations.
And that's only one of their customer segments. As they are a multisided platform, they connect two segments. They also solve problems of the other segment, car owners who want to make extra money with driving. Uber makes it easy to make that happen.

Another very important element is that their value proposition is based on an information-based service. It is all about the data/information and the technical platform to distribute that data, and that is extremely scaleable. The Uber app and the technical platform behind it are easy to duplicate to new (geographical) markets. With Uber, no adjustments are needed most of the time (in some countries you can also pay with cash, like in India).

Combine that information-based service with a digital channel that is available worldwide, the IOS and Android app stores, and you have a very easy way to unlock your service to a broad customer base.

Uber also creates a community of fans. There are two important reasons why this helps them in creating an exponential business model. One, as they are a love-brand and people are very enthusiastic about the service, they get free marketing due to positive word of mouth and ambassadorship. Two, users (drivers and the one being driven) are important contributors to the success and efficiency of the platform by giving feedback and ratings. Uber is 'outsourcing' that important element of the platform to its users. That is very scalable, and free as well.

Lean processes are another important element, it helps them to easily expand to new markets/cities. They have playbooks for roll-outs and, as said, the platform requires minimal adjustments to fit the new markets. On top of that, they work together with some important key-partners which make expansion relatively easy. They make use of Google Maps for example which gives them easy access to worldwide mapping, key in their app, and they use Adyen to process all their global payments.

Of course, there are also non-exponential elements to the Uber business model. In the case of Uber that mainly has to do with people. As they need to have an office in every city they operate in, e.g. for customer support and driver acquisition, that decreases the ease of scaling. Next, to that, they need to boost brand awareness in the new city and they need to create a minimum base of drivers before they go live.

You might think that Uber is in the taxi business, but they are in the transport business as they also offer helicopter and boat transports. But not only personal transport. With Uber Eats they offer transport of food, serving three segments: (bike)drivers, restaurants and users. And they are expanding their business into professional transportation, with UberCargo. Same concept, same value proposition, different customer segments.

The interesting thing here is that they have a very strong base to make an even bigger business model shift. Their key resources are 1) an easy to use technical platform which connects offer and demand, 2) a huge customer base and 3) a strong brand worldwide. This provides them with the opportunity to relatively easily expand to other areas of value. So, stay tuned.

Would you like to see more examples of exponential business models? Download our deck Exponential Business Models.
Written by Gijs Mensing

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Uber - an exponential business model - Business Models Inc.

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That Uber has put its stamp on the taxi industry is without discussion. It has created a shift in the way we think about personal transportation. Whatever the future of Uber will be, one thing is obvious: we are never going back to the old situation.

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Sustainable living - architecture and more ..

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Sustainable living - architecture and more ..

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Ideas

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Bjarke Ingels: Floating cities, the LEGO House and other architectural forms of the future

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Design gives form to the future, says architect Bjarke Ingels. In this worldwide tour of his team's projects, journey to a waste-to-energy power plant (that doubles as an alpine ski slope) and the LEGO Home of the Brick in Denmark -- and catch a glimpse of cutting-edge flood resilience infrastructure in New York City as well as an ambitious plan to create floating, sustainable cities that are adapted to climate change.

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Business planning around tech for grocers

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Business planning around tech for grocers

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In recent years, a wide array of technologies in areas such as sensors and data capture, automation, and AI have rapidly emerged with the potential to reshape the retail industry. One consistent trend has become clear: retailers that are capable of changing their businesses to capture value from new technologies across functions (such as e-commerce, supply chain, store operations, and customer engagement) are typically more successful. This ability to envision and act on opportunities faster than the competition has become a real strategic advantage.

Accordingly, grocery retailers have been on the hunt for technologies that can help them leapfrog competitors. But finding and implementing new solutions can also be accompanied by high costs and disappointing delays due to existing, inflexible legacy tech platforms that are often coupled with legacy ways of working.

Yesterday's technology strategies, such as multiyear projects with all value deferred to the final release, no longer suffice given the fast rate of change in grocery retail. These create fragile road maps, vulnerable to even small disruptions in cost, quality, and time to execute. On the other hand, pure online players and innovative incumbents are constantly on the move, so by the time companies complete their three-year road maps, the world looks different again. Fully automated replenishment software and microfulfillment centers, for instance, are streamlining supply and operations, with advanced analytics increasingly optimizing grocers' supply chains end to end. And who could have predicted the explosive growth of online grocery shopping in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions?

With e-commerce now a substantial part of their business, retailers are trying to build a truly omnichannel proposition and corresponding tech platform-no easy feat given the gaps between in-store and online commerce. At the same time, on the commercial side, merchants are increasingly working with largely automated, advanced tools to optimize pricing, promotion, assortment, and sourcing.

Agile, digitally savvy retailers that can derive the most benefit from new technologies will speed ahead of competitors and increase their ability to provide value to shareholders. Our analysis shows consumer and retail companies that are technology leaders increased total returns to shareholders (TRS) at a CAGR of 14 percent from 2017 to 2020, while laggards saw TRS fall by 5 percent CAGR (Exhibit 1). To deliver on this value potential, retailers should embrace five principles to guide their transformations and achieve the flexibility needed to excel.

Would you like to learn more about our Retail Practice?

Five principles to harness new technologies

To become a tech leader that can adapt to changing circumstances, grocers can look to five key principles for guidance:

1. Build a 'product-led' organization

A nimble and successful tech organization is able to shift resources between priorities on short notice. It's crucial for executives to build organizations around "products" (such as customer care or warehouse management) and not focus solely on applications. Leading grocery retailers define business domains and map out product teams for each domain, which could have multiple products. They should be defined at such a granular level that a small team of engineers can own the development end to end (Exhibit 2).

This cross-functional team comprises business and tech talent and is responsible for advancing the product's overarching vision, functionality, and performance. As market dynamics change, products and their teams can be expanded, reduced, or morphed into new teams to capitalize on new opportunities. These business domain product maps help organizations highlight strategic priorities, set measurable business targets, and enable trade-offs when reprioritization is necessary.

While most leading players are building such product teams with in-house tech talent, the same applies for retailers opting for an outsourced or partner model. Smaller players, for example, may not be able to build a full-fledged in-house team in all technology domains. Still, the logic of a product organization would apply; technology partners should replicate a retailer's internal product logic. Regardless of the chosen model, some degree of internal control on technical quality will always be required for success.

2. Create a real tech workforce

To cope with underlying uncertainties and master new technologies, cutting-edge grocers are making sure they have the right talent and are providing employees with ongoing training opportunities to fill skills gaps. Today, many grocery retailers rely heavily on external developers and contractors that may not always have the right capabilities or be able to deliver in a timely manner. Over time, building internal skills is likely less efficient but more effective when it comes to strategic digital systems that are designed and delivered in close coordination with business and functional colleagues using agile methods. The best organizations develop a strong internal engineering workforce complemented by flexible access to external talent in areas where it accelerates productivity or is critical for providing scarce skills.

More broadly, executive capabilities will need an upgrade as well. Skill building and lifelong learning on priority tech topics, such as establishing an enterprise resource planning modernization center or a cloud-migration team, should not stop at the operational-tech level. With technology becoming an important enabler of the whole business model, decision makers across the enterprise should also have a better understanding of how technology works, what it can do for them, and how to mitigate risks while pursuing value.

Another factor is influencing architecture renewal: stores are increasingly becoming nodes in an omnichannel ecosystem.

3. Build architecture modules driven by business strategy

The most successful new technology solutions follow a modular approach that is consistent and reusable across channels. This approach requires breaking down monolithic legacy architectures into smaller, self-sufficient services-meaning they can be enhanced and deployed independently from other parts of the architecture. At the same time, these services should be able to provide data to other applications as needed without fragile point-to-point integrations. Breaking architecture down into modular pieces accelerates development velocity and provides a consistent customer experience across multiple consumer touch points (for example, in-store points of sale, web shops, and mobile apps).

Take, for instance, omnichannel basket calculation: this task is often a pain point for grocers, but when it is modular, it can be used in every channel, thus facilitating new features such as coupons, personalized promotions, and other forms of loyalty offers.

Another factor is influencing architecture renewal: stores are increasingly becoming nodes in an omnichannel ecosystem. Use cases include click-and-collect, local promotions, and last-mile deliveries. The underlying technology architecture must offer sufficient flexibility to integrate third parties, such as delivery partners.

4. Shorten time to market

Consumer behaviors are changing faster than ever. Shorter software release cycles allow retailers to better meet these shifting customer expectations by enabling experimentation, testing new capabilities quickly, and scaling up what works best. Instead of big code releases a few times a year, which are hard to adjust or adapt, companies must build the capabilities to provide new releases faster. This cadence can be as fast as multiple times a day in customer-facing systems, with monthly releases in back-end systems to incorporate user feedback. This accelerated release pace can be accomplished only if modern technology practices, such as automated code deployment and effective test automation, are in place.

5. Use data as the foundation for all improvements

Data are more abundant and flowing faster-and across more boundaries-than ever. Therefore, it is no longer enough to monitor structured transactional and supply-chain data. Grocers instead need to capture millions of daily events and interactions so they can be analyzed to optimize experience and productivity. New technologies in this space are providing unprecedented flexibility to rapidly aggregate, process, and analyze these data.

With this capability, companies can keep close tabs on changing consumer demand. No longer is experience alone enough to make the best decisions. Retailers must complement it with data-driven decision tools-often powered by machine learning. Tailoring these tools to the most critical value drivers of the business is another truly strategic capability.

The state of grocery in North America

Data also improve decisions about where to invest the IT budget. Wherever possible, analysis of direct user feedback can identify areas to improve and inform decisions about further priorities. Investments into critical tools, such as A/B testing and performance monitoring, allow companies to gain better access to user feedback at scale and to act on it.

The agile approach in action

An international grocery retailer decided to double down on digital opportunities, but it needed to radically change its approach to technology adoption. To begin, leadership created a new board-level technology role: chief digital and product officer. Then, the retailer hired eight tech and product leaders who came from purely digital companies or competitors with more advanced tech strategies. It established an offshore tech hub and hired more than 90 engineers, in addition to strengthening the engineering capabilities at headquarters. On the system front, it transformed its underlying architecture, starting in the e-commerce space, where a monolithic system was incrementally replaced by smaller software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and self-developed microservices. The retailer also invested in continuous integration and deployment capabilities and established quarterly, monthly, and even weekly business reviews to evaluate and improve the performance of its key products.

With this new setup, the grocery retailer increased the return on its tech investment and enabled code deployments multiple times per day. Within two to three months, it was able to launch multiple new products, including a new shopping app, a click-and-collect service, a scan-and-go feature, and an express delivery service. At the same time, its digital businesses grew rapidly. Before, e-commerce business had stagnated at approximately 500 orders a day. Nine months after implementing the new strategy, the company had increased the number of online orders to more than 20,000 per day. And since the outbreak of COVID-19, it has further multiplied the number of daily orders generated by its online business.

Setting the right priorities at the outset

To get started on a tech transformation, grocery retailers are using the following strategies:

Embrace the change as an enterprise-wide transformation. Instead of being limited to certain functions, an enterprise-wide approach will maximize impact and prevent the change from creating different cultures within the company.

Measure what matters. The primary goal in IT should be to increase growth and productivity in the core business, which matters far more to the bottom line than shaving a few tenths of a percent off the cost of IT. Yet many IT organizations are measured only by cost versus revenue. Top executives should focus on business impact, and IT leaders should be sure to hold their people accountable to hitting the same metrics as their business colleagues. To be a real business partner, IT cannot measure itself solely by IT metrics.

Focus on tech opportunities that provide the highest business value. An endless number of possible improvements exists, so companies should consider creating minimal viable products to demonstrate value quickly and build appetite for change. Choosing the right "battles" is critical: trying to implement change everywhere will result in comprehensive impact nowhere. Therefore, the focus should be on doing a few things well that create tangible value and the potential for a road map that is at least partially self-funding.

Shorten technology planning cycles. Moving from an annual planning cycle to a flexible planning model on a monthly or quarterly level allows rapid prioritization and deprioritization of products based on their ability to continually generate value.

Make your entire leadership team accountable for the technology change in their domains. True, agile transformation requires the entire board, the C-suite, and their teams to work across functions and silos.

Grocery retailers have a golden opportunity to make better use of the innovation potential that technology is bringing. The path to success is not about picking one solution over another; rather, it lies in building the organization's capacity to drive change with tech leaders and other functions working together. The pandemic forced a new level of collaboration at a pace and scale not imagined before, and teams should build on the lessons from that difficult time as they chart their course toward a tech-enabled future.

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Prioritizing flexibility: How grocers can get the most out of technology

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In recent years, a wide array of technologies in areas such as sensors and data capture, automation, and AI have rapidly emerged with the potential to reshape the retail industry. One consistent trend has become clear: retailers that are capable of changing their businesses to capture value from new technologies across functions (such as e-commerce, supply chain, store operations, and customer engagement) are typically more successful.

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Robot frying chefs - What else is possible by copying humans?

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Robot frying chefs - What else is possible by copying humans?

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Miso Robotics is one.

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Miso Robotics' kitchen robot, Flippy, just became available to purchase for $US30,000.

Flippy can cook 19 items, including burgers and hash browns.

Flippy works as a kitchen assistant, moving along a rail.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Robots can flip burgers and fry sides, and Miso Robotics is selling its burger-flipping robot as the perfect fry cook for the COVID-19 era.

Robot assistant Flippy just became commercially available for $US30,000, or on a payment plan, with plans to eventually lower the price. Flippy is attached to a rail under the kitchen hood to move back and forth while manning the grill and fryer.

"After we shared a sneak peek of the prototype in January, we've seen demand through the roof from operators, especially in light of COVID-19" Miso Robotics CEO Mike Bell said in a press release. The coronavirus pandemic has hit restaurants hard, but fast-food chains have recovered faster with the drive-thru and takeout business not relying on indoor dining, compared to fast-casual chains.

During the pandemic, fast food employees have become essential workers, and labour issues like lack of paid sick time and low wages were thrown into the spotlight. Robots like Flippy in the kitchen could keep fast food locations competitive despite "smaller margins, less foot traffic and new health and safety concerns," Miso says.

Here's how Flippy works.

Miso first introduced Flippy at the grill in 2018, as the first burger flipping robot in the world. It could grill 150 burgers each hour.

The first version of Flippy could detect when raw patties were placed on the grill and monitor them to cook to order. It also cleaned spatulas and scraped the grill in between burgers.

Later that year, Flippy also gained the ability to work as a frying assistant, piloted at Dodger Stadium.

Flippy was able to place baskets in the fryer, shake baskets in oil, and monitor for appropriate cooking time to make chicken tenders and tots.

In January 2020, Miso announced an updated Flippy operating while attached to a rail.

The design was created to assist busy cooks in a quick-service kitchen, installed under a kitchen hood to move along equipment while staying out of the staff's way.

By 2020, Flippy had contracts with Dodger Stadium, Chase Field, and multiple CaliBurger locations.

In 2019, Flippy served more than 15,000 burgers and over 31,000 lbs of chicken tenders and tots.

In July, burger chain White Castle announced a partnership with Flippy.

In the midst of a pandemic, implementing Flippy is also a way to reduce human contact with food before it is served, and hopefully, also reduce virus transmission.

For further food safety, Miso teamed up with Pathspot Technologies, which can scan employees' hands after washing to ensure that they are safe to handle food.

Advances in Flippy and its AI technology have made it work better with human staff while taking over some of the most dangerous jobs, like frying.

ChefUI, Miso's proprietary software, can identify food types and temperatures, and learn new foods.

A monitor on the robot tells the staff what orders are up next, and staff can also adjust cooking times here for custom orders.

All these advancements made Flippy more sophisticated, and it can now cook 19 foods including burgers, chicken wings, onion rings, and more.

Updates have also allowed Flippy to properly cook the Impossible Burger, which has a different texture and thickness than a traditional burger, so it requires a different grilling technique.

Flippy is able to be completely washed down, and tools are automatically switched and cleaned too.

Miso touts Flippy's ability to cook a menu item consistently over and over again, the key to the fast-food chain experience.
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Flippy, the $30,000 automated robot fast-food cook, is now for sale with 'demand through the roof' - see how it grills burgers and fries onion rings

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Miso Robotics' kitchen robot, Flippy, just became available to purchase for $US30,000. Flippy can cook 19 items, including burgers and hash browns. Flippy works as a kitchen assistant, moving along a rail. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Miso robotics putting Flippy’s brain on sale

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Miso robotics putting Flippy’s brain on sale

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Restaurants can improve service, staff and costs with AI

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Photograph courtesy of Miso Robotics

Restaurants can now buy the technology that powers Flippy the automated fry cook-without the robot.

Miso Robotics, the maker of Flippy, on Tuesday unveiled a software product called CookRight, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to guide kitchen workers at the grill. The idea is to reduce errors and food waste and make the kitchen more efficient.

"It's almost like cooking for dummies," said Miso CEO Buck Jordan.

The company is not shifting its focus away from Flippy, he said, but it wanted to offer restaurants some of the benefits of automation minus the major step of putting a robot in the kitchen. The only hardware associated with CookRight is two cameras and a tablet, and restaurants can install it themselves.

The software integrates with a restaurant's POS system. As soon as an item is placed on the grill, CookRight can identify it within 96% accuracy and will guide staff through the cooking process step by step, indicating when to flip a steak, for instance, and when to take it off. It can also coordinate timing so that food is served fresh for multiple guests at one table, or is ready as soon as a delivery driver is supposed to arrive.

That can help ease the "cognitive load" on kitchen staff and reduce the time restaurants spend on training and quality assurance, Jordan said. CookRight also offers real-time data that allows operators to supervise workflows and monitor product levels.

For Miso, the platform expands its market beyond the fast-food burger and fry concepts that are currently Flippy's specialty. Any type of restaurant can use it to support the grill station.

"Miso is hyper-focused on QSR, but with CookRight we can get into fast-casual and fine dining," he said.

CookRight costs $100 a month, and there is no setup fee. It's currently being piloted with a "large chain" that Jordan said will be announced shortly.

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The maker of Flippy is now selling the software behind the robot

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Photograph courtesy of Miso Robotics Restaurants can now buy the technology that powers Flippy the automated fry cook-without the robot. Miso Robotics, the maker of Flippy, on Tuesday unveiled a software product called CookRight, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to guide kitchen workers at the grill.

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Autonomous retail stores - advantages and implications

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Autonomous retail stores - advantages and implications

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Benefits - convenience, improved customer experience, availability due to timely recording of stock requirements and coordination with delivery - (JIT) operations, people in charge of more ‘fun’ work, less repetitive

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AiFi launched the world's biggest camera-operated autonomous store in Shanghai.

The company sells software so that retailers can open cashierless stores where purchases are tracked by AI.

Steve Gu, AiFi's CEO, told Insider how this works.

Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Autonomous retail software provider AiFi has just launched what it says is the world's largest computer vision-powered store in Shanghai, China.

The 4,000 square-foot store uses a series of cameras to track customers so that they can walk in and out of the store without using a till.

"People can literally just walk into a shop, grab stuff, and then leave," Steve Gu, AiFi's CEO, told Insider.

Autonomous retail has hit the headlines in recent years thanks to the advent of Amazon Go. But where AiFi differs, Gu said, is that it isn't a retailer itself.

Instead, AiFi is a software company, and it sells its AI technology to third-party retailers, whilst Amazon Go stores are operated by Amazon itself. Whereas Amazon Go offers what Gu called a "binary experience," where customers have to use the autonomous system and need to scan a QR code to just enter the store, AiFi offers a hybrid solution, meaning that customers can still pay at a till if they want.

AiFi uses a series of cameras to track customers' movements in the store. It detects when customers pick products up, and when they put them down, so that their virtual baskets are automatically updated. Once the customers leave the store, AiFi then sends a digital receipt through its app.

If customers want to use the cashierless system, they simply have to scan either their credit card or the AiFi app on their way on. If they want to pay at the till, they don't have to scan anything - unlike Amazon Go stores, where you can only get access using a scanner.

AiFi has other payment solutions as well, such as a check-in kiosk at a store in the Bay Area.

Unlike some other providers of autonomous retail software, AiFi only uses these cameras. Other autonomous stores - including AiFi's earlier models - use weight sensor shelves to monitor which products customers pick up. Switching to a camera-only solution allowed AiFi to reduce installation costs by 60% without any loss to its receipt accuracy, Gu said.

Autonomous stores need fewer staff and less space for checkouts

AiFi sells its software to third-party retailers, who can add it to existing or new stores, and it can be integrated into retailers' own systems. The company also sells pre-built stores in moveable shipping containers, which come with AiFi's software ready installed.

By making their stores autonomous, retailers need fewer staff and less checkout space, and so they can operate smaller stores.

But AiFi doesn't recommend completely replacing people, Gu told Insider. Instead, companies will have more flexibility on how they want to staff their stores, and may also choose to deploy staff in different customer service roles, he said.

According to the company, AiFi delivers "the highest industry standards" in product recognition, shopper tracking, and receipt accuracy.

It also allows retailers to collect information on both individual and aggregate customers, such as how much time they spend in front of an item before picking it off the shelf.

The level of customization "allows the retailer to shape the shopping experience to fit their brand," Gu said.

The pandemic has accelerated demand for autonomous retail

Because of the pandemic, people have realized the "necessity" of contactless shopping, Gu explained. This has expedited the market adoption of autonomous stores, he said, which mean customers can not only avoid interacting with a cashier but also avoid waiting in a line at the checkout, where it can be hard to social distance.

They stores are also good for use in "food deserts," he explained - areas where people are far away from shops.

Across the board, autonomous stores mean people can get "what they want, when they want it" and facilitate 24/7 shopping, Gu said.

At the new store in Shanghai, which Gu described as China's consumer hub, AiFi around 200 cameras to track more than 6,000 different products. Autonomous retail has been "well-received as a concept" in the country, Gu said, and customers are already used to using WeChat for digital payment.

Autonomous retail is also making massive bounds elsewhere in the world, Gu said. Earlier this month, the company announced plans to roll out its software at 20 existing autonomous convenience stores by April with Dutch company Wundermart.

AiFi predominantly sells its software to supermarkets, though it could explore other store types in the future, and is in contact with clients in the drugstore industry, Gu said. This is because customers traditionally want speed convenience when buying fast-moving consumer goods. Apparel stores, in comparison, could be tricky to make autonomous because people often want to try the clothes on before they buy them.

Amazon opened its first Amazon Go store back in 2018, which uses a system of cameras and sensors to track shoppers and products so consumers can grab their items and leave without stopping to physically check out. Amazon also ramping up its efforts to sell the software, known as Just Walk Out, to third-party retailers. Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, is among the likely candidates.

It also launched Amazon One, a biometric scanner, which allows people to pay by waving their hand, in September. As well as plans to sell it to other stores, sports stadiums, and even offices, the tech also works as an alternative entry method for Amazon Go stores - but it could face merchant adoption challenges.
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The world's biggest camera-operated autonomous store has opened in Shanghai. This is how it works.

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AiFi launched the world's biggest camera-operated autonomous store in Shanghai. The company sells software so that retailers can open cashierless stores where purchases are tracked by AI. Steve Gu, AiFi's CEO, told Insider how this works. Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

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Autonomous shopping - where are the people?

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Autonomous shopping - where are the people?

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In January, the world's first fully autonomous gas station convenience store opened in California's Silicon Valley. In Shanghai, a retail chain store was retrofitted into a fully autonomous shop where customers simply use a popular mobile payment app to walk in, grab their goods and walk out.

Welcome to the world of autonomous shopping. From leading grocery store chains to small mom-and-pop shops, these are among the first in a long list of stores on three continents set to operate autonomously thanks to AiFi. Headquartered in California, the company offers a proprietary technology platform that-using a combination of cameras, sensors and software-can automate stores, both new and existing, to offer a quick, convenient, contactless experience.

"The platform integrates with a retailer's own systems and provides everything a retailer would need to build and operate autonomous stores," says Steve Gu, AiFi's CEO and co-founder.

Called OASIS, the platform is available in three tiers and offers customization and integration options, so retailers can create their ideal automated shopping experience. Depending on their choices, shoppers can enter the store through a mobile app or payment method, or simply walk in. Once inside, the platform uses "computer vision technology and sensor fusion" to construct a virtual shopping cart for each shopper, Gu says. "When the shopper finishes shopping, the carts are finalized for the payment process and the receipt is instantly generated," he adds. Privacy protection is built in. Cleaning and stocking (staff are used for both) and any troubleshooting can be easily monitored through the cameras, alerts and a real-time inventory management tool.

Running on OASIS, AiFi also offers ready-to-go NanoStores, fully automated, checkout-less, portable stores that start at 160 sq. ft., allowing them to fit almost anywhere. "Customers in the NanoStore can simply swipe a credit card or tap an app, select their items and walk out without the need for the retailer to have any on-site personnel to complete transactions," Gu explains. "Receipts are generated in almost real-time, so shoppers can review their itemized receipt as they walk out. The entire shopping journey can be completed in seconds."

Currently, AiFi has 330 stores contracted to launch by the end of 2021. Say goodbye to waiting in lines!

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In January, the world's first fully autonomous gas station convenience store opened in California's Silicon Valley. In Shanghai, a retail chain store was retrofitted into a fully autonomous shop where customers simply use a popular mobile payment app to walk in, grab their goods and walk out.

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Successful prototypes - building the skills

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Successful prototypes - building the skills

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That time you built a spreadsheet for collecting data from your team and adjusted it based on their feedback? That was prototyping. When you ran your big presentation with a couple colleagues and swapped out a few slides because someone said it didn't quite flow? Also prototyping.

At its simplest, we'd argue that prototyping is the intentional testing of ideas. The key is to do it quickly and thoughtfully. Need a little help figuring out where to begin? Here are four resources to get you started.

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Practice Your Prototyping Skills With These 4 Resources

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That time you built a spreadsheet for collecting data from your team and adjusted it based on their feedback? That was prototyping. When you ran your big presentation with a couple colleagues and swapped out a few slides because someone said it didn't quite flow? Also prototyping.