EasyCharge Business Plan Final (1)

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School

Northeastern University *

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Course

6309

Subject

Marketing

Date

Apr 3, 2024

Type

docx

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Uploaded by karinasamuel2004

A Team Davis Technological Solution Prepared by: Karina Samuel, CEO Grayson Schmidt, Operations Manager Emma Gailunas, Financial Manager Jacob Shusterman, Marketing Manager Raven Heyward, Product Designer November 2022

Table of Contents Executive Summary iii Company Description 1 Mission and Objectives: 1 Product: 1 Company and Industry: 1 Competition: 1 Product Design: 1 Market Analysis 2 External Research - The Industry: 2 Internal Research - Survey Results: 3 Market Size: 3 Marketing Strategy: 3 Operations Plans 4 Price: 4 Distribution: 4 Facilities: 4 Materials: 4 Customer Support: 5 Critical Risks and Problems 5 Organization and Management 5 Financials 6 Cost of Production: 6 Funding Requests: 6 Financial Projections: 7 Conclusion 7 Appendix A: 8 Appendix B: 9 Appendix C: 9 Appendix D: 10 Appendix E: 11 References 12 ii

Executive Summary At EasyCharge, we want to help customers live more efficient and productive lives. We want to solve the issue of tangled chargers and wires using our innovative coiling mechanism. The following summaries delineate our plan to enter the industry, market our product, and grow as a company. Company Summary EasyCharge helps consumers store and carry their chargers efficiently and straightforwardly. Our product accomplishes this by including an automatic coiling mechanism that wraps up chargers and allows users to adjust the length of the cord to their preference. Similar to a tape measure mechanism, our charger simply works at the push of a button. We want to help busy students and young professionals keep their devices charged in today’s busy world. Industry Summary We are a charger company in the tech industry based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This industry will grow from $18.1 billion in 2017 to $25 billion in 2022 (“Mobile Chargers: Global Markets”). EasyCharge incorporates an automatic coiling mechanism into a device charger. This product will solve the inconvenience many technology users face when organizing their chargers. Marketing and Sales Summary We surveyed UNC students to determine if there was a market for third-party chargers like EasyCharge. We also conducted two focus groups to find out what frustrates students about chargers, and whether or not they believe our innovative mechanism will encourage them to use their chargers more. We found that a majority of students already own third-party chargers and would enjoy a cleaner and more appealing way to store their cords. Through social media marketing on TikTok and Instagram, we will expand our customer base. We will advertise primarily through videos. Expansion Summary We believe an opportunity exists to expand to other markets if we demonstrate success across the United States. Our current marketing strategy involves social media campaigns nationwide, but we plan on expanding internationally after our first year. We will likely outsource manufacturing outside of North Carolina in the future to cut down on operations costs and adhere to global markets. Financial Summary We request a $450,000 investment for a 10% ownership stake in EasyCharge. The EasyCharge charger costs $6.74 per unit to produce and is sold for $30, leading to a 77.53% profit margin. Our first year costs are projected at $1,755,480 and our expected revenue is $7,500,000. We estimate our first-year profits at $5,744,520, which implies over a 27% return to investors after the first year. The expected return of investment after the fifth year of operation is over 190% iii

Company Description Mission and Objectives: EasyCharge wants to help users organize their chargers and give them a more efficient and streamlined charging experience. EasyCharge cuts down on the time it takes to coil chargers after use and allows busy individuals to keep their devices functional throughout the day. Our core values include accountability, efficiency, and honesty. We aim to provide a product that helps people live more convenient and productive lives. Product: EasyCharge incorporates an automatic coiling mechanism into a device charger. This product will solve the inconvenience many technology users face when organizing their chargers. People often face challenges with their cords, ranging from tediously wrapping them up or having to detangle them. EasyCharge aims to fix these issues by cutting down on the time necessary to manually wrap chargers, protecting them from fraying, and giving them a more appealing appearance in the workplace. Company and Industry: We are a charger company in the tech industry based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This industry will grow from $18.1 billion in 2017 to $25 billion by the end of 2022 (“Mobile Chargers: Global Markets”). The tech industry as a whole will grow by 6.7% by the end of 2022 (Flynn 2022). Competition: We have identified our main competitors as ReTrak, portable chargers, wireless chargers, and PowerUp. Both ReTrak and PowerUp do not utilize the automatic recoil method that EasyCharge uses. Portable chargers and wireless chargers serve different purposes than our product (people use portable chargers to charge on-the-go, while wireless chargers don’t address the issue of tangled cords because they still contain a wire). We can differentiate ourselves from our competition because no other charger on the market uses the automatic coiling technology that EasyCharge utilizes. Product Design: Figure 1 depicts the different components of our EasyCharge prototype, such as the location of our recoil mechanism and the button which initiates the coiling process. The coiling mechanism we will use was patented as an “Electrical Cord Retracting Mechanism” in 1971 (See Appendix A). However, since patents expire 20 years after the date when it was filed, we can use this technology in our product (Gerety 2021). The length of our product (long side) is three inches, the width (short side) is two inches, and the height (not pictured in the diagram) is two inches. 1

Figure 1: Labeled Diagram of EasyCharge Charger Market Analysis External Research - The Industry: EasyCharge falls within the consumer electronics industry, specifically the consumer electronic device charger segment. This market is “estimated to exceed the value of US $ 42.8 billion by 2030, expanding at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of ~ 6 % during the forecast period” (Transparency Market Research, 2020). Within the charger industry, only one other company currently occupies the niche of retractable chargers, and this company has several issues with the execution of their product that we have corrected in our design. The growth of this industry and the limited competition within our targeted niche leave ample opportunity for our device to capture a significant portion of the market share. EasyCharge’s only competition within the realm of retractable chargers is ReTrak. EasyCharge surpasses the ReTrak design in several ways. In our product, the cable is fully enclosed instead of only being partially covered by the casing to protect the cable. Moreover, our mechanism retracts automatically instead of manually. Lastly, according to the feedback from our focus group, our design contains more visually appealing elements (such as the sleek color and finish) and is made from higher quality materials (such as silicon) to improve longevity and function. Internal Research - Survey Results: Based on the survey we conducted, we found that 69.2% of participating students owned non-Apple third-party chargers. This confirmed that there is a significant market among young people for chargers unaffiliated with major tech companies like Apple. Our survey confirmed interest in the functionality of our product, with 84.6% of survey respondents indicating that their charging cables get tangled either daily or weekly. The focus group sessions we conducted 2

corroborated both the presence of this issue and the desire for a solution, such as the EasyCharge charger. Market Size: Our market size consists of cell phone owners between the ages of 15-34. By analyzing the amount of Americans that own cell phones, the number of people that use TikTok and Instagram, and the amount of Amazon users, we calculated our market size of roughly 25 million people. A more detailed calculation can be found in Appendix B. As a tech startup in a competitive industry, we will aim to capture about 1% of the industry. We set this goal because most startups “can expect to access somewhere between one and five percent of their target market” (Jackowitz). 1% of 25 million is 250,000. Thus, 250,000 is our projected volume of sales. Marketing Strategy: We will use social media to market our product directly to consumers. We will primarily use videos, since four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it (“Animoto Survey: Consumers Want More Video Marketing on Web, Social and Email”). With an average age demographic of 25-34 years, Instagram will help us target the millennial population (Dixon 2022). The platform also has its own set of analytic tools, allowing brands like ours to monitor metrics and the results of campaigns. This helps us to understand how successful a campaign has been, and what could be improved upon next time. TikTok has 689 million monthly users globally, 60% of which are 16 to 24 years old (Doyle 2022). TikTok offers analytic tools, where metrics such as video and profile views can be found, as well as useful information about followers. Using a combination of these two platforms will allow our brand to target consumers between the ages of 16 and 34 years old. Instagram advertising will cost approximately $750 per month and TikTok will cost approximately $500 per month, for a total advertising budget of $1250 per month, for a total of $15,000 annually. ● Instagram Ad Cost: $750 per month ○ $0.40-$0.70 per click ■ $0.50-$0.95 with destination URL ○ $0.01-0.05 per engagement ○ $2.50-$3.50 per thousand impressions ● TikTok Ad Cost: $500 per month ○ $10 per 1000 views ○ Minimum of $500 on campaign Our Instagram advertising cost breakdown comes from Lyfe Marketing and our TikTok advertisement cost breakdown comes from Influencer Marketing Hub. Our References section contains both sources . good 3

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